Route 2 coils around the Deerfield River, sharpening into a harrowing hairpin turn to the sky. The gap in the forest reveals a rolling panorama of three states: Massachusetts, New York, Vermont. Descending, you pass quaint homes and family shops. North Adams is a revitalized town settled between the Taconic Range and Green Mountains that has traded textile and electrical component manufacturing for contemporary art.

The hot New England summer seems to creep into the climate-controlled galleries of this former industrial complex, now MASS MoCA—the subjects sear from within. Bullet holes pock refrigerator doors. A woman in infantry fatigues sprints across the frame, looking over her shoulder, troubled by a canister exploding in her kitchen. Former Specialist Lucero Morales’s kids are unalarmed by the spewing dough and sugary smoke, but her son frets over her reaction to the bang. Photographer Jennifer Karady has worked with Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans since 2006, reconstructing their experiences within domestic sets, and bewitching PTSD into magic realism evocative of Márquez or Rosler.

An exhibit away, shaggy mounds grow along a life-sized gameboard. Each stop illustrates a chapter of Trenton Doyle Hancock’s real and imagined histories. You’re invited inside each structure, a tourist wending through the artist’s brain. Begin with an installation summarizing Hancock’s Baptist roots: “The Devil Made Me Do It” reads a joist in a replica of his grandmother’s living room, reconstructed in prairie chic. Two mustached televangelists broadcast on a TV set, questioning the origins of comic book and pop culture icons, comparing Darth Vader and Yoda to Norse gods and pagan mystics. Outside the door, masked trick-or-treaters are turned away, or perhaps attempt escape in search of candy—their only deterrent, a white picket fence.

You don’t have to travel far to find a treat. MASS MoCA Way is also home to Bright Ideas Brewing, whose seasonal rotation includes a crisp Kölsch-style beer called Köld. Its straw color and hints of wildflowers, lemon peel, and fresh bread cleanse the palette, readying you to re-enter the museum for more realness.

8/8/2019