The South Fork and, more specifically, East Hampton have a long history of inspiring innovation in arts and letters.

     The current production of "RED" at the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall in East Hampton is an intense 90 minutes of thought-provoking discussion and banter revolving around the life and work of Mark Rothko. Victor Slezak embodies the role of the artist, articulating it with hair-trigger intensity and bellowing a late-career cri de coeur that is as wrenching as it is sometimes purposefully grating.

     Christian Scheider plays the role of Rothko’s studio assistant and subject to his insistent hectoring about the meaning and significance of art and artists.

Thursday night was the night to be in Bridgehampton. Long lines of cars snaked through the back roads and front roads around the Bridgehampton Museum and Nova's Ark where two annual art fairs have taken up residence for the next few days.

It was the opening night for both ArtHamptons and Art Market Hamptons and even those with black cards, VIP passes, or other bells and whistles on their forms of entry had a tough time negotiating parking.

Inside, however, all was lively and fun, as these photos of the Art Market Hamptons fair by Morgan McGivern demonstrate. 

An auction benefiting LongHouse Reserve is open for bidding now at Paddle 8.