By Elise D’Haene
(06/09/2009)
Four Dimensions
At Guild Hall
Four separate exhibits will open at Guild Hall in East Hampton on Saturday with a reception open to the public from 5 to 6 p.m.
Mikaela Sardo Lamarche, who curates at the ACA Galleries in New York City, is the guest curator of “Grace Hartigan: Survey,” an exhibit that will encompass paintings, prints, and drawings by Ms. Hartigan, a seminal artist in the Abstract Expressionist movement whose work was a precursor to the Pop Art movement. The show will emphasize her abstract and figurative works from the 1950s and 1960s and work from her time on the East End.
On Sunday at 2 p.m., Ms. Lamarche will give a talk about the artist, and at 3 p.m. there will be a lecture and book signing with William T. LeMoy, the author of “The Journals of Grace Hartigan, 1951-1955.” On June 20 at 7 p.m., the film “Grace Hartigan: Shattering Boundaries” will be screened, followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers, Janice Stanton and Alice Shure, moderated by the film critic Jeffrey Lyons.
The second offering, “An Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” photographs by Taryn Simon, will confront the obstacles facing public access to “confidential” knowledge by offering entry via photography to a selection of restricted or rarely discovered sites across the United States. This exposé, with the photographer as voyeur and informant, documents subjects from a wide span of cultural subheadings, including nature, science, government, and religion.
Also on view will be sculptures by Dina Recanati, who was born in Cairo and divides her time between New York and Israel. Her work emerges “from experience and memory, both personal and collective, and as an homage to ancient cultures and to earth and time,” according to a release.
Finally, the work of artists who have painted, drawn, sculpted, or photographed other artists as subject, friend, mentor, or muse will be exhibited in “Artist by Artist,” with works by Linda Alpern, William Anthony, Bernard Gotfryd, William King, Joan Harrison, Laurie Lambrecht, Fred W. McDarragh, and John MacWhinnie.
A members’ reception will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. A private cocktail party to benefit Guild Hall will begin at 6 p.m. at the home of Cheryl and Michael Minikes. Tickets cost $100.
Charles Waller
At Pamela Williams
World War II-era love letters written by an American sailor and the English woman who became his wife, 19th-century wooden gear forms, dolls from a defunct factory in Lyons, France, and other objets trouvés have been incorporated into new work by Charles Waller, a mixed-media artist, in the exhibit “Communiqué.” It opens tomorrow at the Pamela Williams Gallery in Amagansett.
Mr. Waller’s works, which comment on the strength as well as the fragility of human experience, have been assembled from these various and reconfigured elements that, often amplified by drawings, reveal his signature wit through bold visuals.
Born in California, the artist grew up in South America and England, where he studied illustration at the Royal College of Art in London. His work has been seen in the pages of The New York Times, Esquire, and Sports Illustrated.
The show will be up through July 13.
Nature and Canvas
At Clinton Academy
“The farms were disappearing rapidly,” said Gordon Matheson, who, in response, organized Plein Air Peconic in 2006, a collaborative of 12 painters and photographers who focus on sites preserved by the Peconic Land Trust. Watching that organization strive to save and maintain the area’s farms and natural lands for future generations, the artists picked up the tools of their trade — canvas, paint, brushes, and cameras — to help make a difference.
Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, the Quogue Preserve, and Scallop Pond in Southampton are just a few of the trust’s conserved landscapes that the artists have documented.
A traveling exhibit by Plein Air Peconic will grace the space at the East Hampton Historical Society’s Clinton Academy in East Hampton beginning tomorrow and on view through July 6. Casey Chalem Anderson, Susan D’Alessio, Terry Elkins, Aubrey Grainger, Gail Kern, Michele Margit, Mr. Matheson, Joanne Rosko, Eileen Dawn Skretch, Tom Steele, Kathryn Szoka, and Ellen Watson will be participating.
A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m., and another will mark the show’s closing on July 3 from 5 to 7 p.m. In addition to the exhibit, the artists will take part in a Paint Out on June 20 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the Clinton Academy grounds, where art lovers, painters, and dabblers can watch plein air in action.
Processing Art
At Ashawagh Hall
Continued forward movement, a series of actions or measures, or a method of operation all define “process” for a group of artists in a multimedia exhibit curated by Dennis Leri. “Process: The Workshop Show” will open at Ashawagh Hall in Springs on Saturday at noon, with a reception later that day from 4 to 8 p.m.
Betty Lipton, Setha Low, Elise Platt, Gabriele Raacke, Catherine Silver, and Rose Zelenetz will “reverse the usual presentation of completed work and instead reflect on procedures and transformations in their individual mediums.”
Drawing upon energy generated in the workshop setting, and with the encouragement of Mr. Leri, the artists dispensed with the goal of a “finished product” and allowed for a “synergy to emerge” through mixed-media works that range from ceramic, metal, and wood sculpture to collages of found objects, glass, and natural fibers with paint and ink.
The show can also be seen Sunday from noon to 5 p.m.
Living Legend
At the B.H.H.S.
Since “retiring,” Reynold Ruffins, a legend in the graphic design and illustration worlds who has illustrated over 20 children’s books and was a founding member of the Push Pin Studio, has been living in Sag Harbor with his wife, Joan, and working in his studio, which is “bursting” with colorful paintings.
Those paintings, along with vintage illustrations, are the subject of “Living Legend,” an exhibit of works by Mr. Ruffins that will open tomorrow at the Bridgehampton Historical Society with a reception for the artist from 5 to 7 p.m.
Mr. Ruffins has taught at the School of Visual Arts, Parsons School of Design, Syracuse University, and Queens College. In 1993, he received the Augustus St. Gaudens Award for professional achievement in the arts.
The show will be on view through Sept. 5.
Industrial Dissection
In Southampton
“Unorte: A Different View of Paris,” a photography exhibit by Heinrich Denke, will examine the Eiffel Tower as a microcosm of the “blind spots” and unnoticed urban spaces that are normally passed by on a daily basis. Mr. Denke views the famous structure as the “birthplace of the industrial” and dissects the anatomy of its architectural elements to deconstruct perception.
In the exhibit, which opens at the Southampton Cultural Center on Saturday and will be on view through June 28, the photographs range in style from Surrealism to Cubism to Pop Art, with the artist choosing a fine line between abstract and representational forms in the “terra inkognita” images. His goal, according to a release, is to make “visible our relationship to the urban environment in deeper layers.”
Beyond the Fray
At Art Sites
Eleven artists will participate in “Beyond the Fray” at Art Sites at 651 West Main Street in Riverhead. Co-curated by Carole Jay and Glynis Berry, the exhibit opens tomorrow with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m.
The featured artists use texture in unexpected ways. “From delicate white-on-white constructions to sumptuous layers of paint on collaged pieces, this show demonstrates the range of the visually tactile,” a release said.
Artists represented in the show, which can be seen through July 19, are Candyce Brokaw, Annette Cords, Andrea Cote, Cui Fei, Pauline Galiana, Marietta Hoferer, Danielle Jacqui, Roseline Koener, Patricia Leighton, Debbie Ma, and Marianne Weil.
More information can be found online at artsitesgallery.com.
Sydney’s Ceramics
At Comerford Hennessy
Sydney Albertini, an artist, ceramicist, and textile artist who lives and works in Springs, will have a selection of her pieces at Comerford Hennessy at Home on Main Street in Bridgehampton.
Ms. Albertini’s one-of-a-kind painted ceramic pieces range in design from nature motifs to the abstract, relief, and melamine. The artist, who was raised in Paris, studied there and in Florence before graduating from the Parsons School of Design in New York City.
A painter who worked in large-scale formats and was known for her portraits, she turned to ceramics more than a decade ago. Her work, which can be seen at her Web site, sydneys.us, has been featured in Domino, O Magazine, and Vogue. She has shown her work in several galleries, including Galerie Mourlot in New York City and Madelyn Jordon Fine Art in Scarsdale, N.Y.
She shares a desire for a “back-to-basics” philosophy with her husband, Jerome Albertini, a photographer and organic farmer, and their three children, Ace, Zed, and Neo.
Art and Science
At Fireplace Project
The Fireplace Project in Springs will launch a solo show of works by Conrad Shawcross, a London-based artist known for his wooden mechanical sculptures based on philosophical and scientific ideas. It opens tomorrow and will be on view through June 29.
His sculptural machines, which explore the laws of science, demonstrate the abstract nature of scientific thought. Mr. Shawcross has had solo exhibits in Germany, Italy, Miami, and London. In 2004, at the Saatchi Gallery in London, he exhibited “The Nervous System,” a large wooden loom that produced rope colored in a double-helix pattern.
A reception will be held on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Ups and Downers
At Solar
A hybrid, cross-cultural, multimedia, multi-message, cross-generational encounter that reflects our current social, political, and economic climate, “Mood Swings” will open an Saturday at Solar in East Hampton and can be seen through Aug. 3.
The exhibit is curated by Irwin Levy, a part-time resident of Springs since the late 1980s. He has been collecting all his life: from local lore and historical items to agricultural tools and hand-painted commercial signs to contemporary art. The exhibit shows that his “curiosity and excitement are boundless, and the exhibition portrays this constant search and desire,” according to Esperanza Leon, the founder of Solar.
The exhibit, which is the first collector’s choice show at the gallery, will include paintings, photographs, prints, and mixed-media sculptures by 17 artists: Eduardo Barcenas, Astolfo Funes, Deborah Riley, Lihie Talmor, Aurelio Torres, and Alejandra Villasmil, and from the East End, Mary Ellen Bartley, Matt Brophy, Joe Eschenberg, Grant Haffner, Eileen Hickey-Hulme, Bill Kiriazis, Jennifer Meihofer, Cristen Motty, Ted Nemeth, Zoe Pennebaker, and Stephen Soreff.
“From celebration of life to darkness of spirit and those points between,” Mr. Levy said in a release, the exhibit “visits the place where invisible barriers cease to exist.”