The East Hampton Historical Society Antiques Show will return to Mulford Farm on Saturday and Sunday. The show will open with a preview cocktail party tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m., and will offer patrons an early buying opportunity of the various antiques, art, jewelry, and collectibles that will be on display. Steven Gambrel, an interior designer, will serve as the honorary chairman of the Friday preview. Ticket proceeds will benefit the East Hampton Historical Society.

    Both the cocktail party and antiques show will take place on the grounds of Mulford Farm on James Lane in East Hampton. The antiques show will be run by Tom D’Arruda and will feature the offerings of over 55 antique dealers, with a focus on antiques and decorative items for the home and garden.

    Admission to the show is $10, with early buying at $20. On Saturday the show will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with an early buying hour at 9 a.m. On Sunday, the show is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets for tomorrow’s preview cocktail party start at $150 per person and enable return visits the following days. Junior tickets for Friday (for those 40 and under) are available for $100.

   What do you get when you combine two actors, eight parts, and a stew of Gothic theatrical silliness? A whole lot of laughs, when the production is as sharp and clean as that of Bay Street’s “The Mystery of Irma Vep.”

    Created by Charles Ludlam during that final burst of creative, subversive lunacy that characterized the last few years of his life, “The Mystery of Irma Vep” is the most revived of his Ridiculous Theatrical Company plays. When done well, as this production is, you can see why.

    Mr. Ludlam wrote the play specifically for himself and his longtime companion, Everett Quinton. It was first produced in 1984, just three years before Mr. Ludlam’s untimely death at age 44, after suffering complications caused by the AIDS virus.

    In the Bay Street production, David Greenspan plays the parts originally played by Mr. Ludlam, while Tom Aulino plays the parts originally played by Mr. Quinton. Both actors are superb.

    Set mostly in Mandacrest Manor, with a side trip to an Egyptian tomb, the delightfully complicated plot has Lady Enid (Mr. Greenspan) trying to supplant the true love in Lord Edgar Hillcrest’s (Mr. Aulino’s) heart, Lady Irma Vep. Above the fireplace, dominating the room, is a portrait of Irma Vep, a la Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rebecca.”

    Before going any further with the plot, it is worth saying who Mr. Ludlam was, and how he created his theater pieces.

    An irreverent young actor with a strong understanding of classic literature, he started his career in New York in the mid-1960s, soon becoming a leader in the city’s theatrical avant-garde. He delighted in combining genres and crossing genders to produce a dizzying series of laughs. Nothing was sacred. His Ridiculous Theatrical Company, founded in 1967, was based in Sheridan Square, just yards away from the scene of the Stonewall Inn riots of 1969.

    Before Stonewall, the police in New York City would routinely arrest anyone for being openly gay, particularly if they were looking for a date at a bar. Stonewall was Gay America’s Jackie Robinson moment.

    As gays and lesbians pushed the boundaries in the streets, Mr. Ludlam was pushing the boundaries in his small theater. His first hit was “When Queens Collide,” into which he folded Shakespeare, Marlowe, and H.G. Wells, among others.

    In “Irma Vep,” we get more Shakespeare, plus Edgar Allen Poe, Hitchcock, and Universal Pictures’ horror movies of the 1930s. The play opens with the maid of the manor, Jane Twisdon (Mr. Aulino) questioning Nicodemus Underwood (Mr. Greenspan), a field hand. Nicodemus is putting the moves, not so successfully, on Jane.

    “Give me a little kiss, and I’ll show you how I’m hung,” he says leeringly. “Get away from me with your double entendres,” Jane answers.

    That line shows one of Mr. Ludlam’s great strengths, the ability to laugh at himself and what he was doing. He puts the actors through a mind-bending set of costume and character changes, with the actors sometimes playing two characters simultaneously while doing a quick change offstage. Double entendre, frequently of a sexual nature, rules the day.

    Later, Jane tries to explain to Lady Enid who the Hillcrests are.

    “The Hillcrests go back to, back to,” she says, then pauses. “Well, they’ve been descending for centuries.”

    Mandacrest is haunted by werewolves and vampires. In the old Universal “Wolf Man” movies, one of the key moments was the first time the audience would see a man change into a monster, via time-lapse photography. Mr. Greenspan gives up Mr. Ludlam’s version of that change to great effect.

    There is an inherent difficulty in staging this play: Mr. Ludlam and Mr. Quinton knew each other intimately and had worked together for many years. Under the skillful direction of Kenneth Elliot, Mr. Aulino and the always vamping Mr. Greenspan have achieved a good measure of internal chemistry.

    The second act begins with a trip to an Egyptian tomb by Lord Hillcrest, led by his guide, Alcazar, who pronounces the word sarcophagus, “saco-sogus.” After discovering the mummy of an apparent Egyptian princess, Alcazar makes a hasty exit, saying “Permit me to withdraw and leave you with your newfound lady friend.”

    Mr. Greenspan leaves the stage, returning just in time to play Pev Ammi, a large-breasted, dancing mummy.

    Something happened in that scene during the Sunday night performance I attended that demonstrated the bond that these two actors have developed in such a short time. Two ropes dropped from the grid down to the stage while Lord Hillcrest and his guide were exploring the tomb. On Sunday, the ropes were tangled when they dropped. It happens. It is live theater.

    Lesser actors might have been thrown, but these two simply incorporated it into their action, making a very real moment a very funny one.

    Both men play their characters, male and female, with a certain relish, reveling in the silliness of it all without ever losing control. The production values are superb. The set design by John Arnone is haunting Gothic, and his Irma Vep portrait over the fireplace is too cool for words. The set, along with the lighting design by Mike Billings, matches the level of acting note for note. Mark Mariani’s costumes, particularly those for Lady Enid, are perfect, as is the sound design, credited to Aural Fixation. I loved the channeling of Bernard Hermann with a minor-key score in a section of the second act. And once again, Kathy Fabian, in the under-appreciated craft of prop design, shows us why she is one of the best in the business.

    As good as it all is, there are external challenges. The first act is too long. The problem, in my eyes, is that Ludlam was very faithful to the melodramatic structure, in which we are given lots of exposition, that, while very funny, can be a bit of a tough sell to people coming off the beach, dinner, and three glasses of wine.

    Time is an issue that was clearly wrestled with during previews. The play is written in three acts, but there is only one intermission, so really, it is two acts — a wise move. Total playing time Sunday was a bit over two hours, and that included a lengthy intermission. A mention should be made during the introduction that the play would be in two acts, not three.

    In the first act, the audience was a bit tentative, some seemingly unsure of what to make of it all. It was only at the start of the second act that the audience really seemed to get it, and it was smooth sailing from then on.

    I’d like to think that, somewhere, Charles Ludlam is smiling.

    “The Mystery of Irma Vep” will be at Bay Street through July 28, playing Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday at 7, with matinees on Wednesday at 2 and Saturday at 4.

   “You don’t speak like you’re from around here,” said John Alexander last month, detecting a sense of otherness in a visitor’s neutral, slightly Philadelphia-inflected  accent. It was a funny comment from a guy whose Texas drawl doesn’t sound like it has altered much since his own journey east several decades ago.  

    His blunt observations, lacking apparent irony, are disarming because they are far more direct than most people are willing to be and humorous, prompting some of his oldest friends to call him one of the funniest people they know.

    At the time of this observation, Mr. Alexander was in the final stages of installing his show at Guild Hall, which is up until July 28. He will speak about it at the museum on Saturday at 4 p.m.

    The exhibition is a snapshot of what has occupied the self-effacing artist most recently. Almost all of the paintings were completed in 2012 and 2013, some practically drying on the walls. This was more a function of his reluctance to let some paintings alone once they are completed than a lack of discipline for deadlines.

    “I’m not a particularly facile artist,” he observed. “I struggle through a lot of it and when to keep going or to stop.” His compositions are primarily representational with surrealist elements or themes, but he said he works like an Abstract Expressionist, particularly Willem de Kooning, adding and then reducing the marks he puts on the canvas. “Some painters work across the canvas, section by section, and when they get to that last corner, they’re finished. I’ve never been able to work that way.”

    Although Mr. Alexander may be best known for the politically charged figural paintings executed early in his career and at various times since, his current preoccupation is the natural environment, both as a touchstone to childhood memories as well as a more pointed examination of the effects of global warming.

    He has not entirely abandoned the figure. His “Lost Souls” depicts a choppy sea and a dinghy crowded with animals and people who look like historical and mythical bad guys. Many are wearing Venetian-style bird masks, which make them look more menacing, creating parallels between them and the other paintings that feature birds and fish.

    There is a crude and primitive quality to this work that undermines the skill with which it is painted. “Technique is important to me. I spend a lot of time on it.” Mr. Alexander has a number of champions in the academic and institutional worlds and a fair number of voluble detractors, but everyone seems to agree that the man knows how to paint.

    The exotic birds he paints are real, “ones you see in the Texas Gulf Coast and in Florida. They’re originally from South America, but they have been making their way northward.” Their northern appearance does raise the issue of global warming, said the artist, just as other species never or rarely seen here are becoming more common. “I don’t carry signs, but I am very concerned emotionally about the environment.”

    Here, the birds’ eyes, which in reality are on the side of their heads, are looking up and out at the viewer. “And that’s purposeful,” said Mr. Alexander. “I’m very conscious of them having a psychological experience with the viewer. You’re looking at them and they’re looking at you.”

    The birds exist in shallow space, as do most of the subjects and objects in his recent compositions. “I want them to be in your face. In the early days in the 1970s, I did nothing but deep-space paintings. These are not that, and it puts them in a much more psychological confrontation.”

    The earlier works came from a childhood spent looking out the window at the vast open Texas landscapes of Beaumont, where he was born, and the rest of the state’s southeastern region. “You’re detached. The landscape is out there, but you’re not.” He noted that it can be 250 miles between cities; growing up, he became accustomed to spending enormous amounts of time in cars. The road trips he took when he was at Southern Methodist University could be five hours long, he said, just to spend a weekend in New Orleans. “It would be like driving from Syracuse to New York City for the night. People in the Northeast just don’t drive they way they do in Texas.”

    Mr. Alexander has a unique way of dealing with traditional still life subjects, such as fruit or oysters, as well. They are not the subdued memento mori of history, laid out elegantly on a table. His oysters are jammed into the painting in an allover flat composition that manages to be about formalism even though its subject matter is recognizable. It came from an encounter with a photograph in New Orleans, where the artist guest-teaches and spends a good deal of time. At night from a gallery window, the photo looked like the subject was oysters, but up close and in the light of day it turned out to be an abstraction of something quite different. “I thought what a great idea it was to paint oysters the way I thought I had seen them,” and so he did.

    The watermelons, another allover composition of smashed and mutilated fruit still on the vine, are quite another thing. They are a link to his childhood and the flora and fauna he grew up with, but there is something else there too. “There are two reactions to that painting,” he said. “People find it beautiful or menacing, and for me that is successful. It’s what I’m trying to do as an artist, if that comes across.” Since his early days, he said, a sense of impending doom has been attached to all his paintings. “It’s aimed at the natural environment.”

    Just as powerful, however, is that other distant attachment and meaning, one that has become more compelling as he grows older. “You go to the grocery store today and you buy a bunch of watermelons and hack them up, but your heart and soul is in that other time, in the sandy, east Texas soil. It never leaves you.”

    It’s a feeling that people either understand and embrace or viscerally react against. “I see people at my exhibitions and some walk in and out, but others stand there and stare forever.” His detractors, he said, often make their complaints about him personal. “Also, it’s hard to classify me. Where or what category would you put that picture of watermelons?”

    For Mr. Alexander, painting can sometimes be “just like jazz. You’re making noise, then it becomes coordinated and structurally sound. You get those instruments working together and it means something. I like when painting brings a lot of things together that way.”

    His work is emotionally provocative, and that is a conscious decision, “but only to my own feelings.” When people view his canvases he would like them to think about the world around them and about painting itself. “There’s nothing pretentious about it, or me,” he said. “I’m filled with insecurity. And if you think you’re great then you just start repeating yourself. You need a little fear.”

    Two major summer exhibitions, “Angels, Demons, and Savages: Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet” and “Michelle Stuart: Drawn From Nature,” will open at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill on Sunday and will remain on view through Oct. 27.

    The “Angels, Demons, and Savages” show will focus on the cross-cultural dialogues among the Springs painter Jackson Pollock, the Philippines-born artist and art patron Alfonso Ossorio, who lived in East Hampton, and the French painter and sculptor Jean Dubuffet. The exhibit will explore the work of each artist, their relationships with one another, and their influences on one another.

    All three artists were united in their interest in new and experimental techniques, and they all learned from one another’s work. Ossorio, the “least visible in art history texts,” according to the museum, serves as the central figure for bringing the three artists together. On view will be a number of works by Pollock and Dubuffet from Ossorio’s former collection, seen together for the first time since they were dispersed after Ossorio’s death in 1990.

    As for Ms. Stuart, her solo show will span the period from the late 1960s to the present day. The artist is known for her lifelong interest in the Earth and the cosmos, and the show will feature her “radical redefinition of the medium of drawing,” according to the Parrish, through highlighting her early contribution to process-based sculpture and “land art,” her use of nontraditional natural materials, and her passion for photography.

    Ms. Stuart will lead a guided tour of the exhibition on Aug. 9 at 6 p.m. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and internationally for 40 years in the collections of museums in Stockholm, Marseille, The Hague, Sydney, and Hamburg.  

Two New on View

At Halsey Mckay

    Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton is showing “Mornings, Sentimental, Wonder & Acoustic Shadows,” works by Patrick Brennan, and “Two Wholes” by Brie Ruais through July 31.

    Mr. Brennan’s paintings “function as transference of a particular season, emotional state or time of day,” according to the gallery. The paintings lead the eye through random choices and different materials, making the viewer conscious of time.

    Ms. Ruais’s clay pieces are based on the weight of her own body and those of others in combination with hers. She spreads out hundreds of pounds of clay, on her hands and knees, from a large mound. For this show, she has taken the East End as inspiration and the works relate to the bay and ocean, Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, and other pairings.

Begley’s “Totems”

    Canio’s new exhibition “Totems” will open today in Sag Harbor and run through Aug. 13. It features Peter Begley’s work with acrylic, oil, and wax on paper.

    “Totems” consists of two series. He began the first, “Alps,” while spending time in Caux, near Lake Geneva. The second, “Cairns,” originated from watching his son use building blocks. Combined, the mountain peaks and the cairns represent totems of our culture.

    Mr. Begley has exhibited his paintings in New York City, East Hampton, and in several European cities. A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.

“Art in the Open”

    Plein Air Peconic will show at Asha­wagh Hall in Springs tomorrow through Sunday with a reception on Saturday evening from 5 to 8. The show, “Art in the Open,” features scenes of land preserved by the Peconic Land Trust, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

    The artists will exhibit both paintings and photography, including images of some of the very first sites the land trust preserved. A percentage of the sales will go to benefit the trust.

Midweek Now Hopping

At Ashawagh

    A “Midweek Art Show” at Ashawagh Hall will be held on Wednesday and next Thursday, including works by Cynthia Loewen, Jerry Schwabe, Lynn Martell, Peter Spacek, John Todaro, and Sarah Jaffe Turnbull. The artists span a variety of mediums.

    The exhibit will be open from noon until 9 p.m. on Wednesday, and from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday. In addition, there will be a reception on Wednesday evening from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Crazy Monkey’s New Show

    Beginning today, the Crazy Monkey Gallery in Amagansett will feature art from three of its members, Barbara Bilotta, Sarah Blodgett, and Mark Zimmerman.

    Ms. Bilotta will exhibit work from her “Underwater Series,” featuring her deconstructed acrylic and resin compositions, extracted from natural images. Ms. Blodgett’s work features American vernacular architecture, with images of old and forgotten buildings which she finds in small towns. Mr. Zimmerman will show abstract paintings and acrylics, evolved from his classical painting as a student in Boston.

    A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. The show will be on view through Aug. 5.

Engel and Hadden in Sag Harbor

    Romany Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor will show the paintings of Christopher Engel and Barbara Hadden beginning today.

    Mr. Engel’s show, “Open Door,” reflects a preoccupation with Jungian philosophy and the collective unconscious. His paintings are abstract but incorporate archetypal images and ancient patterns and symbols.

    Ms. Hadden will display a number of images of the Jordan Haerter Veteran’s Memorial Bridge in Sag Harbor in conjunction with Soldier Ride. Ms. Hadden lives on North Haven and regularly traverses the bridge. She has created the paintings to honor the wounded warriors who participate in the ride.

    There will be a reception for the artists on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. The show will remain on view through Aug. 8.

Stewart’s Blowout

At Salon Xavier

    “Secrets to Tell,” photographs by Ann Fristoe Stewart, will be on view at Salon Xavier in Sag Harbor beginning Saturday, with a reception from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Pictures at the Mill

    The East End Photographers Group will show traditional, digital, and alternative photographic processes at the Water Mill Museum beginning on Saturday, with a reception that day from 4 to 7 p.m.

    This is the organization’s 25th anniversary and the show is the second in a series of four to be shown around the East End. It will remain on view through Aug. 11.

    Those participating include Virginia Aschmoneit, Dave Burns, Paul Demp­sey, Alex Ferrone, Rich Faron, Gerry Giliberti, Pamela Grienke, Virginia Khuri, Danielle Leef, Joel Lefkowitz , George Mallis, Joanna McCarthy, Jim Sabiston, Marilyn Stevenson, Christina Stow, Clarence Simpson, Jim Slezak, John Stuart, Nick Tarr, Mary Trentalange, Bob Wilson, and Nacola Wilson.

Bushwick Tour Led by Locals

    In the Bushwick section of Brooklyn, Camille Perrottet and Jane Weissman are leading a walking tour this morning of four murals designed to engage viewers in the poetry of Federico Garcia Lorca.

    The New York City mural collective Artmakers Inc. was inspired by the poem “Ciudad sin sueño (Nocturno de Brooklyn Bridge) / Sleepless City (Brooklyn Bridge Nocturne),” written during the poet’s nine-month stay in New York City (1929-30). 

    Ms. Perrottet, who designed the murals, and Ms. Weissman, the project manager, are both South Fork residents. They will be joined by Electa Arenal, a translator and professor of Hispanic literatures, and Edward Hirsch, a poet.

Artists Emerge at Ille

    Ille Arts in Amagansett will host an “East End Emerging Artists Exhibition” from tomorrow through Tuesday. All sales will go to the artists, who include Scott Bluedorn, Ruby Jackson, Barbara Macklowe, Dan Resnick, Sumayyah Samaha, and many more.

    Although absent from the Main Street scene of Southampton Village for some time, Stephan Keszler is back at the old power plant on North Sea Road, where he presented the street artist Banksy in 2011.

    Back then, the property was extremely raw and reminiscent of the untouched gallery spaces in old warehouses and facilities in Manhattan’s West Chelsea. It has been cleaned up a lot as the new Keszler Annex, but the interior retains the industrial feel that made it an ideal backdrop for the gritty and controversial wall pieces of Banksy.

    Only a couple of those works remain (the others were sold over the past year) and they will be on view along with a new show of large sculptures by Alexandre Arrechea from his “No Limits” series. If the work seems familiar, it is because it was installed up and down Park Avenue in New York this spring. Many of the works are already visible outside the gallery on newly sodded lawns, put in just last week along with other landscaping.

    The show officially opens Saturday night with a reception from 6 to 9. Presented in conjunction with Magnan Metz Gallery in New York, it will also include watercolors, lithographs, and reduced-size pieces of the monumental works.

    Mr. Arrechea, who was born in Cuba, attempts to subvert “traditional concepts about icons and their function in society,” according to the gallery.

    His architectural pieces appear to melt and bend as if elastic. He chooses some of New York’s most iconic structures as his subjects and bends them to his will, keeping their features recognizable while creating something entirely new, resembling a tool or a snail or something else out of the artist’s imagination.

    The sculptures may be set on tops that turn with the touch of a finger. Mr. Arrechea’s buildings’ ability to move and change forms is a metaphor for the lack of foundation in the economy and the uncertainty that continues to plague society in these volatile times.

    The artist represented Cuba in the 2011 Venice Biennale.  

    It wasn’t necessary to go to the jammed opening-night festivities at ArtHamptons and artMRKT Hamptons to grasp that the fairs may have finally “arrived,” despite the continued lack of attention from A-list galleries and dealers.

    That sense was just as apparent at the smaller events that were held in tandem with the Bridgehampton fairs, where a hint of that Art Basel Miami Beach cross-pollination, which has spawned a thousand satellites over the years, was in the air and could be a harbinger of what’s to come here in future years.

    In one example, Cole Sternberg, a Los Angeles artist, has taken over an old farmhouse and barn on Wainscott Hollow Road in Wainscott for the month of July for an “all-encompassing installation.” He said on site last Thursday that he had not planned his installation to coincide with the fairs, but since they were happening anyway, it made sense to hold his opening the same weekend as the two early fairs and stay open through Art Southampton, which arrives next Thursday.

    Mr. Sternberg has taken a holistic approach to the project, occupying a reputedly haunted house and remaking it in his own manifestation as “a moment in the sun,” the first project of ARTed House, a new company that promises to develop creative venues to present contemporary art.

    Rather than dispelling ghosts, the artist invites the viewer first to the basement, an old and rather dodgy space with cement and brick walls and low ceilings. It is there, on a rough cement screen, that he projects a short film devoted to the last “performance” of Ray Johnson, a Neo-Dada, Pop, and Fluxus performance artist who dived off the Sag Harbor-North Haven bridge in 1995.

    In the film, Mr. Sternberg is the author and the actor performing certain activities, some directly related to Johnson’s death and others not. A staunch environmentalist, Mr. Sternberg sets off a fire extinguisher in a stand of trees, a willfully destructive act that he chose to explore his own concerns about what humans are doing to their habitat. It is one scene of many as he traces a path from the house to Room 13 at Baron’s Cove Inn in Sag Harbor, where Johnson plotted his last act, to the bridge and then to the ocean, using a chalk stick along the way to mark his path.

    When he is shown breaking wine bottles in the film in the same basement, the broken shards of the glass remain on the floor to tie the viewer’s present experience to the recorded journey. Also on view is a note on canvas that Mr. Sternberg has written to Johnson, alerting him to how things have changed since his death and other observations.

    Upstairs, the mood is a little lighter but still carries Mr. Sternberg’s darker themes about the environment and the state of world affairs. The artist is known for his use of text in his work and the recurrent theme of “one day.”

    “A lot of people take those words as aspirational and hopeful, but I’m actually thinking of something more apocalyptic, resulting from the fact that we can’t go on the way we are living without some kind of collapse,” he said.

    Bearing the text are silk-screened tables, specially made wallpaper, paintings, and drawings. Neon is employed here and there in different rooms, and nooks are set up as thematic gallery spaces to show the artist’s paintings, prints, and installation art. Out in the barn, Eastern silk rugs are covered with special dye that he has painted on them. Almost everything has some relation to the sea, and much of it was created in a flurry of activity that only began in June.

    At the time of the interview, Mr. Sternberg still had much to accomplish before the unveiling of the house the next day. He had been up most of the previous night and said he planned to spend some time during the party “in performance,” sleeping under a tree.

    In a related event, William Quigley opened his studio, which is next to Schenck Fuel Services on Newtown Lane in East Hampton, for a show and auction titled “The Pleasurists,” and shared it with Ben Moon, an artist, musician, and D.J.

    Mr. Quigley is known for his portraits of famous people such as Mick Jagger, Donald Trump, Ethan Hawke, and Audrey Hepburn. The show was promoted by a New York City public relations firm and had sponsors that included Mark Borghi Fine Art, which represents the artist, ArtScape at the Bradford Mill, Hamptons magazine, Russian Standard Vodka, Smokin’ Wolf BBQ, Zico Coconut Water, Organic Avenue, Pop Chips, and Talent Splash.

    Like most high-octane art events this season, some of the proceeds from the sales were to be given to a nonprofit, in this case, Guild Hall. A performance of Mr. Moon’s “environmental, musical, and interactive” art piece, “ROK­LYFE,” was also presented. The party started at 8 p.m. and went until midnight with a largely urban, arty crowd in attendance.

    Glenn Horowitz Bookseller also expanded artMRKT Hamptons’ performance program with an installation of Adam Stennett’s “Artist Survival Shack” near the fair entrance on Main Street in Bridgehampton. In it, the artist planned to live off the land and what few supplies he had with him for the weekend, eating, sleeping, and bathing there for a 96-hour test run of a longer project he has planned later this summer.

    These are the kinds of presentations that one takes for granted in Miami during Art Basel week but are signs that a shift is taking place in the overall apprehension of these yearly events here. The fairs have proven their marketability and staying power, after six years, in the case of ArtHamptons, and only three years for artMRKT, and those outside the immediate region are beginning to take notice.

More Aycock, Now

In East Hampton

    The “Alice Aycock: New Works on Paper” exhibition will open on Saturday at the Drawing Room in East Hampton.

    Ms. Aycock came of age as an artist between the Modernist and Post-Modernist eras in the 1970s. She is known for her large-scale installations, public art projects, and outdoor sculptures. As the gallery notes, she is a conceptualist at heart and her drawings are driven by language, memory, fiction, and scientific and philosophical extremes.

    The show will be on view through Aug. 12.

Show Us “The money . . .”

    Tomorrow, Harper’s Books in East Hampton will open “The money . . . ,”  photography by Roe Ethridge.

    Mr. Ethridge’s background is in editorial and commercial photography. He is cognizant of the potential for high and low forms of the art to merge, much as the Pictures Generation did, in a way that has been called post-appropriative.

    The photographer’s work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Tate Modern in London.

    A reception will be held tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. The show will run through Aug. 8.

Vered On the Edge

    This year’s version of “Art on the Edge” will open at Vered Gallery tomorrow with a 9 to 11 p.m. cocktail reception, and a satellite exhibit at art­MRKT Hamptons today through Monday. The show, now in its fourth year, is an annual survey of “the most provocative new painters, sculptors, and photographers working in their respective mediums today,” according to the gallery.

    Among the artists participating are Ron Agam, Tim Conlon, Grant Haffner, Jessica Lichtenstein, Brian Richer, and Dean West.

    The show will continue there through Aug. 5. It can also be seen on the East Hampton gallery’s Web site, veredart. com.

Midweek Mix at Ashawagh

    Beginning on Tuesday with a reception from 4 to 7 p.m., “Midsummer Mix,” a group show, will feature artists working in a variety of styles, including landscapes, medieval portraits, tapestry, Abstract Expressionism, mixed media, and representational art.

    The artists include Barbara Bilotta, Johanna Caleca, Lance Corey, Anna Franklin, Annette Heller, Robin Howe, Alyce Peifer, Sal Salandra, Dainis Saulitis, Catherine Silver, Richard Udice, and Elizabeth Weiss. It will remain on view through next Thursday.

Ortiz: Not Keith Haring

    Lawrence Fine Art in East Hampton will open an exhibition of new work by Angel Ortiz, known by his tags as LA ROC or LA II, today through July 28.

    Mr. Ortiz was one of the original graffiti artists of the 1970s and 1980s. According to the gallery, he was sought out by Keith Haring in 1981 because of his distinctively unique tag. Their artistic partnership lasted five years and introduced Haring to street-art culture, arguably influencing his development as an artist.

    Mr. Ortiz, who has since created functional sculpture and work on canvas, will work in East Hampton throughout the exhibition, though not on buildings. On July 20, a reception and fashion show will be held at the gallery at 5 p.m.

Painting at Madoo

    Madoo Conservancy’s summer painting classes in Sagaponack will begin Saturday for six sessions. Eric Dever will teach and Robert Dash, the founder of Madoo, will offer critiques.

    The aim is that intermediate to advanced students develop and examine painting fundamentals in the context of the Madoo Gardens while broadening their approach. Students may use acrylic or other mediums, with the exception of oils. Classes will take place weekly from 9 a.m. to noon; the fee is $350, or $300 for Madoo members. Registration is available at [email protected].

New Paintings at Grenning

    The Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor will open its second show of the summer season on Saturday, with a reception from 6:30 to 8 p.m. The show features the latest works of Ramiro and Melissa Franklin Sanchez.

    Ramiro Sanchez, “a very special artist” to the gallery, is known for his depictions of the human form. Melissa Sanchez paints on copper plates, capturing the glow from her material. The exhibition includes a dual portrait by the husband-and-wife team.

    It will be on view through July 28.

Pagano at Nightingale

    The Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill is showing “William Pagano: Here and Sometimes There” through July 31.

    Mr. Pagano is a New York artist known for stripping away unnecessary form both from his own photographs and appropriated images, to focus on the line, shape, and space that remains. He utilizes the translucency of oil paint to further emphasize volume, scale, and light in his paintings.

    In his “Modern House” series, two midcentury residences serve as the main inspiration: the Stahl House by Pierre Koenig, and Twin Palms by E. Stewart Williams. Among his other subjects are various highway interchanges and the Dulles Airport terminal C, designed by Eero Saarinen.

AAranged: Aakash Nihalani

    Tripoli Gallery in Southampton will present “Aaranged,” the artwork of Aakash Nihalani, beginning today, with a reception on Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The artist uses black, white, and fluorescent tape to make Frank Stella-inspired compositions that echo the forms of urban architecture. Often Op Art in nature, the forms highlight and alter the perspective of the space they are in. New work in the show incorporates wood tiles with black silk-screened lines in geometric patterns.

    One of the artist’s site-specific works will be displayed on an exterior wall of the Parrish Art Museum during the museum’s Midsummer party on Saturday. Tripoli Patterson will be a co-host for the event, which is sold out, but tickets remain for the After-Ten dessert party.

    The Nihalani show will remain on view at the gallery until Aug. 11.

Photos at the Old Parrish

    The Southampton Center will begin its exhibition program with a show of work by Diane Tuft, a Water Mill photographer who travels to various places in the world that have high levels of ultraviolet radiation, to document the effects of infrared and UV light on the landscape. Her images from Greenland and Iceland will be on view at the new center, in the space once occupied by the Parrish Art Museum on Job’s Lane in Southampton, from Saturday to Aug. 4.

    There will be a cocktail reception on the opening night of the exhibit from 6 to 8, followed by a screening of the award-winning documentary “Chasing Ice,” presented in partnership with the Hamptons International Film Festival.

Merrill and Friends

    Peter Marcelle Gallery will present “Dina Merrill and Friends,” with work by Ms. Merrill, Ted Hartley, Virginia Burke, Lucy Cookson, Miriam Dougenis, Lynn Hanke, Bonnie Lowe, Aniik Libby, Michelle Murphy, and Alice Connick Ryan, beginning tomorrow.

    The show will open with a champagne reception from 6 to 8 p.m. and will remain on view through July 21.

    Ms. Merrill, known as an actress, philanthropist, and socialite, is now also an artist. She became seriously interested in painting several years ago, and her husband, Mr. Hartley, organized a painting group, led by Ms. Dougenis, to meet in their house twice a week.

    The paintings on view offer evidence of development over time of color, tone, and composition, as well as showing off a community of shared interests.

Lieberman’s Summer

In Water Mill

    The Hampton Hang gallery in Water Mill is presenting “Bruce Lieberman: Portraits of Summer” through July 25.

    The show is a selection of recent works exploring the relationship between the artist, the canvas, and the subject of an intimate Hamptons summer, according to the gallery. A reception will be held on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

Hornak on View in Maryland

    The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts in Hagerstown, Md., is showing “Transparent Barricades: Ian Hornak, a Retrospective” through Oct. 13.

    The artist, who died in 2002, was a longtime resident of East Hampton. He was represented by the Tibor de Nagy Gallery and the Katharina Rich Perlow Gallery in Manhattan.

    The show will feature more than 30 of Hornak’s paintings and drawings completed between 1958 and 2002. Eric Ian Hornak Spoutz, the artist’s nephew and the founder and executive director of the Ian Hornak Foundation, will speak about the artist at the museum on Sept. 19.

Art Is in the House

    ARTed will present “a moment in the sun” by Cole Sternberg in a house in Wainscott, beginning today with a reception tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m.

    The project, with public viewing hours from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. through the weekend, is set in a farmhouse and barn as “a play on the artistic traditions of the Hamptons, concepts of artist residencies, and an environmental takeover.”

    Mr. Sternberg is a Los Angeles artist with a B.A. from Villanova and a law degree from Washington College who spent the month of June bending the house to his vision “grounded through common themes of environmentalism, media influence, and the last performance of Ray Johnson,” a Sag Harbor artist who died in 1995. The installation examines the tensions between the luxury consumerist culture and the natural beauty of the environment here. One of the works on view is a film shot on location here.

    After this weekend, the installation will be on view by appointment through Piers Beaumont at piers@artedhouse .com through July 28. The house is at 28 Wainscott Hollow Road.

    The work on exhibit is for sale and a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons and Group for the East End.

   With Reporting by Sergei Klebnikov

    Mid-July has become art fair season on the South Fork, with three fairs running in rapid succession, two this weekend in Bridgehampton and another beginning July 25 in Southampton.

    Both ArtHamptons and artMRKT Hamptons will open their doors tonight with previews and cocktail parties for their own exhibitors, sponsors, media partners, honorees, events, and beneficiaries.

    The sixth edition of ArtHamptons, the oldest of the fairs, will take place at Nova’s Ark sculpture fields off Millstone Road. It will boast a 50,000-square-foot tent and a theme of “Hamptons Bohemia.” Its honorees will be the very much alive Edward Albee and Billy Sullivan, and Larry Rivers, who died in 2002. Its opening-night party will benefit Guild Hall. Its events include a polo demonstration and an Empire Pride Agenda tea dance in addition to a number of private receptions and educational talks.

    Now in its third year, artMRKT will be on the grounds of the Bridgehampton Historical Society and benefit the Parrish Art Museum and the LongHouse Reserve. Although somewhat of an upstart, the younger fair has captured the hearts and minds of much of the South Fork gallery and dealer establishment. Exhibitors include Boltax Gallery, Bridgehampton Fine Art, Eric Firestone Gallery, Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, Halsey Mckay Gallery,  Kathryn Markel Fine Arts, Mark Humphrey Gallery, Neoteric Fine Arts, QF Gallery, Sara Nightingale, the Grenning Gallery, Tripoli Gallery, and Vered Art Gallery, in addition to galleries from Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Florida,  New Orleans, and yet farther-flung places. A total of 40 galleries will exhibit.

    Of note will be an installation and performance by Adam Stennett from Glenn Horowitz on the grounds of the fair. “Artist Survival Shack: 96 Hour Test Run” will be a demonstration project for a longer performance on the East End. The artist will set up his 6.5-by-9.5-foot “survival shack” for the duration of the fair. A monthlong performance will follow with an exhibition of the shack, related paintings, and artifacts, opening in September at the gallery.

    The QF Gallery in East Hampton will have three installations at the artMRKT entrance.

    At ArtHamptons, exhibitors include Lawrence Fine Art, Mark Borghi Fine Art, Monika Olko Gallery, Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery, and Tulla Booth from the South Fork, and dealers from Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America, in addition to domestic and North American galleries, 80 galleries in all.

    Both fairs will remain open through Sunday. Full details and schedules can be found on arthamptons.com and art-mrkt.com. Tickets start at $20 for a day pass for artMRKT and $25 for ArtHamptons and increase for multiple days or for the preview parties.

   Stephanie Whiston of Montauk has dived in deep seas over 1,000 times in the last 20 years. And all because of her little fear of sharks!

    A friend suggested she combat that fear by diving with the often-maligned creatures. She now photographs them and other underwater species, and it has become her life’s work.

    On one of her first dives, in 1993 aboard a National Geographic Society vessel, a crew member lent her a camera, and she ended up winning first place in a photography contest sponsored by the society.

    Her archives are now full of pictures of underwater sea life, and choosing just 50 of them for an exhibit that is running now through the end of the month at the Montauk Library was difficult. She has no favorites.

    She does want it known that although she favors conservation, she is not a tree-hugger and does not oppose Montauk’s annual shark-fishing tournaments. She hopes, however, that her exhibit brings about an awareness of the sharks’ declining numbers.

    “I don’t want everyone in Montauk to be mad at me,” she said on Sunday while leading a visitor through her exhibit, which is on view on the library’s lower level. “I’m just a scuba diver with a camera.”

    Her enthusiasm is obvious when she discusses her diving adventures. She animatedly imitates fish faces and points out the ones she has named, such as Smiley, a shark she swears smiled at her while her camera was catching him.

    Born in Dublin, Ireland, Ms. Whiston moved to New York in 1972. She developed her fear of sharks after watching Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws,” a memorable film that came to her mind the first time a shark turned around and swam back toward her, on her 50th dive.

    “It’s all I thought about; that first scene when the girl gets attacked by the great white,” Ms. Whiston said. “It turned around and came right toward me. I started hyperventilating; I thought I was going to die. I figured it was up to God. If I was going to die, I just wanted it to happen fast.”

    To control herself, she placed her hand on a piece of coral on the sea floor to steady her body and stayed as still as possible while practicing controlled breathing. The shark breezed right past her.

    “They have no interest in us. We’re the predators. The worst thing I have to worry about is getting hit with a fin,” she said, noting that there are 800 species of sharks, only 8 of which might be aggressive.

    Her diving interest has taken her all over the world, including to the Galapagos Islands, Hawaii, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, and Australia. Asked if she had a favorite spot, she couldn’t come up with one. “Maldives is amazing. Thailand is untouchable, and Fiji is unbelievable,” she said.

    “It’s so natural being under the water; we should be able to breathe under there,” she said.

    Her photographs at the library are sharp, vivid, and colorful. In addition to sharks, there are pictures of lionfish, groupers, frogfish, stingrays, sea lions, turtles, kissing fish, clownfish, and lots of colorful coral, one piece of which, she pointed out, resembles a vase with flowers tumbling from it in a way that recalls a still-life painting.

    One of her pictures is of a creature in the Indian Ocean that has never been documented, according to officials there who are still researching whether the shrimp-type species was ever previously found. If not, then Ms. Whiston will receive the honor of naming it. She’s planning on calling it a nipple fish, since — well, go see the picture and you’ll see why the name is fitting.

    Ms. Whiston is a painter as well as an underwater photographer, and works from a studio at her house in Montauk. It’s where she framed all of the pictures in the current show.

    She gave the first of two presentations at the library last night. On Sunday she will give another, from 2:30 to 5 p.m. She is available for private discussion by appointment.

    The exhibit includes video footage of her dives and extreme close-ups with the fish. Her plan next is to try to incorporate her photographs into a children’s book. She is also getting in touch with local restaurant owners to see if they would like to stream the video in their establishments.