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The Art Scene: 08.08.19

Tue, 08/06/2019 - 11:50

Mym Tuma at Janet Lehr

A solo exhibition of work by Mym Tuma will open at Janet Lehr Fine Arts in East Hampton with a reception Friday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. It will remain on view through Aug. 30.

Ms. Tuma, who lives in Center Moriches, has focused on the simplicity and beauty of the organic form throughout her five-decade career. That focus emerged in part through her relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe, who was her mentor from 1964 to 1973. In addition to landscape and flower paintings, Ms. Tuma has also created a series of “sculptured paintings,” undulating epoxy forms whose contours are coated with layered colors.

Nivola at Drawing Room

An exhibition of graffiti, sculpture, drawings, and prints by Costantino Nivola, many of them never before shown, will open Friday at the Drawing Room in East Hampton and continue through Sept. 9.

The core of the exhibition will be sculpture, in marble, bronze, and concrete, from 1962 to 1982, his most prolific years. The graphic works add breadth and context, helping highlight the artist’s passion for experimentation, the strength of his graphic sensibility, and the lyricism he achieves across mediums.

Art About the Beach

The Amagansett Life-Saving Station Museum will present “The Beach,” a group exhibition organized by Scott Bluedorn, from Saturday through Sept. 15. A reception will be held Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m.

Mr. Bluedorn said in a statement, “Beyond a landscape, the beach is a cultural mind-set that represents escape, leisure, entertainment, even vice.” Participating artists include Amanda Church, Peter Dayton, Idoline Duke, Terry Elkins, Erica-Lynn Huberty, Janet Jennings, Jane Martin, Peter Spacek, and Mr. Bluedorn, among many others.

Fifty percent of proceeds from sales will go to the lifesaving station.

Artists Speak

“Collaborations,” this summer’s Artists Speak series at the Art Barge on Napeague, will conclude Wednesday with a conversation between Maira Kalman, a writer and illustrator, and her son, Alex Kalman, a designer, creative director, and inventor.

Together they created “Sara Berman’s Closet,” an installation that was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for nine months and is now on view at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

Beach Painting

The Elaine de Kooning House, the former residence of the painter and now a venue for events, exhibitions, and artists’ residencies, will hold its annual Beach Painting Club on Saturday afternoon from 1:30 to 4:30 at Sammy’s Beach in East Hampton.

This year’s event will be hosted by the painter Keith Mayerson, a resident artist, and be followed by a reception at the house, which is located in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods.

New Montauk Gallery

BCK Fine Arts, a new gallery on South Euclid Avenue in Montauk, will present “Open Table,” a show of food-focused still life paintings, from Saturday through Aug. 26, with a reception set for Saturday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Bruce Lieberman will show paintings containing personal symbolism, visual jokes, and metaphors, among them “Melons, Clams, and Masaccio the Dog.” Lynn Kotula considers her colorful still life paintings “landscapes and dramas of my own devising.” The rhythmic interactions of forms in John Goodrich’s paintings are inspired in part by traditional painters, among them Giotto, Chardin, and Matisse.

Four at Harper’s Books

“Quartet,” a show of paintings by Ellen Berkenblit, Amy Bessone, Brian Calvin, and Rob Thom, will open at Harper’s Books in East Hampton with a reception Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through Sept. 29.

Ms. Berkenblit’s paintings feature recurring figures such as a girlish witch with a pointed nose. Ms. Bessone resizes figures of women “at once titillating and tacky,” according to Bomb magazine. Mr. Calvin paints flat heads with exaggerated features, while working-class people at leisure are captured in Mr. Thom’s paintings.

Three at Ashawagh

“Three Roads Three Artists,” a show of work by Kirsten Benfield, Kurt Giehl, and Daniel Vernola, will be on view at Ashawagh Hall in Springs from Monday through next Thursday, when a closing reception will take place from 5 to 9 p.m.

Ms. Benfield has a particular interest in the landscape of the East End, rendered with an emphasis on texture, structure, and her memories. Mr. Giehl’s seascapes are intended to induce a state of tranquility, while Mr. Vernola works in the tradition of abstract expressionism.

Stern and Joseph at Keyes

“Colors,” an exhibition of works by Bert Stern and Nathan Slate Joseph, will open at the Keyes Gallery in Sag Harbor with a reception Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. It will remain on view through Sept. 9.

The show, organized by Shannah Laumeister Stern, will include limited editions of avant-garde serigraphs, lithographs, and silk screens made by her late husband during the 1960s.

Color is central to Mr. Joseph’s work, which ranges across mediums, including copper, steel, gold leaf, and found objects deployed in paintings, sculpture, and installations.

Many Mediums in Sag

“Synchronicity,” a group exhibition organized by Alexandra Hayden, a furniture designer, is on view at Chaos Theory Gallery in Sag Harbor through August. The show includes furniture by Mario Milana, Gerard Williams, the Campana brothers, and Wendell Castle; photographs by Daisy Johnson and Annie Shinn; surfboards by Steve Miller, and planters, vases, and objects by Bari Ziperstein.

Two Painters at Markel

New work by Josette Urso and Susan English will be on view at Kathryn Markel Fine Arts in Bridgehampton from Friday through Aug. 19. Ideas of space, boundaries, and perception form the core of Ms. English’s abstract paintings, the poured polymer surfaces of which harden like ice. Ms. Urso’s paintings are translations of the sensory experience of her immediate environment through the manipulation of paint.

Conversation at Parrish

Jacqueline Humphries’s site-specific installation at the Dia Foundation’s Dan Flavin Art Institute in Bridgehampton will be the subject of a discussion at the Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill Friday at 6 p.m. Jessica Morgan, director of the foundation, will moderate a conversation among Ms. Humphries, whose work explores the effects of ultraviolet light on pigments, and the artists Rachel Harrison and Charline von Heyl. Tickets are $12, free for students and Parrish and Dia members.

Surf Lodge Mural

Todd DiCiurcio, a multimedia artist and surfer, will be at the Surf Lodge in Montauk this week painting a large-scale mural that will reference surfing, eastern Long Island conspiracy theories, and Montauk’s history. On Sunday at 5 p.m., he will create live drawings of Donavon Frankenreiter, the evening’s first musical guest. The mural will be on view through next Thursday.

 


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