It’s around one in the afternoon, and Joseph Grigely is bashing his head against the wall. The wall is a white expanse of Sheetrock in a vast, high-ceilinged room on the ground floor of MASS MoCA, a contemporary-art museum in North Adams, Massachusetts. The head is a cast-stone replica of Grigely’s skull, whose classical monochrome makes you realize that the artist, despite his black polo, green cargo shorts, and Scarpa approach shoes, looks quite a lot like Socrates: balding, bearded, and often bearing an ironic grin. The head weighs thirty pounds, and Grigely, a bearish man of sixty-seven, is winded by the exertion. “It’s a sweaty job,” he says, panting. Then he hefts the piece into his hands. “It just kind of does feel good to smash the son of a bitch!”
Read Full Article »
