The Art Scene 05.17.18

Art Barge Reopens

The Victor D’Amico Institute of Art on Napeague, which comprises the Art Barge and the D’Amico Studio and Archive, will open for the season on Saturday from 2 to 6 p.m. with receptions for two exhibitions.

“Sea, Sky, and Sculpture: An Integration of Art, Architecture, and Landscape,” will feature outdoor sculpture by Mabel D’Amico, Phyllis Hammond, Marcie Honerkamp, Ruby Jackson, Jim Posner, Michael Rosch, Arden Scott, Claire Watson, and Marianne Weil. Organized by Anne Seelbach, a Sag Harbor artist, the show will occupy the grounds of the studio and archive at 128 Shore Road on Lazy Point through Sept. 22.

The gallery at the Art Barge off Napeague Meadow Road will present “Promised Land Remembered,” an exhibition focused on the menhaden fishing industry and the significance of Promised Land, the area on Gardiner’s Bay just west of Lazy Point.

Co-organized with Rachel Gruzen, an environmental planner, the show will include photographs, documents, stories, and a selection of works on paper by Mabel D’Amico dating from the 1940s through the 1960s. It will run through June 23.

Classes will begin at the Art Barge on June 4 and continue through Sept. 28. The Artists Speak series of artists’ talks will feature Judith Hudson on June 13 and continue with Eunice Golden, Audrey Flack, and Peter Spacek on dates to be announced. Details on classes, exhibitions, and other events can be found at theartbarge.org.

Sullivan at Rental

“Love Letters,” a solo exhibition of paintings and drawings by Billy Sullivan, will be on view at the Rental Gallery in East Hampton from Saturday through June 17. A reception will be held on May 26 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Drawing on a large archive of personal photographs, Mr. Sullivan has long captured the people around him, including friends, artists, writers, and models, often in fleeting instants of leisure or contemplation. 

“All my pictures are about being in the moment,” he has said, although some of those moments took place years ago, as in a candid portrait of the late choreographer Trisha Brown, reworked from an image from 1982.

New at Halsey McKay

The Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton will open “Converter,” a group exhibition, and “Necromancer,” a solo show of work by Ryan Steadman, with a reception on Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m. The shows will continue through June 24.

“Converter” brings together the work of seven artists who incorporate specific everyday objects from outside the studio, among them discarded masonry, bones, surveillance imagery, sea glass, and potato chips.

Mr. Steadman will present a wall installation of abstractions based on books. Drawing upon a range of sources, from rare Bauhaus designs to New Wave-inspired publications, the life-size works employ a wide variety of painting techniques.

Ashawagh Retrospective

A retrospective exhibition of paintings by James Joseph DeMartis, assembled by his children Bruno, Barbara, and James, a sculptor from East Hampton, will be on view at Ashawagh Hall in Springs from tomorrow through Sunday, with a reception set for Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.

DeMartis studied at the Art Students League, the California School of Fine Arts, and, from 1950 to 1954, in Florence, Italy, where he developed a style reminiscent of Rouault and the Expressionists. His work of the 1960s and 1970s included impressionistic and lighter-toned treatments of the Maine landscape, while his final period blended romantic realism with Abstract Expressionism.

Strong-Cuevas Talk

Elizabeth Strong-Cuevas, who is known for her monumental sculptures in fabricated metal, cast bronze, and stainless steel, will be interviewed by Jeffrey Sussman, an author, on Saturday afternoon at 2 at the East Hampton Library. The interview will focus on her new book, “Strong-Cuevas Drawings: Ideas on Paper,” just published by Abrams.

Kurita at Ille Arts

A solo exhibition of new photographs by Koichiro Kurita will open at Ille Arts in Amagansett with a reception Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. and remain on view through June 18.

Originally a commercial photographer in Japan, Mr. Kurita turned to fine art photography in 1990 and moved to New York in 1993. His large black-and-white platinum prints focus on the elements of nature, of which he has said, “The smallest things, or seemingly most insignificant phenomena, have their reason and their role.” 

Hudson at Tripoli

“Under the Covers,” an exhibition of new paintings by Judith Hudson, will open at the Tripoli Gallery in Southampton with a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through June 18.

Inspired by an Ovid poem about the bedroom as a refuge for intimacy, the show includes wallpapers that evoke Rorschach tests, plush rugs marked with drips and washes of vibrant color, and paintings on paper that depict anonymous sleepers all but concealed by the tossed, rumpled bedding.

Four at White Room

“Positive Space,” an exhibition of work by Cindy Press, Alicia Gitlitz, Serge Strosberg and David Mandel, and Seek One, is on view at the White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton through May 28. A reception will be held on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

A former fashion designer, Ms. Press creates paintings and drawings of women inspired by images clipped from magazines. Ms. Gitlitz works in a variety of styles, including both traditional and abstract impressionism.

Mr. Strosberg and Mr. Mandel fuse the visual language of Flemish and German portraiture with fantasy jewelry and fabric design. A former street artist, Seek One combines photography and graffiti on canvases that take their cue from Andy Warhol’s processes.

Art for the Retreat

The RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton will present “Fresh Start Collective,” a juried exhibition for the benefit of the Retreat, a nonprofit agency that provides domestic violence and sexual assault services on eastern Long Island, from Saturday through June 4. A reception will take place on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

The show will include work by 18 artists from throughout the United States and abroad chosen by Richard Demato, the gallery’s owner, and Margaret Bowland, an artist, from more than 70 submissions.

Two at Grenning

Recent work by Stephen Bauman and Carl Bretzke will be on view at the Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor from Saturday through June 17, with a reception set for Saturday evening from 6 to 7:30.

A gifted draftsman, Mr. Bauman will be represented by expressive figurative drawings as well as oil paintings that reflect his classical training. Mr. Bretzke is drawn to landscapes and cities, often painted at night, whose quiet familiarity has drawn comparisons to the work of Hopper and the Ashcan School.

‘Art in Focus’

“Art in Focus,” a series of three talks co-presented by the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center and the Stony Brook Southampton Library, will kick off on Tuesday evening at 7 with a lecture at the library by Katy Siegel, an art historian and curator, on the late artist Jack Whitten.

Ms. Siegel’s focus will be on the abstract painter’s previously unknown sculpture, which is the subject of an exhibition at the Baltimore Museum of Art that will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art this fall.

Future lectures will cover Jackson Pollock’s mural for Peggy Guggenheim (June 5) and “Rodin in Asia” (June 19).

Keyes Art’s New Space

Julie Keyes, a veteran curator, art dealer, and consultant, has opened a new space at 53 the Circle in East Hampton. “Hello!” is the title of the inaugural show, and it will open with a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through June 2.

On view will be work by Bert Stern, Bill Claps, Nathan Slate Joseph, Darius Yektai, Ned Smyth, April Gornik, Larry Rivers, John Chamberlain, and Willem de Kooning.