It wasn’t all that long ago that the art world cognoscenti and mere tourists would walk the streets of SoHo, then Chelsea, and even more recently the Lower East Side, with “Gallery Guide” booklets clutched to their chests. Now, it’s more likely that they are looking at their phones, parsing the disparate information and endorsements available online for their favorite galleries and artists.

To help make better sense of it all, and the hundreds of exhibitions available in New York City, Toronto, and very soon, Los Angeles, Steve Miller has helped launch ARTLOCAL, a mobile phone app that has been quietly building momentum as the go-to place for art aficionados to pick their way through the many offerings that can change completely every few weeks.

Over a warming cup of tea on a rainy, windswept winter afternoon in his Sagaponack studio, Mr. Miller described the process of building the app as a coming to terms with the era of big data and how it relates to our phones. “We all realize that the migration of data is to mobile, not even the Internet anymore.” What he describes as “big data” ranges “from quantum mechanics, to particle physics at the sub-atomic level . . . to our web searches being organized and profiles created and sold.” Everyone is aware of what this means for their privacy, “but we opt in because of the convenience.”

What interests him is the data of culture. “This is something I am energetically drawn to: How do technology, science, and art all communicate in the information age? How can they come together in one place? The app was a perfect opportunity to put together all these notions.”

He could see that while more and more people were interacting with art around the globe, it was often through digital reproduction of works, not the physical object itself. Since the time of cave painting, “the vast majority has thought of art as a painting, a sculpture, a photograph — material form — now it’s mostly immaterial” or a hybrid.

Although he said that this is not a new concept, “what everyone is having trouble with is the speed at which it’s happening and the interface, which feels non-traditional, non-historical.”

While he is not a coder or proficient in the technical aspects of the moment, he wanted to participate. Through a felicitous meeting in 2013 with Sean Green, an entrepreneur with a background in finance, they realized they each wanted the same thing. “We were two guys with a different vision and a similar vision . . . to organize exhibitions around the world on one mobile platform” in a way that would encourage galleries to take a financial interest in being a part of it, “to monetize the information as a business.” Rounding out the team is Raymond Nguyen, a co-founder and the chief technical officer.

The app is in its soft launch phase, a time when people invited by the team try it out and offer their feedback on what works and what doesn’t. It has been in existence for 18 months, but they are still tinkering with the ease of navigation, icon placement, and ways to keep users coming back to it. “We’re still not at the final version, we change it every two weeks,” Mr. Miller said.

Some of the modifications suggested by a group that includes neophyte friends and museum directors are a tab for exhibitions about to close and when, in addition to the tabs listing openings and current shows. The way art objects are presented on the app to determine the user’s preferences has been modified as well from a swipe left-right model to a rotisserie so you can see things again that you might not want to favorite, but don’t necessarily want to dismiss outright.

The team expects to continue adjusting it as they poll their audience and solicit responses. The goal is to create the smoothest and easiest way to connect with the kind of art an individual prefers.

According to Mr. Green, during the soft launch, thousands of people had downloaded the app, either finding it themselves or invited by the partners to use it. They have focused on a core group of experts and then others in a larger circle to get feedback on how it works. They have also participated in several incubators for start-up tech concerns and are now in one sponsored through the New Museum in New York City.

Although they are currently only offering the cities Toronto and New York, the partners anticipate being in Los Angeles by summer and London by the fall. The hard launch is expected to occur sometime in late March. Up to that point and after, Mr. Miller said they will continue to refine the app to make it as flawless as possible.

“We are really trying to be the expert’s tool for every profile we can imagine in the art world,” said Mr. Miller. Once they have that imprimatur, he said it is easy to imagine it as a tool for everyone from an artist to a tourist to a seasoned collector to those who just want to fill white space with art.

“We will measure our success based on downloads, user engagement, how many cities were are in, the quality of the product, and how successfully we monetize it.”

He said they expect their money to come from gallery subscriptions. In the start-up phase they are doing all of the work of getting the images and information into the app in order to show how it will work and how effective it can be in “connecting eyeballs to art,” as Mr. Miller put it. Once on its way, they will solicit subscriptions from commercial art spaces. Then, “ideally the gallery would manage its own page,” he said.

Although the app is based in the virtual world, Mr. Miller said he sees its ultimate expression in bringing people back to “the brick-and-mortar gallery spaces.” It might draw users to a new space in a different area that they might not otherwise know about or think they would like. It might prompt users to send images and gallery sites to friends through an easy mail option. The team sees it “driving more focused viewing and better relationships” between users and galleries by making it easier to get to the space in ways that can be mutually profitable.

“It’s a business, but for me it’s a work of art, one that reflects the culture of our time like a great work of art does,” he said.

Searching for Janeway

Carol Janeway (1913-1989), a ceramicist whose work was widely exhibited and purchased by major museums including the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt, is the subject of a monograph by Victoria Jenssen, a writer from Nova Scotia.

Ms. Jenssen is trying to locate any existing examples of Janeway’s work, some of which found its way to the East End. Among these is a ceramic fireplace surround from a Beach Hampton cottage; its photo was published in Ladies Home Journal in 1949. A friend of Janeway’s spent summers in Amagansett, and the artist apparently spent time there as well.

Ms. Jenssen has asked that anyone knowing of the existence of Janeway’s work on the East End email her at [email protected] or call her at 902-625-2925.

Heat’s On in Springs

“Heat’s On!” — a show of work by eight local artists working in a variety of mediums — will take place Saturday and Sunday at Ashawagh Hall in Springs. A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m.

Phyllis Chillingworth’s oil paintings and watercolors capture the landscapes of Montauk, where she has a home, as well as her travels abroad. Anahi DeCanio will show some of her “Zen Landscapes” and new mixed-media work.

Keith Mantell combines the art of plein-air painting with painterly expressionism. Alyce Peifer also paints en plein air, whether on her travels in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East or on the East End. An East Hampton native, Rosa Scott will be showing abstract work in acrylics.

Frank Sofo paints beach scenes, local landscapes, and figures that reflect the influence of Impressionism. John Todaro will exhibit recent color and black-and-white landscapes, abstractions, and new miniatures. Rita Zimmer will be represented by a group of pencil paintings and watercolors created directly from life.

The John Drew Theater Lab will present a free staged reading of Roger Rueff’s 1992 play, “Hospitality Suite,” on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

Set in a small hotel room in Wichita during a business convention, the story focuses on two salesmen and a research scientist for a firm that manufactures industrial lubricants. While waiting for a meeting with a C.E.O. they hope will save their company, they air their conflicting ideas about character, salesmanship, honesty, religion, and love, with less than harmonious results.

David Watson, who will direct and appear in the production, has performed on Broadway in “The Seagull,” with Ethan Hawke and Laura Linney, and in “St. Joan,” with Maryann Plunkett and Elizabeth Marvel. His directing credits include Harold Pinter’s “The Dumb Waiter” and Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” among others.

In addition to Mr. Watson, the cast includes Charley Tucker, Matthew Bretsch­neider, and Elizabeth Meadows Rouse.

Also at Guild Hall, the next speaker in the Table Talk series, on Sunday at 11 a.m., will be Monte Farber, who will discuss the “sixth sense” — intuition, and how to use and develop it.

Mr. Farber is a psychic, the author of 45 metaphysical books and meditation kits, and the co-owner, with his wife, Amy Zerner, an artist and fashion designer, of the Enchanted World Emporium, next to Rowdy Hall in East Hampton. His books have been published by Simon and Schuster, St. Martin’s Press, Chronicle Books, Viking/Penguin, and Sterling and Weiser.

The more classically inclined might opt for “La Clarinette Francaise: An Evening in Paris,” a free concert of romantic works by Franck, Devienne, Messager, Poulenc, and Ravel, on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the Montauk Library.

The guest artists will be Maksim Shtrykov on clarinet and Misuzu Tanaka on piano. Mr. Shtrykov has performed in numerous recitals and chamber concerts in Belarus, Poland, and New York City, and, as a member of the Juilliard Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Avery Fisher Hall. He won first prize in the International Johannes Brahms Chamber Music Competition in Poland and the Belarus National Woodwind Competition.

Ms. Tanaka has performed at Alice Tully Hall and at venues in Leipzig, Prague, and Pilsen. Her prizes include a first at the Poland Music Festival Competition and a second at the Joan and Daniel Rutenberg Chamber Music Competition.

“A Tale to Tell,” a workshop with Helene Patarot, a French actress in residence at the Watermill Center through March 7, will take place Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Students will combine acting, writing, and directing as they develop stories using elements from their own lives, such as family photographs, diaries and letters, clothes, and other items with personal meaning.

Ms. Patarot, who was born in Vietnam, is developing a theater piece exploring the story of her father, who was a child soldier in a French army school in Vietnam in 1939. Now a resident of London, she has acted extensively in film, theater, and television.

The workshop will include a lunch break and tour of the grounds and collection. Participants have been asked to bring lunch and three objects of personal importance, and to wear comfortable clothes. Registration, for which there is a $10 fee, is through watermillcenter.org.

For the seventh consecutive year, Canio’s Cultural Cafe and the John Jermain Memorial Library will co-host the African-American Read-In, sponsored by the Black Caucus of the National Council of Teachers of English, on Saturday at 5 p.m. at Canio’s Books in Sag Harbor.

Members of the public have been invited to read short excerpts from a favorite piece of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, oral history, or family history, though it is not necessary to read in order to attend. Light refreshments will be served.

The national read-ins, whose goal is to make literacy a significant part of Black History Month, have engaged more than five million readers since their inception in 1990.

The 2017 LongHouse Winter Benefit will take place Feb. 15 in the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center. The architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, who designed the atrium, will be the evening’s honorees.

After a 6 p.m. reception, the architectural critic Paul Goldberger will present the LongHouse Award for Outstanding Architectural Achievement to Ms. Tsien and Mr. Williams.

“Larsenworld: LongHouse in East Hampton,” a 23-minute documentary by Susan Wald and Edgar Howard, will be screened at 7:30. A dinner at a private residence on Central Park West will follow at 8:30.

Tickets for the reception and program are $125. Sponsor tickets, which include the dinner, are $750 and can be purchased from the LongHouse website.

The Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor has announced its full slate of 2016 Mainstage summer productions. The season will begin with the world premiere of “The Forgotten Woman,” a new play by Jonathan Tolins that will be directed by Noah Himmelstein and run from May 31 through June 19.

“The Forgotten Woman” is Margaret Meier, a gifted soprano on the verge of an important operatic career who must face her less-than-passionate marriage, her child, her ambition, her weight, and the price of aspiring to stardom.

No stranger to divas as subject matter, Mr. Tolins is the author of “Buyer and Cellar,” a 2013 off-Broadway comedy hit about a struggling actor who lands a job working in Barbra Streisand’s basement, where she has created a mall of old-time shops. That play, according to Ben Brantley of The New York Times, “manages to keep you laughing as hard as any first-rate celebrity spoof.”

“The Last Night of Ballyhoo,” a play by Alfred Uhry, will open June 28 and run through July 24. Directed by Will Pomerantz, Bay Street’s associate artistic director, the play is set in Atlanta in 1939, when “Gone With the Wind” is about to premiere and Hitler has just conquered Poland.

The second play in the author’s “Atlanta Trilogy,” which began with “Driving Miss Daisy,” it follows the Freitag family as it looks forward to Ballyhoo, the lavish German-Jewish country club ball. When Joe Farkas, an employee of Mr. Freitag and an Eastern European Jew, arrives on the scene, the highly assimilated family members must face their beliefs, prejudices, and desires. “Ballyhoo” won the 1997 Tony Award for best play.

“My Fair Lady” will conclude the summer season with a run from Aug. 2 through Aug. 28. The classic musical, adapted from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and Gabriel Pascal’s 1938 film of the same name, has book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe. Michael Arden, an actor, singer, and composer who recently directed the acclaimed revival of “Spring Awakening” on Broadway, will direct the Bay Street production.

The 1956 Broadway hit, which starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, established the record at the time for the longest run of any major musical theater production in history. Bay Street’s production will feature a two-piano arrangement of the score and, with its more intimate theater, will emphasize the humanity and complexity of the characters and their relationships.  

Pioneer at Watermill Center

The Watermill Center will present a special workshop introducing the work of Tadeusz Kantor (1915-1990), a revolutionary Polish visual artist and theater director, on Sunday from noon to 6 p.m. An artistic pioneer and chief influence on Robert Wilson, Kantor gained international acclaim for defying theatrical convention in the 1960s and ’70s.

Bogdan Renczynski, a multi-disciplinary artist and actor trained by Kantor in Krakow, will lead the movement-based seminar. The class will begin with a screening of Kantor’s last production, “Today Is My Birthday,” followed by exercises examining text, action, and performance. Attendance will be limited to 40 participants. The center suggests a $15 donation. Reservations, which are required, can be made at watermillcenter.org.

New at RJD Gallery

“A Curious and Wonderful Bewilderment,” an exhibition of new works by Margo Selski, will be on view at the Richard J. Demato Gallery in Sag Harbor from Saturday through March 15.

Ms. Selski’s paintings draw on the styles of Flemish painting and 19th-century society portraiture. Though they appear mannered, they are in fact autobiographical, drawn from “my own Southern Gothic childhood in small-town, lower-middle-class Kentucky,” according to the artist.

Her technique produces a classical look, but by less-than-classical means. For example, the craquelure, or cracks in the surfaces of the paintings suggesting age, are in fact achieved by a complicated process devised by the artist.

Working Artists at Markel

“#working,” a group exhibition organized by Maeve D’Arcy, a New York artist, is on view at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts through Feb. 25. A reception will take place Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.

The show includes work by 16 contemporary artists, three of whom, Scott Gibbons, Carly Haffner, and Grant Haffner, are from the East End.

The exhibition explores what it means to be a working artist in today’s art world. According to Ms. D’Arcy, “The title references the relevance of social media and branding oneself within the art world and suggests that the process of making work and presenting/showing it to an audience is a multifaceted task.”

The gallery is open Fridays through Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Perle Fine in New York

The Berry Campbell Gallery in Chelsea will hold an opening tonight from 6 to 8 of an exhibition of work by Perle Fine, an Abstract Expressionist painter who lived in Springs from 1954 until her death in 1988. The show will remain on view through March 14.

While in her teens, Fine moved from Boston to New York to take classes at the Art Students League. She subsequently studied with Hans Hofmann who, along with Piet Mondrian, influenced her work during the 1940s. She was a friend of Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, and Franz Kline, among others, and was one of the first female members of the Club.

It was Krasner who suggested she move to Springs, after which her work changed. On a visit to her Red Dirt Road studio, de Kooning observed that her abstract forms reflected the trees and landscape around her.

In addition to 22 paintings, the exhibition will include works on paper from the 1940s through the 1970s, and several paintings from the “Cool Series” of 1961-63, which reflected the rise of Color Field painting and a widespread move away from the angst of the 1950s.

Reception at Vered

Vered Gallery in East Hampton will hold a reception Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. to celebrate the opening of “Bert Stern: Marilyn in the Hamptons” and the closing of Haim Mizrahi’s “Hope in the Shield of David.” The Stern exhibition will include photographs from his 1962 sessions with Marilyn Monroe, including “Blue Eyes,” at 72 by 72 inches his largest photograph.

“From the Archive,” an exhibition of photographs by Gosta Peterson, a renowned fashion photographer, is on view at the Turn Gallery in Manhattan through March 22. The show includes groundbreaking black-and-white photographs from 1960 through 1980, among them his New York Times photographs of Twiggy, the iconic English model, and his “Fashion of the Times” cover photo of Naomi Sims, the first African-American to appear on the cover of an American magazine.

“From the Archive” also includes both famous and never-before-seen works from Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Mademoiselle, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, and GQ, among others.

Mr. Peterson was born in Sweden in 1923 and arrived in New York City in 1948. He worked as an illustrator for Lord & Taylor until, having been given a camera as a gift, he taught himself photography. He began shooting for Mademoiselle in 1958 and never looked back.

In addition to their home in New York, Mr. Peterson and his wife, Pat Peterson, a former fashion editor for Mademoiselle and The New York Times, have owned a house on Windmill Lane in Amagansett since 1958. A Star feature in 2002 described the house as distinguished by, among other things, its front yard, where Mr. Peterson experimented, planting Queen Anne’s lace one year, wildflowers another, even sorghum grass, which he let grow to eight feet.

The exhibition open­ed on Jan. 24, with friends and family, including his children Annika Peterson, who is the director of Turn Gallery, and Jan Peterson, in attendance.