Small is beautiful, even in the overheated atmosphere of a long South Fork summer. While two large tented art fairs have recently withdrawn from the summer social and commerce scene, a new, organically formed, and super-concentrated group of galleries is taking over the old Amagansett Applied Arts building’s top floor to mount its rendition of a Hamptons art fair‚ with just a dozen participants as of this writing. 

Taking place from July 14 to 16, the Upstairs Art Fair will have a salon feeling and include galleries from here or downtown New York City. All of the principals are friends or friendly, making it almost a family event. Although it will open on a Friday night from 6 to 10, with a V.I.P. preview from 4 to 6, no waiters will be pushing carts of Ruinart Champagne down the aisles or passing trays of catered canapes. The mood and style will be casual.

Harper Levine, who is organizing the fair with his friend Bill Powers from the Half Gallery in Manhattan, said the original intention was to serve as a satellite or alternative fair to the big tents. “We want to be a fair for the sake of the art, not a fair for the sake of a fair.”

Seeing the competition fall away was a surprise. “We didn’t plan it that way, but it’s interesting that we will now be the only one that weekend.”

But no one can be too surprised that the summer crowd had little time (aside from the opening night party) for the large but lackluster annual fairs that kept trying to separate billionaires and multimillionaires from their money. Still they persisted, until suddenly they just gave up. Art Hamptons cried uncle first, in February, and Art Southampton went public with its intention to dial it back just in the last few weeks.

Of the three fairs that battled it out in recent years, only one remains, Market Art + Design (originally known as ArtMRKT Hamptons). It will be open from July 6 to 9 on the Bridgehampton Museum grounds. Some 60 galleries and dealers are participating.

Mr. Levine said last week that he and Mr. Powers have been planning this for only a few months. “We were going to take the whole space, but it wasn’t practical, given our cost constraints. Then we thought it was interesting to use only the upstairs, and that gave us the name.”

They kept it small and between friends because of the intimate space. “It’s a beautiful old barn, once a center for ceramics, photography, printmaking, and other art.” The barn, on Indian Wells Highway, is rustic, and they want to keep that feeling. “There may be some minimal buildout to provide walls, but we want to maintain its original charm. The goal is to make it not look like the average art fair in a conventional hall or tent.”

The local galleries involved are Mr. Levine’s own Harper’s Books, the Rental Gallery and Halsey Mckay Gallery, his neighbors on Newtown Lane; and KARMA, with locations in Amagansett and New York. The other galleries include Ceysson Benetiere, Half Gallery, James Fuentas, Magenta Plains, New Release, Rachel Uffner Gallery, and Yours, Mine, and Ours gallery.

There is no curatorial theme, unlike some smaller (and even very large) fairs. “We don’t know what they’re bringing, but we are confident in the program of all of the galleries exhibiting. They may have different aesthetics, but all of them are more about the art and the artist than anything else,” Mr. Levine said. 

He expects that sales prices will vary from affordable to less so. “We very specifically tried to have low group rates for the galleries. It’s not a giant investment. The connoisseurship will be high, as well as the accessibility.” The fair should offer buying opportunities for the seasoned collector to the art fair neophyte, he said, and to people who appreciate art for what it is, not merely as decoration.

There will be no luxury cars or expensive jewelry on display and no related talks or other events. The fair will consist of anywhere from 100 to 200 pieces of art shown in a space with a “block party feel to it — fun, casual, approachable.”

Admission will be free and visitors will be welcomed to come browse straight from the beach or however else they wish to  present themselves. If the fair is successful, the partners will continue, but it is not likely they will ever be interested in corporate sponsors, marquee-name food partners (“They can always bicycle into Amagansett and get a dosa,” said Mr. Levine), or a crowd of white suits. They just want “a cool venue, good galleries, and interesting art.”

On a torrentially rainy and windswept spring afternoon in New York City, Janice Stanton’s apartment was a warm and quiet refuge. In a long and low renovated Gothic-style stone building, one of the oldest in Chelsea, her rambling flat was modern and cozy, tonal and bright.

Perched on bookshelves and windowsills and set out on a long table were the products of five years of artistic labor, collages she has created as part of series and as stand-alone pieces. 

While the work has a high degree of finish and sophistication, it was no overnight revelation. Rather, Ms. Stanton took a long journey to arrive at her current place, one that moved through dance, intellectual property law, photography, and filmmaking.

She has divided her time between the city and South Fork for close to 30 years, first in Water Mill and now in what she describes as the smallest house in Sagaponack on the smallest lot on Parsonage Lane. The property overlooks a 40-acre preserve that is still farmed, and she can also see the water. “Mostly I look out over that majestic field.”

Although she keeps most of her work in the city, she loves working here. “I don’t know how you could be out there and not be taken by the light and lushness of the landscape, and all of the amazing artists who worked there.”

You can see elements, or more accurately sensations, drawn from the landscape creeping into her abstract compositions: the faded gray and brown of weathered shingles, a patch of blue inspired by sky or water. “I’ve spent a long time out there with my camera, so inspired.” She notes that the intimacy she feels with nature when she is in Sagaponack “carries over in a way to the collages.” Their measurements hover at around a foot on each side.

Their themes are cerebral or internationally inspired. A few recent ones focus on a trip to Cuba. You can see references to peeling walls and the layers underneath. A photograph she included of the back of a painting reminded her of “what life would be like without art,” a reaction to the proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts. The piece is layered with string, torn paper, fabric, gauze, strips of cardboard, text in pencil, chalk, and more. And yet, it is spare, minimalist, contained. Nothing seems superfluous.

When she was first starting out, “I was so drawn to the arts. I considered whether to pursue that road, but also wanted to have a career where I would have a level of financial independence. We all know how difficult it is to survive as an artist.”

Photos are often the basis of her compositions. Her original forays into art-making started with photography, through classes at the International Center for Photography — where she eventually served on the board for a decade — and workshops with masters of the field such as Mary Ellen Mark, Sally Gall, Peter Turnley, and Arlene Collins.

It has been two decades since she worked in the law, but even then she tried to keep her work focused on the arts. At the corporate law firm Hughes, Hubbard & Reed, she worked closely with Orville Schell (father of Orville Schell III, a writer and expert on China), who was chairman of the New York City Ballet for many years and pursued human rights cases. Ms. Stanton followed his lead. “I’m a huge fan of the ballet; I danced as a child,” she said. She also worked on international human rights cases.

Then, she found herself increasingly involved in First Amendment work, particularly intellectual property law. She said she thought working with artists on those issues would be a good compromise. “Of course once you become a practicing attorney, you realize it’s pretty much the same whether your client is in the art field or making widgets.” 

She continued at The Wall Street Journal, developing its First Amendment and intellectual property department, and became assistant general counsel before she left. She also served as an interim director for the Aperture Foundation.

While photography and travel consumed much of her time after the law, she also became interested in documentary filmmaking. In 2005 she joined Alice Shure to form Amici Films, a production company for art-related documentaries. She has worked on three films since. Released in 2008, “Grace Hartigan/Shattering Boundaries” is about the midcentury painter who kept up with the boys in the fiercely masculine world of Abstract Expressionist painting. “Making Space: Five Women She has one more long-term film project in the works, “but collage is my principal focus.” To that end, she has met with curators and art dealers who have been encouraging. Coco Myers showed her work this winter in a series of pop-up shows in East Hampton and Bridgehampton. Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art in Manhattan will be showing her work through July 28, with an opening reception this evening.

Over the years, she has amassed boxes of old envelopes and postcards, stamps, samples of writing, measuring tape the perfect shade of drab, screens, sandpaper, gauze, old magazine articles, and more for her collages. 

She has a series inspired by Emily Dickinson, whose poems were found mostly after her death on scraps of paper around the house. Titled “Fragments,” the series of nine works uses the interplay of words, imagery, and found objects to convey that theme. Another series of 16 works came from an exercise where she limited her range of materials and kept to a defined palette, to see how much variety and subject she could convey under such constraints.

Elie Wiesel’s death last year reminded her of how few witnesses to the Holocaust are left. “Millennials know so little about it. We’re not carrying on the memory in the same way.” Having visited the Holocaust Memorial in Israel last year, she has included portions of photographs of ledgers and writings from the camps in her recent work, “in some cases hidden, others not.” Some contain quotations from Wiesel as a way for her “to preserve memory, have a tangible continuum.” The handwriting, calligraphy, and even the typewritten word on paper have a sense of history fitting for such a purpose.

The Montauk Library will present “Alegria Hispana: Songs and Dances of Spain and Latin America” on Saturday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. The international artists Anna Tonna, a mezzo-soprano; Francisco Roldan, a virtuoso guitarist, and Elisabet Torras Aguilera, a dancer, will perform.

The program embraces the breadth of Hispanic music from its roots in Spain to its influence on music throughout the Americas, with works by composers from Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, and Puerto Rico.

It won’t take a detective to notice a different feeling at Guild Hall this year. Exhibitions and public performances have a more heterogeneous focus, and that is intentional, according to Andrea Grover, the cultural center’s executive director.

After taking the helm in September, she has let a simple guideline define her vision. “Diversity every day, not one day or one month, but every day,” she said in her office during a recent discussion with Josh Gladstone, the theater’s artistic director.

Ms. Grover is putting an early stamp on programming with this directive. Inclusion and collaboration are no longer just aspirations, met when all other imperatives have been satisfied, but marching orders.

“These are fresh mandates,” Mr. Gladstone said, but “to have it clearly delineated is helpful. We can become more streamlined in this way.” Efforts to meet these objectives come from both new and familiar sources, at a time when he is still recovering from a serious illness. 

Ms. Grover applauded both the work of Mr. Gladstone and the staff in supporting him. Whereas “the museum world by design moves slowly and is not collaborative,” she explained, “theater is put together and broken down in a short period of time. There’s a different attitude about time, flexibility, problem-solving, and cooperation.”

The rhythm ’n’ blues and gospel singer Mavis Staples, who will appear on Aug. 9, is returning after a visit in 2015, when “she had the entire audience on their feet,” Mr. Gladstone said. Always working across musical genres, her latest collaboration with Gorillaz and Pusha T on the song “Let Me Out” shows “she’s at the height of her game. We’re lucky to get her back.”

Also on the schedule, on Aug. 5, is Sweet Honey in the Rock, an a cappella group rooted in African-American history and culture — “masters of funk, blues, and soul,” in Mr. Gladstone’s estimation. On July 31, Mandy Gonzalez, who plays Angelica Schuyler in “Hamilton,” will present an evening of Broadway classics and popular standards.

In addition to its big summer marquee exhibitions — Jackson Pollock’s  prints and “Richard Avedon’s America” in August — the museum will present “Taryn Simon: The Innocents,” opening on Saturday. The artist’s earliest body of work examines the lives of convicts who were later found innocent of their crimes. The men were photographed at significant sites, places tied to their conviction where they may have been arrested, or misidentified, or that held their alibi. Photography’s role as a neutral witness is also called into question by these images. 

On June 25, Ms. Simon will head a panel including Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck, who are founders of the Innocence Project; Bob Balaban, who is affiliated with the organization, and several people who have been exonerated through its efforts.

Ms. Grover is not only committed to ethnic and program diversity, she is also seeking ways to collaborate with other organizations or individuals. One example that checks all boxes is the presentation of a lecture by Misty Copeland, sponsored by the Bridgehampton Child Care and Recreation Center in association with Guild Hall. Ms. Copeland, who was the first African-American to be named a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theater, will discuss her life, her work, and her writing in a free event on July 20, and will sign copies of her books.

Other presentations with neighborly ties include a screening and discussion of “Larsenworld,” a film about Jack Lenor Larsen and LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, on Friday, June 23, and what is said to be the last performance of the Mamalee Rose, a local favorite, with guests including Cynthia Daniels, Inda Eaton, Michael Weiskopf, and Job Potter. 

A screening of “Barney’s Wall” on July 27 will be the first time the completed film about Barney Rosset’s unique contributions to the worlds of film and literature, as well as his obsessive quest to complete a wall mural during his retirement‚ will be shown publicly. Rosset was a longtime East Hampton resident and Williams Cole, one of the film’s producers, grew up here. 

And, of course, the annual Clothesline Art Sale, on Aug. 5, brings local artists and patrons together for an event that benefits everyone, Guild Hall included.

Dance, one of the few art forms that have not dominated the East End cultural landscape, will be given its due as well this summer, with an Aug. 18 presentation of excerpts from the New York City Ballet’s repertory. On July 15, Pilobolus, a company whose physical contortions often resemble animated sculpture, will perform.

Stephen Hamilton’s current production of “Angry Young Man” will continue through Sunday, to be followed by other theatrical presentations, readings, and one-night musical performances. “The Pianist of Willesden Lane,” on July 2, directed and adapted by Hershey Felder from a book by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen, tells the story of Ms. Golabek’s mother, a young Jewish pianist who is anticipating her debut at a Vienna concert hall when the Nazis began issuing ordinances that change everything. “Only a Kingdom,” another staged musical reading, focuses on the love affair of Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, with Betty Buckley and directed by Michael Wilson, on Aug. 20. Bebe Neuwirth will deliver an evening of cabaret on July 21.

One-night staged readings such as Ira Lewis’s “Gross Points” (July 25),  Bob Morris’s “Assisted Loving” (July 28), and “Sweet Birds” by Eugene Pack (Aug. 27), will bring celebrities to the John Drew Theater, among them Alec Baldwin, who is Guild Hall’s president; Richard Kind, Tovah Feldshuh, Carol Kane, and others. For the bookish, “Literary Death Match,” a contest among four authors who will be judged by panelists including Dick Cavett, happens on July 7, and “Celebrity Autobiography,” when boldface names like Christie Brinkley and Mario Cantone quote from the lives of other celebrities for comedic effect, will return on Aug. 25.

Other comedy includes stand-up by J.B. Smoove from “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” who sold out the John Drew in 2015, on Aug. 12. Joy Behar has a night of comedy planned as a benefit for the Retreat on Sept. 3, with some as yet unconfirmed performers whose big names should be announced soon.

G.E. Smith, a longtime Amagansett resident, along with Taylor Barton, his wife, will present “Portraits,” a series he started off-season at Bay Street Theater two years ago. This summer’s incarnation will bring Mr. Smith together with Sarah Jarosz and Paula Cole on June 30, the Bacon Brothers on Aug. 4, and Sagaponack’s Billy Squier on Sept. 1.

Returning series and events include Guild Hall’s big season spectacular on July 1 with Jay Leno. The Hamptons International Film Festival’s SummerDocs series starts on July 8. In August, look for the Stirring the Pot series of conversations with great chefs, musicians from the New York Philharmonic, the Hamptons Institute’s discussion and dissection of world affairs, KidFest, and the annual summer gala, tied to the opening of the Avedon exhibition on Aug. 11.

Although most of the summer’s attractions have been mentioned here, there are a number that have not, including some uncomfirmed dates and presentations by outside groups such as the East End Special Players’ “Trouble in Jamaica” and the Surfriders annual film screening. Guild Hall’s website is the best place for up-to-date listings, times, and ticket prices for this jam-packed 86th season.

Dreams are the stuff of “The Man in the Ceiling,” a new musical by Andrew Lippa, from the book by Jules Feiffer, running now through June 25 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. 

A young boy named Jimmy loves to draw cartoons, spending hours in his room behind closed doors. The characters he creates are so vivid to him they come to life (literally) before him. But the outside world keeps intruding on his creativity, mostly in the form of his father, who wants Jimmy to play baseball and do better in school. 

Only his mother seems to understand him, defending the talented Jimmy in one of the shows best numbers, “Like Your Son.” (“Though I know you truly love him / I wish you could like your son.”) There is also Uncle Lester, a would-be composer. Lester’s lack of success prompts Jimmy’s father to refer to him as “Mr. Floperoo,” though the uncle too does his best to encourage Jimmy in his dream of becoming an artist.

Obviously this material — which comes from a young-adult novel of the same name by Mr. Feiffer — doesn’t exactly break fresh ground. The “follow your dream” narrative has been well trodden by writers and musicians alike. But even if it isn’t new, it is given expert treatment by Mr. Lippa, whose music and lyrics are by turns hummable, humorous, and clever. Mr. Lippa’s credits include the scores for Broadway’s “The Addams Family” and for the stage adaptation of Tim Burton’s film “Big Fish,” among others, and his craft is on full display in “The Man in the Ceiling,” especially with the ballad “Disappear,” which chronicles a troubled marriage, and the rousing cri de coeur “I Do What I Do.”

It begins with David Korins’s striking set design, which includes a digital backdrop that lets us see Jimmy’s art with vivid color and imagery. And the cast is excellent, anchored by Jonah Broscow as Jimmy, Nicole Parker as his mother, and Mr. Lippa himself, who plays Uncle Lester with comic gusto. 

In fact, it turns out that Uncle Lester is the most compelling character in the musical — the failed artist who pursues success even when there no longer seems a reason to believe. Lester’s answer to a world that doesn’t understand him is simple: “I do what I do / ’cause I like what I do / and I love my life this way.” Acute self-awareness, however — along with self-doubt — is never far behind. “Some call it magical / others self-deceiving.” Lester stands in as the artist who toils in obscurity, claiming that the work is its own reward. Secretly, though, he desperately craves approbation. 

Lester is a more complex and interesting character than Jimmy, who, though he gives up drawing at his father’s behest, we know will ultimately not be kept from his art. It may be that Jimmy, too, works best as a symbol for all young people who balk against parental expectations. And his boarding himself in his room for hours while his father chides him to get outside for some sunshine will ring a bell for the many parents struggling against the allures of the digital age. 

It is important to remind viewers that “The Man in the Ceiling” is new material; there is a moment or two during the first act in which the musical still seems raw. A thread of marital discord introduced in the first half is never fully resolved in the second, for example, and some viewers may find it sensible rather than Draconian that the father decides to curb Jimmy’s drawing when he brings home a horrific report card. One or two of the musical numbers in the first act lack the pop and snap of the others surrounding it, and the pace suffers as a result.

But the leaner second act seems polished to a diamond-like clarity. Everything clicks, and the songs become sharper and more penetrating. The ballad “Like Your Son” is an emotional showstopper, and the irresistible “Draw Your Own Conclusions” will have many viewers humming their way into the parking lot. 

In one comic sequence, Uncle Lester, in the euphoria of having finally cast off his writer’s block, prepares an impromptu Tony Award acceptance speech. 

Although “The Man in the Ceiling” needs some tightening before it is Broadway and Tony worthy, it is a highly entertaining piece of musical craft, composed by a top-flight talent. 

I’m not sure of what the early stumblings of Mr. Lippa’s career might have been, but one thing is clear: His Uncle Lester days are far behind him. 

There may be fewer days at the beach for Drew Petersen, a resident of Springs and Oradell, N.J. 

In April, at age 23, Mr. Petersen, a prodigy who first performed at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall at age 5, won the American Pianists Award and the Christel DeHaan Fellowship of the American Pianists Association. He has also been named artist-in-residence for two years at the University of Indianapolis, where the association is based, starting in the fall. 

Mr. Petersen won the prestigious competition with a performance, accompanied by the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 in E flat major, Op. 73, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, and, with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Prokofiev’s Concerto No. 2. “It was a great experience for me,” he said. “The great part about this competition, for me, is that each performance felt like a performance. It didn’t feel like I was just performing for a panel of experts.” For the final performance, “There were over 1,000 people in attendance, I’m sure.”

Upon being named a finalist in the competition, “I was flung into this real whirlwind of activity,” the pianist said. “There was a lot of scheduling, choosing of repertoire for multiple appearances in Indianapolis and New York. We performed all kinds of music — solo piano, piano with orchestra, concerto performances, chamber music, even accompanying a singer. It was really a multidimensional, multifaceted competition.” 

In 2005, when the director Kim Snyder made “Just Normal,” a short film that depicts the then-11-year-old Mr. Petersen in performance at the Music Festival of the Hamptons and in a junior lifeguard program on an Amagansett beach, he had already performed a solo recital at Steinway Hall in Manhattan. That film can be seen on YouTube, along with more recent performances, all of which illustrate an ability that the late conductor Lukas Foss described as “astonishing” and the late Eleanor Sage Leonard, founder of the Music Festival of the Hamptons, called “startling.” 

Mr. Petersen has since been a prizewinner in the Leeds International Piano Competition, the Hilton Head International Piano Competition, the Kosciuszko Foundation Chopin Competition, and the New York Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition. He has performed at the Musica e Arte Festival in Tolentino, Italy, the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and the Euro Arts Music Festival in Leipzig, Germany. 

It all started when Mr. Petersen, as a toddler, happened upon the piano on which his mother had learned. “I think the fascinating part for my parents,” he said, “was the fact that I wanted to play the piano more than I wanted to play with any of my toys.” He began formal lessons at age 5. “I was very fortunate that my parents stumbled upon a teacher in town who happened to be a Juilliard School graduate and a very serious musician, a concertizing classical pianist.” 

That teacher, the late David Bradshaw, “was really taken by what I could do, and gave it his all,” Mr. Petersen said. “He taught me a lot of great things in the first year of study. He really set me on a serious classical path.” At 6, he was too young to study in the Perlman Music Program on Shelter Island, but was referred to Miyoko Lotto, a former Springs resident who taught in the program. “When September came around we went into the city and met her. She also was really taken with me and wanted to teach me. I ended up studying with her for a very long time.” At 10, he became the youngest person ever to be admitted to the Manhattan School of Music’s pre-college program. 

Along with Beethoven, his favorite composers include Chopin, Bach, and Mozart. “Schumann is very close to my heart,” he added. “I play a lot of 20th-century and contemporary American music too, like Elliot Carter, a New York composer who I think gets a bad rap for being overly complex. I play a lot of Samuel Barber, his famous ‘Adagio for Strings.’ It runs the gamut, but I tend to focus on 19th-century European pieces, the Romantic era, like Schumann and Chopin. But it runs from Bach to present day.” 

Mr. Petersen graduated cum laude from Harvard University at 19, and did his undergraduate and graduate music studies at the Juilliard School. He recently earned a master’s degree at Juilliard, “and I’m going into the Artist Diploma, a postgraduate program for serious performers to do more career-building activities,” he said. 

Between daily practice, performances, and the requisite interviews, photo shoots, and networking that accompany a professional musician’s life, Mr. Petersen will somehow find time to record in October at the new Steinway Hall, the Midtown Manhattan facility that houses a recital venue and recording studio. The repertoire has not been finalized, he said, “but I’m hoping there will be some American bent to it, because I love American piano music, and the fact that I’m an American pianist, winning the American Pianists Award, there’s some nice continuity.”

He hopes to add composition to the mix, as well. “I don’t have time to write much of my own music right now,” he said. “Hopefully I’ll be able to in the future, but in the meantime I want to play music that speaks to me.” 

Nonverbally, of course, for how does one translate sound into words? How does one explain the unexplainable? “I always ask myself, what draws me to music to this day?” Mr. Petersen said. “It’s hard to answer. I do remember loving to hear music, whether it was going to a concert or just hearing church bells ring. To this day, I wonder. But I’m happy just knowing that I love it.”

The Hamptons International Film Festival will continue its celebration of its 25th year with an expanded SummerDocs program this season, featuring five titles that will be presented in East Hampton, Montauk, and Southampton.

“Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press,” directed by Brian Knappenberger, will be first out of the gate on July 8 at Guild Hall. The film follows the legal battle between the former online media gossip site Gawker and Peter Thiel, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was outed by the site as being gay (a 2007 post that is still online). 

Willing to spend whatever was necessary to bring down the website, Mr. Thiel funded a lawsuit on behalf of Hulk Hogan, a wrestler whose sex tape was posted on the same site. The resulting settlement bankrupted both Gawker and its founder, Nick Denton, and sent a chill through a media landscape already marked by billionaires purchasing newspapers and websites to shape or restrict access to news.

Also at Guild Hall will be “Trophy” by Christina Clusiau and Shaul Schwarz on July 29. “Trophy” looks at the world of big-game hunting, breeding, and wildlife conservation through several perspectives, including a Texas trophy hunter and the world’s largest private rhino breeder in South Africa. 

On Aug. 4, Rory Kennedy’s “Take Every Wave: The Life of Laird Hamilton,” about the world-class surfer, will be screened at Gurney’s Inn in Montauk. “Whitney, Can I Be Me?” — Nick Bloomfield’s examination of the life and career of Whitney Houston — will be shown at the Southampton Arts Center on Aug. 17. The series concludes on Aug. 28 back at Guild Hall with Bryan Fogel’s “Icarus,” about illegal doping in international sports. 

Alec Baldwin, a co-chairman of HIFF, has selected the films for the past nine years along with David Nugent, the festival’s artistic director. Both will lead discussions after the screenings with the directors and sometimes the subjects of the films.

In a conversation last fall, Mr. Baldwin said the “insatiable appetite for long-form documentaries” such as “The Making of a Murderer” and the O.J. Simpson documentary broadcast on ESPN last year has made programming a series like SummerDocs more challenging. The festival does not show documentaries that have been shown commercially, and often the films it wants to screen are sold and shown before they can be included. Last year, the festival was  able to find only two films it wanted that did not already have a commercial release. The third, “A Perfect Candidate,” about a senatorial race between Charles Robb and Oliver North, was from 1996, but was considered timely during a presidential election year.

This year, Mr. Baldwin said in a release, the festival was able to find films with “intense drama and more entertaining fare. . . . David Nugent and I believe this will be one of the best SummerDoc seasons yet.”

Tickets for the screenings at Guild Hall cost $25, $23 for Guild Hall and film festival members. Tickets for the Gurney’s screening are $50 per person. Tickets for the Southampton Arts Center screening are $40. All are available for purchase through the Hamptons International Film Festival website.

Jazz on the Steps will return to the Southampton Arts Center on Sunday at noon with a performance by Yacouba Sissoko, one of the world’s foremost players of the kora, a 21-string lute-bridge-harp used extensively in West Africa.

The jazz series, which is organized by Claes Brondal, co-founder of the Jam Session and a drummer in the Thursday Night Live band, will feature Bill O’Connell, Ada Rovatti, Richie Scollo, Morris Goldberg, and Mr. Brondal, among others.

The free programs will take place every Sunday from noon to 2 on the front steps of the center. 

Native American Landscapes

“Jeremy Dennis: On This Site,” a photography and research project by Mr. Dennis, who is a Shinnecock tribal member, will take place at the Shinnecock Nation Cultural Center and Museum in Southampton from Saturday through Aug. 24. A reception will be held Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.

“On This Site” aims to preserve and create awareness of culturally significant Native American landscapes throughout Long Island. Among the many locations featured in the exhibition are Nissequogue, Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island, the Sebonac Creek settlement, Sugar Loaf Hill in Orient, the Stony Brook site of a prehistoric Indian village, and Fort Pond in Montauk, known by the Montaukett Indians as Konkhunganik.

Mr. Dennis graduated from Stony Brook University in 2013 with a minor in digital arts and received an M.F.A. last year from Penn State. He lives on the Shinnecock reservation.

A version of this exhibition will open at The Suffolk County Historical Society in Riverhead in July.

Two Solos at Harper’s Books

Harper’s Books in East Hampton is presenting concurrent exhibitions by Tamar Halpern and Todd Bienvenu from Saturday through July 19. A reception will take place Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Ms. Halpern is a photographer whose original subjects are transformed by scanning, re-photographing, printing, sponging, silk-screening, and other means of alteration.

Mr. Bienvenu’s paintings are distinctive in part because of their subject matter — drinking, sex, tattooed rockers among them — and a style that could be characterized as comic expressionism.

New at Halsey Mckay

Exhibitions of work by Sheree Hovsepian and Colby Bird are on view at the Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton through July 5. Both artists transgress the boundaries of a specific medium.

Ms. Hovsepian’s new series of assemblages combine gelatin silver prints, photograms, and translucent fabric into layered compositions. The fabric is cut, stretched, and wrapped around the prints.

Mr. Bird works primarily in photography and sculpture to create work that engages conceptual and art historical ideas. Every element of the pieces — ornate frames, the mirroring of the viewer, and the image itself — is to be considered part of the work.

Landscapes Past and Present

Ille Arts in Amagansett is showing landscape paintings by Fairfield Porter, Neil Welliver, and Casey Chalem Anderson from Saturday through July 12, with a reception set for Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m.

Porter and Welliver first met in Maine in the 1960s. Welliver, who moved there permanently in the ’70s, is known for his majestic paintings of the deep Maine woods. While Porter also painted people and interiors, his landscapes captured the light and colors of the East End.

Ms. Anderson, who lives in Sag Harbor, focuses on the dramatic ocean and more peaceful waterways of the region.

Focus on Climate Change

“The Arctic Melt,” recent photographs by Diane Tuft, is on view at the Marlborough Gallery in Manhattan through July 20. 

For almost two decades, Ms. Tuft has used both infrared and ultraviolet photography. Since visiting Greenland in 2007, she has continued to use UV photography while focusing her lens on the effects of global temperature rise in the Arctic, creating images that make visible a catastrophic process that some deny at everyone’s peril.

Inspired by Nature

“Natural Selection,” an exhibition of work by artists who draw inspiration from nature, will be on view tomorrow through Sunday at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. A reception will take place Saturday evening from 5 to 8.

Organized by Mary Laspia, the show will include work by Abby Abrams, Kirsten Benfield, Scott Bluedorn, Christopher Butler, Kurt Giehl, Anne Holton, Mary Jaffe, Ms. Laspia, Mark Perry, Nancy Robbins, Karen Peters Sloves, Richard Udice, and Rona Winter.

The Organic Impulse

Jeff Lincoln Art and Design in Southampton will present “Organic Impulse in Contemporary Art”through July 21. Featuring the work of the Abstract Expressionist sculptor Raoul Hague, the show examines the influence of the organic on a range of artists including Yayoi Kusama, Carl Andre, Jack Youngerman, Lee Mullican, Al Held, John Chamberlain and Georg Baselitz. The gallery will also present works that express an organic sensibility in design and ceramics.

Long Island Landscapes

Clinton Academy, the East Hampton Historical Society’s museum on Main Street, is showing “Caught on Canvas: View of Eastern Long Island Landscapes From the Wallace Collection, 1850-1935” from tomorrow through July 23. A reception will be held tomorrow evening from 5 to 7, and a curator’s tour is set for July 8 at 10 a.m.

“Caught on Canvas” puts on exhibition for the first time 50 paintings from a private collection focused on the wide range of styles found in the work of the late-19th and early-20th-century painters who were drawn to the beauty of Long Island’s South Shore.

Painting, Sculpture, Furniture

The Todd Merrill Studio in Southampton will open “Master/Protégé,” the work of Knox Martin and Ezra Cohen, with a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m., continuing through July 9.

A noted second-generation Abstract Expressionist painter, Mr. Martin will be paired for the first time with Mr. Cohen in a show that highlights each artist’s approach to abstraction. Sculpture by Shari Mendelson and steel furniture by Chris Rucker will also be on view.

Group Show at White Room

“More Than Meets the Eye,” an exhibition featuring the work of Mike Harrigan, Katherine Liepe-Levinson, Holly Meeker Rom, and Luciana Pampalone, is on view through July 9 at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton. A reception will take place Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Nature’s organic forms inspire Mr. Harrigan’s welded iron sculpture. Ms. Rom is known for her watercolors and collage. Ms. Liepe-Levinson’s photographs testify to the preciousness of the natural world, while people, travel, and nature inspire Ms. Pampalone’s images.

Two at RJD Gallery

“Suspension of Disbelief,” an exhibition of paintings by Alexander Klingspor and Margo Selski, opens Saturday at the RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton with a reception from 5 to 8:30 p.m. It will remain on view through July 16.

Both artists depict eccentric characters. Mr. Klingspor’s fantastical dramatic scenes make an interesting contrast with Ms. Selski’s calculated diorama-esque compositions.

Cracked Actor, a band that has performed the music of David Bowie since the shape-shifting musician’s death in January 2016, will reassemble on Tuesday at 8 p.m. at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett. The group, which has featured musicians from various South Fork bands as well as the film composer Carter Burwell, plans to perform Bowie’s 1970 album “The Man Who Sold the World” in its entirety, along with several of his best-known songs.   

The group is the brainchild of Carlos Lama and Peter Landi, who worked at Innersleeve Records in Amagansett at the time of Bowie’s death and assembled a band that delivered its debut performance just five days later. In its present iteration, Cracked Actor also includes Jack Marshall on guitar, Kevin Foran on bass, and Christopher Walsh, a senior writer at The Star, on guitar and piano. Guest performers may jump on stage for a song or two.