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The Art Scene: 05.15.14

A visitor contemplated a painting at Plein Air Peconic’s exhibition last weekend at Ashawagh Hall in Springs.
A visitor contemplated a painting at Plein Air Peconic’s exhibition last weekend at Ashawagh Hall in Springs.
Durell Godfrey
Local art news
By
Mark Segal

New at Ille Arts

    An exhibition of paintings and drawings by Virva Hinnemo will open Saturday at Ille Arts in Amagansett, with a 6 to 8 p.m. reception, and remain on view through June 2. Ms. Hinnemo, who was born in Helsinki, Finland, and now lives in Springs, has exhibited widely and was selected by David Salle for the Parrish Art Museum’s “Artists Choose Artists” show in 2013.

    Early in her career Ms. Hinnemo worked from life. Her work is now abstract, even if, as she has said, “I still feel that strong connection to all things real.” She starts a painting with a bright, colorful palette, but as she builds them up, with wide, flowing brushstrokes, “I find myself watching the entire surface go gray, brown, or mud.”

Early Youngerman

    The Washburn Gallery in New York City is showing paintings from the 1950s and 1960s by Jack Youngerman, today through June 27. Mr. Youngerman, who lives and works in Bridgehampton, has been one of the world’s leading abstract artists for six decades.

    His first solo exhibition in the city was in 1958, at the Betty Parsons Gallery. A year later he was included in the landmark Museum of Modern Art exhibition “Sixteen Americans.”

    The Washburn show concentrates on the early abstract paintings, which have lost none of their vitality. An opening reception will be held today from 6 to 8 p.m.

Photographs at Olko

    A retrospective exhibition of photographs by Victor Friedman will open today at Monika Olko Gallery in Sag Harbor and remain on view through June 5. A photographer for more than 50 years, Mr. Friedman is represented in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Brooklyn Museum, and the Museum of the City of New York, and his work has been published and exhibited widely.

    His photographs range from documentary images of New York street scenes to figures portrayed through a Cubist lens to stark landscapes of Nova Scotia.

    A reception will take place May 24 from 5 to 8 p.m.

Water Mill Museum Opens

    The Water Mill Museum will open for the season next Thursday with its 22nd annual members’ art show and two new exhibits focused on Water Mill history. The hamlet’s post office is the subject of one of them, featuring posters, news clippings, stories, and postcards from the 1800s to the present.

    Another new initiative is a short video that documents the other installations on the museum’s second floor. Because that floor is not accessible to all, the video will be shown on the first floor, enabling everybody to have access to the exhibit’s content, which includes the agricultural history of the region, fishing and whaling, and the mills of Water Mill.

    An opening party and reception for artist members will be held on May 31 from 5 to 7 p.m.

A Duryea Returns

    Outeast Gallery in Montauk will host a show of work by Lynn Duryea from Saturday through June 3, including one large and 24 small sculptures, as well as photographs. Ms. Duryea, who grew up in Montauk, now divides her time between Boone, N.C., where she is a professor of art at Appalachian State University, and Deer Isle, Me.

    Her sculpture features elemental shapes and forms suggestive of large-scale industrial objects and architectural elements. According to the artist, “Through a vocabulary of form of softened geometry, I investigate subtlety and nuance, and the method and manner of connection.” Her photographs also focus on forms and surfaces that have interested her during her travels.

    An opening reception will take place Saturday from 6 to 10 p.m.

Musnicki in Brooklyn

    Jill Musnicki, an artist from Sag Harbor, will preview “Eothen: A Year at Warhol Preserve,” a work-in-progress, at Brooklynphoto One Night Only Art, a monthly series presenting emerging and established artists for a single evening, tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m.

    In 2012, as part of the Parrish Art Museum’s “Road Show,” Ms. Musnicki presented a multi-channel video projection of images captured by remote cameras placed in various East End locations. For “Eothen,” she placed five cameras on the Warhol Preserve in Montauk, for which the Nature Conservancy is caretaker, in August 2013. She moves them around the property, collecting images from different perspectives.

    While the ultimate goal is four simultaneous projections — one for each season — Brooklynphoto, which had approached her to do a show, will present at least two. Another preview will take place at a Nature Conservancy event on June 28.

    Brooklynphoto is at 39 Ainslie Street in Williamsburg.

Rossa Cole Solo

    Dodds and Eder in Sag Harbor will host a solo show of work by Rossa Cole from today through June 23, with a reception scheduled for May 31 from 5 to 7 p.m. Mr. Cole, who lives in Sag Harbor and Brooklyn and was included in last year’s “Artists Choose Artists” exhibition at the Parrish Art Museum, creates art from discarded materials found in nature.

    The exhibition includes sculptures, made from twigs gathered in his backyard, of Asian longhorn beetles, destructive tree insects accidentally introduced to Long Island in the 1990s. A flock of soaring seagulls, made of interwoven six-pack plastic rings and fishing wire, expresses man’s ability to do inadvertent harm. According to the gallery, Mr. Cole “explores conditions problematic to the environment and he threads a moral conscience establishing a message or metaphor.”

Five at Ashawagh

    Abstract universes are the theme of a group show that will be on view at Ashawagh Hall in Springs from tomorrow through Sunday. Curated by Elisabeth Hagen, the exhibition will include work by Josephine DeFrancis, Robert Rhee, Kate Sharkey, John Zuleta, and Ms. Hagen, all of whom live and work in New York City.

    Four of the artists are painters whose styles range from Abstract Expressionism to Surrealism to Color Field. Mr. Rhee, a sculptor, creates abstractly functional objects. All the works are inspired by everyday items and landscapes, with an occasional foray into fantasy.

    A reception will take place tomorrow from 6 to 9 p.m.

 

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