Cynthia Carr, a New York City-based writer and cultural critic, will deliver a lecture at the Watermill Center today at 6:30 p.m. Titled “My Golden Age in Hell: Covering the ’80s East Village,” the talk will examine the performance art scene at artist-run clubs such as 8BC, WOW, and the Pyramid.

    Ms. Carr will also discuss two pieces of “ordeal art” from the ’80s, Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh’s year spent tied together by an eight-foot rope, and Marina Abramovic and Ulay’s walk across the Great Wall of China.

    The author of three books, Ms. Carr chronicled the work of contemporary artists for The Village Voice during the 1980s and 1990s and has written for Artforum, The New York Times, Modern Painters, and other publications. Her talk is free, but reservations are required and may be made at watermillcenter. org.

    The center is now accepting applications for its 2015 residency program, which invites artists of all disciplines to create collaborative works that investigate, challenge, and extend the parameters of performance practice. The deadline for applications, which may be submitted to watermillcenter.slideroom.com, is June 11 at 5 p.m.

    Soyeon Kate Lee and Ran Dank will perform as a piano duo at the Levitas Center for the Arts at the Southampton Cultural Center on Saturday at 7 p.m., as part of the Rising Stars piano series. Ms. Lee, a Korean-American pianist, won first prize in the 2010 Naumburg International piano competition. A Pianofest distinguished artist, she has performed internationally as a guest soloist.

    Mr. Dank has performed as a soloist at numerous venues in the United States and abroad. He won the Sander Buchman Memorial First Prize of the 2009 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, among other awards.

    Ms. Lee and Mr. Dank will perform two-piano works: “Scaramouche” by Milhaud, “La Valse” by Ravel, and the four-hand arrangement of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring.” They are not only a duo on piano; they are also husband and wife.

    Patricia C. Wright, professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University and one of the world’s foremost experts on lemurs, will be honored at the university’s Stars of Stony Brook benefit on Wednesday at Pier Sixty at Chelsea Piers in Manhattan. She is being recognized for her important contributions to the biology, ecology, conservation, and behavior of living primates.

    “Island of Lemurs: Madagascar,” an Imax film narrated by Morgan Freeman that highlights Ms. Wright’s lifelong mission to help these strange and adorable creatures survive in the modern world, had its world premiere on Friday and is currently playing at Imax theaters throughout the world.

    Previous Stony Brook honorees include Alan Alda, Ed Harris, and Julie Andrews. Money raised by Wednesday’s event will support student scholarships and a variety of educational programs at the university and around the world.

    The Parrish Art Museum’s third installment of Architectural Sessions, an ongoing series co-presented with A.I.A. Peconic and moderated by the architect Maziar Behrooz, will take place in Water Mill Saturday at noon.

    The program, “Five Minutes Max,” loosely borrows its format from the museum’s popular PechaKucha Night series. Each of 12 East End architects will give a five-minute presentation of 15 images, each of which will remain on the screen for 20 seconds.

    Each architect will consider one topic or theme that was important to a project designed and built on the East End. The presenters will be Hideaki Ariizumi and Glynis Berry, John Berg, Bill Chaleff, Jonathan Foster, Maxine Nachtigal Liao, Nick Martin, Michael McCrum, James Merrell, John Rose, Steve Schappacher, Ric Stott, and Fred H. Throo.

    Tickets are $10, free for members, children, and students, and include museum admission.

    Ross Bleckner has lived and worked part time on the Sagaponack property that was once Truman Capote’s writer’s retreat since 1990 and has been showing regularly since the 1970s. Yet, it has been four years since his last solo show in New York City at Mary Boone, his gallery for almost four decades. It makes the exhibition of works he has made in the past year now on view an event, a chance to reflect on the direction he has taken familiar themes and some new directions in style and subject.

    Now in his 60s, Mr. Bleckner’s last museum retrospective was at the Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum in 1995. While an argument can be made that not much has changed in his work, because of the continual return to certain themes, it would be a mistake to think that a new assessment is not in order. His series continue to evolve and it is illuminating to see which ones have maintained vibrancy to him.

    It is worth discussing those themes as Nietzsche’s concept of the eternal return is a central tenet of the postmodern idiom that Mr. Bleckner helped foster, beginning in the 1970s. There are the early stripe paintings from 1981 that confounded critics at the time who were not sure what to make of their apparent reference to Op-Art, as noted in the Guggenheim catalog essay by Lisa Dennison. These were redeemed by others who perceived the changes being wrought by Mr. Bleckner and his contemporaries, such as Eric Fischl, David Salle, and Julian Schnabel, who saw strict modernism and formalism as no longer relevant, choosing instead to subvert it, or in Mr. Bleckner’s case, approach abstraction with irony.

    Represented here by “Act of Enthusiasm,” from this year, the painting continues to play with light and the balance of dark with it. The luminosity is striking. More than any other work in the gallery (many of which alternate their surfaces between glossy and matte) the work glows and vibrates with the application of glazes and varnishes akin to an Old Master’s techniques. In the latest version there is a flaw amid the allusion to precision, although at second glance none of it seems too precise, with lines of slightly varied widths and tones. A slight drip or smudge on the side of one stripe reintroduces the painter and his hand to the otherwise mechanically applied application. It appears to be a nod to the hummingbirds or introduction of colors or even bows that Mr. Bleckner has also used to interrupt the clean balance of these works.

    “Act of Enthusiasm” is not in the main gallery, but its inclusion is a reminder that themes, no matter how old, are not forgotten. Other familiar series demonstrate the effects of time and maturation on perspective and meaning. It is one of the few fully linear paintings, with the new “Treasury of Light (Black)” and “Treasury of Light (Grey)” comprising the other two.

    Each one, with quite similar compositions, creates an effect akin to the nearby latest renditions of the “Architecture of the Sky” series that the artist began in the late 1980s, the lines replacing the dots that achieve perspective and the suggestion of church domes from the Pantheon to the Renaissance and beyond. While the dots in the one series hint at stars or small mosaic tiles that decorated these domes, the “Treasury of Light” paintings suggest the trajectory of comets racing toward a single point. Rather than plodding and ponderous, the mood is fast and streamlined: the way thought, data, and communication move in the contemporary world. The tonalities show the artist at continual play with the effects of surface paint on the light that is focused on it, its interruptions by incisions on the surface, and the absorptive or reflective qualities affecting mood and spirit.

    At the same time, there is a sense of all of his memes melding together in this show. The “Architecture” series seeps into the “Brains” of recent years, some of the imagery associated with brains could be lower forms of plant life, and flowers emerge through fields of dots, inspired initially in his work by the Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions that came with AIDS, which carry over from both. The use of white in certain settings seems new, such as in “Doctor (Dr. Donald Kaplan).” The painting is done in the style of the Mausoleum paintings, yet it is white that now obscures the rest of the floral tribute, providing a translucent skin to see their veiled colors emerge rather than be obscured by the traditional black.

    The series of red, black, and white paintings is familiar from various art fairs of the last few years. They are inspired by, one assumes from the titles, the scanned imagery of his sister’s brain, and feel new and fresh, even with their allusions to earlier paintings. The graphic simplicity of hue teems with activity, evoking energy on a cellular and universal level. Their dynamism suggests that one flipped a switch on the more static works on the wall, implying that all of these paintings have an inert life to them that has either left them or has yet to arrive, an animating force seen more literally in centuries past in Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam.” In a secular age, creation of atoms might be a more suitable association.

    While much of his career was spent distilling others, whether it was the light of Turner or Whistler, the orthogonals and physical space of Tintoretto, or the symbolism of Redon, as noted by Ms. Dennison, he is now fully distilling himself.

    In a 2012 interview on Artforum.com, Mr. Bleckner said, “Your artwork looks like your personality in the end. I’ve always said that. I’ve tried to develop a signature style. Perhaps the paintings have been more about real life than anything else.” 

    The paintings remain on view through April 26.

    “Second Time Around” is, appropriately, the second album by Black and Sparrow, a duo that shares a 26-year history, in one form or another. Almost two decades after their debut release, Klyph Black and John Sparrow, veterans of the top Long Island band Rumor Has It, returned to the studio to record 10 new original songs. The band will perform these and more at a release party for the album on Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett.

    Unlike their 1995 release, “Friend and Partner,” “Second Time Around” features the duo augmented by the local musicians Randolph A. Hudson III (baritone guitars), Mike Mazzaraco (bass), and James Benard (drums).

    Mr. Black, a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist who lives in East Hampton, has likely played on the Talkhouse stage more than anyone else, with the possible exception of the guitarist Peter (Bosco) Michne. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Westbury, he made a permanent move to the South Fork in 2005, “but I’ve been coming out here forever,” he said.

    In the 1980s, he began playing solo at Snugglers Cove, the long-gone Amagansett tavern. Over time, a percussionist, a bassist, two guitarists, and a harmonica player, Eddie (Mac) McNeill, were added to the lineup.

    When his cousin married Peter Honerkamp, who was buying the Talkhouse with a group of investors, Mr. Black brought the act down Main Street to the newly reopened venue. “Originally it was just me and Mac,” he said. “We did the acoustic thing, and the band grew out of that. Rumor Has It became the house band.” Mr. Black also served as one of the nascent live music venue’s sound engineers.

    Mr. Black and Mr. Sparrow met through a mutual friend, with whom they collaborated on a few songs. “I used to get so many calls for cover gigs, and was sick of doing them by myself,” Mr. Sparrow recalled. “I knew Klyph sang, so I called him: ‘Want to play some acoustic music?’ We started playing like crazy, four times a week, all over Queens and Manhattan.”

    Through an acquaintance at the now-defunct Back Fence on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, where they often performed, Black and Sparrow auditioned for a monthlong residency in Interlaken, Switzerland, in 1995. They got the gig and quickly booked studio time to record “Friend and Partner.”

    “We grabbed a couple hundred copies and went over,” Mr. Black said. “It was a great gig.”

    The experience was unforgettable, Mr. Sparrow said. “They gave me a room looking at the Alps. It was heaven, I can’t describe it,” he said. “I almost wound up staying there.”

    Mr. Black is also a member of the Zen Tricksters, a jam band that the website AllMusic describes as “heirs to the throne left vacant by the Grateful Dead” and “spiritual brothers of Phish.” Back at the Stephen Talkhouse, Mr. Black performed with that band and many other artists over the years. “Actually, the first time [the Zen Tricksters] played was without me — I wasn’t in the band yet,” he said. “I played here with Donna Jean Godchaux from the Grateful Dead.”

    He also performed with many of the legendary artists who were flocking to the intimate venue on Main Street. “I got to play with J.J. Cale and Levon Helm,” Mr. Black recalled. “I got to play with Albert Collins, which was really cool, and David Hall, an Australian blues guitar player.” He also backed the late Vassar Clements, a Grammy Award-winning fiddler, and several of his songs were featured on the television programs “Felicity” and “Alias.”

    Over time, Rumor Has It grew, ultimately featuring nine members, many of whom were playing in multiple acts. “Everybody got too busy, and we broke it down to me and Johnny again,” Mr. Black said. “We started playing and coming up with new songs — Johnny was writing some great stuff. We talked about it and said, ‘Let’s put a band together.’ ”

    “Second Time Around” recalls an eclectic mix of influences that can broadly be described as Americana, or roots rock. Listeners will hear shades of the Grateful Dead, the Band, and Bob Dylan, as well as other artists who have thrived since the 1960s and ’70s, including artists they have opened for, among them Hot Tuna, Taj Mahal, and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. 

    “John had this idea of having me sing his songs,” Mr. Black said, referring to “The Reason Why,” a track on “Second Time Around.” “It added an interesting slant to the band.”

    “I wrote that at home alone,” said Mr. Sparrow, “but had Klyph’s voice in mind, singing the verses. I came up with the changes for the solo, but Klyph and Randy [Hudson] came up with different harmonic parts. We actually work over the phone, sometimes.”

    The complementary partnership continues to bear fruit. Simon Says Booking, of Orange, Mass., handles the group’s engagements. The new release is receiving airplay, and the group is seeking management, Mr. Sparrow said.

    “It was the love of the music that we both did,” Mr. Black said of the partnership. “Johnny is more a rock ’n’ roll guy, I was the jam band guy. We’re a little different, but for some reason the two of us blend really well. It always sounded great, from the first time we played together, and it just got better and better. We work really well together, and those guys” — the musicians on “Second Time Around” — “bring a lot to the table. They really brought out a lot for the band.”

    “Second Time Around” is available at Crossroads Music and Innersleeve Records in Amagansett, and online at the Apple iTunes Store, CDBaby.com, Amazon.com, and elsewhere in cyberspace. 

    The Bridgehampton Museum’s Parlor Jazz series resumes Saturday evening at 7:30 with “A Session With Dr. Feelgood,” featuring Sari Kessler, a jazz singer and songwriter whose resumé includes not only a long list of performances and recordings but also a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.

    Ms. Kessler has performed with Phoebe Snow, Tootie Heath, and Gene Bertoncini and recorded or performed with the jazzmen Freddie Bryant, Greg Bandy, Michael Kanan, Howard Alden, Harvie S, Willard Dyson, and Ron Affif, among others.

    Charlie Caranicas, a jazz trumpeter, Jane Hastay, a pianist, and Peter Martin Weiss, a bassist, will accompany Ms. Kessler. Ms. Hastay and Mr. Weiss will also host the program, which takes place in the museum’s archives building. Tickets are $25, $15 for members.

    The weekend’s musical bonanza continues at Guild Hall, where The Met: Live in HD will present Puccini’s “La Bohéme” on Saturday at 1 p.m. The most performed work in the Metropolitan Opera’s history, “La Bohéme” is set in the artistic community of Paris in the 1830s and follows the romance between Rodolfo, a poet, and Mimi, a seamstress who is his neighbor.

    Franco Zeffirelli’s classic production features Vittorio Grigolo and Anita Hartig in the lead roles. Tickets are $22, $20 for members, and $15 for students. A 30-minute Operatif talk by Victoria Bond will precede the broadcast, at noon.

    Performance is on the menu at the Watermill Center this weekend. Tomorrow evening at 7:30, Jayoung Chung, a resident artist from Korea, and Nixon Beltran, a performer and dancer, will present a 40-minute multimedia work combining movement, sound, drawing, and text. A reception and conversation with the artists will follow the performance. Reservations are free but required, and may be made at watermillcenter.org.

    Saturday will highlight the center’s resident artists, the building, grounds, and collection. Brittany Bailey, a dancer and choreographer, will teach a dance class for “thoughtful movement through life” at noon. From 1 to 4 p.m., Ms. Bailey will present three dance solos, both inside and outside, accompanied by experimental music by Bryce Hackford.

    Ms. Chung will open her studio to the community from 1 to 4 p.m., inviting visitors to interact with her work, which blends traditional Korean instruments, sound, drawing, and technology. Also starting at 1, Andrea Cote, an artist from Riverhead, will lead a project for children 6 to 12 years old combining drawing and movement. Tours of the building and grounds are also scheduled during the afternoon.

    For those who prefer roots music to jazz or classical, Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor is presenting “Way Out East . . . a Journey in Song” on Saturday at 8 p.m. Nancy Atlas, Caroline Doctorow, and Inda Eaton will collaborate to perform original works from their respective repertoires, including new music and special guests. Tickets, which are $25 in advance, $35 the day of the event, are available at the box office or baystreet.org.