The Art Scene 08.04.08

Springs Invitational at 44

    The Springs Improvement Society Art Committee’s invitational exhibit will open this week with two events. The first, this evening from 4 to 7, is a preview benefit to honor the contributions to the society by Ernestine Lassaw, Jean Hoffmann, and Abby Abrams, with a $25 donation collected at the door. Also, art sales during the three-week show will benefit the society, Ashawagh Hall, and the society’s scholarships. The regular opening reception will be held tomorrow from 4 to 7 p.m.

    The show will include the work of about 110 artists, some of whom are represented year after year, others who have not exhibited at the show in quite some time, if ever. Artworks are limited in size to 25 by 25 inches. Esperanza Leon, the guest curator, said last week that there will be many sculptors represented. What each artist will bring is still mostly a surprise, even to her. “How is it going to hang? It’s overwhelming to think about,” she said.

    Some of the artists to be exhibited this year are Bill King, Connie Fox, Hans Van de Bovenkamp, Grant Haffner, Eunice Golden, Carl Scorza, Roy Nicholson, Dalton Portella, and Natalie Edgar. Other events during the show include Ashawagh Speaks, “an evening of poetry and performance,” for a $10 donation at the door next Thursday beginning at 7 p.m. A tour led by Ms. Leon will take place on Aug. 20 from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. The show is on view through Aug. 21.

Pollock-Krasner’s 15 Minutes

    The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs will present “15 Minutes: Homage to Andy Warhol” beginning today. The exhibit “in sight and sound” was organized and produced by Jeff Gordon and Path Soong. It includes artwork and recordings from artists, writers, and performers such as Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Ivan Karp, Billy Name, Ultra Violet, Lawrence Weiner, Carter Ratcliff, John Giorno, Vincent Freemont, Alexander Heinrici, Brigid Berlin, Christopher Makos, Yura Adams, Nat Finkelstein, Connie Beckley, Susan Breen, and the organizers.

    Artworks consist of 12-by-12-inch screen prints with an audio work related to Warhol and those in his orbit. Mr. Gordon, who knew Warhol, has produced recordings and prints by visual artists and poets for 25 years. Ms. Soong is an abstract painter. This is their third collaboration related to the Pollock-Krasner House. The exhibit will be on view through Oct. 29.

Hanging Out to Dry

    Guild Hall’s annual Clothesline Art Sale will take place on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Artists from the East End will have an opportunity to hang their work at the museum, in mediums such as sculpture, prints, collage, photography, and paintings, at affordable prices — all under $2,000, with many as little as $50.

    The event is 65 years old this year and attracts the discerning eyes of seasoned collectors as well as curiosity seekers and first-timers. Guild Hall shares the proceeds with the artists, each of whom takes home half of a piece’s sales price. The show brings in some 350 artists and more than 1,000 attendees and potential purchasers. Each year 500 to 800 pieces are sold.

    Participating artists have been asked to call Guild Hall to register, and artwork should be delivered today and tomorrow.

Williams, Bright and Dark

    Derek Buckner, Janet Jennings, and Ken Robbins will be featured in a new show at the Pamela Williams Gallery in Amagansett from Saturday until Sept. 5.

    “Of Dark and Bright” emphasizes the use of light and shadow by each of these artists, whether it is Mr. Buckner’s paintings of the South Fork and New York City, Ms. Jennings’s paintings of Gardiner’s Bay, or Mr. Robbins’s photographs of South Fork landscapes.

New at Halsey McKay

    Rachel Uffner will serve as the guest curator for the Halsey McKay Gallery’s first group exhibit in East Hampton, “The Idea of the Thing That It Isn’t.” The show includes art that defines itself by its foils or opposites, using contrast to offer a better understanding of given standards or traditional properties of art objects. Although some of the examples provoke just slight shifts in practiced perceptions, others can be more revolutionary in their challenge to the norm.

    The artists will include Michele Abeles, Martin Soto Climent, Jess Fuller, Tom Holmes, Anya Kielar, Pam Lins, Sam Moyer, Marlo Pascual, Sara Greenberger Rafferty, Roger White, and Amy Yao. The show opens tomorrow and will have a reception on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m.

Frank Stella at Vered

    Frank Stella’s wall sculptures will be on view at the Vered Gallery in East Hampton beginning on Saturday with a reception from 9 to 11 p.m. The gallery’s “Modern Masters” show will remain on view in Gallery II.

    Mr. Stella is known for his early minimalist paintings that evolved into three-dimensional cutout works. His paintings have become more sculptural with time. The works in this show are inspired by Neolithic archaeological sites in ancient Anatolia in Turkey. According to the artist, “a sculpture is just a painting cut out and stood up somewhere.”

    The modern masters exhibited include Milton Avery, Willem de Kooning, Barbara Kruger, Robert Mapplethorpe, Jules Olitski, Man Ray, Wayne Thiebaud, Jack Tworkov, Amedeo Modigliani, Larry Rivers, and Andy Warhol. Both shows will remain on view through Aug. 30.

LongHouse Highlights Esherick

    Design aficionados should appreciate the opportunity to see a collection of Wharton Esherick pieces at the LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton through Oct. 8.

    Esherick has been called “the dean of American Craftsman,” after the style also known as the American Arts and Crafts movement. Five new publications about the artist, including a biography, have recently been issued. Pieces from the collection of LongHouse’s Jack Lenor Larsen as well as from the Wharton Esherick Museum in Paoli, Pa., will be in the exhibit.

    LongHouse’s collection is the most important one after the museum’s and includes tables from the 1940 New York World’s Fair, a monumental arch, a painted softwood bench, a music stand, and a Cubist mirror. Esherick was also an artist in woodblock prints, and some of these will also be displayed, along with his sculpture and other pieces from the museum.

On the Trail of Potters

    Five working ceramists will open their studios in East Hampton, Springs, and Sag Harbor on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Those participating in Sag Harbor are Nancy Robbins at 51 Round Pond Lane and Beverly Granger at 24 Soundview Drive. In East Hampton the studios are those of Karen Lissack at 85 Old Northwest Road and Phyllis Spiegel at 15 Springwood Way, and in Springs it’s Joel Kaplan’s at 28 Cedar Ridge Drive.

    Those who visit all five studios will receive a free gift. Details will be available at the first stop. The tour is free.

Hidden Nature at Sylvester

    Vivian Polak of East Hampton will exhibit a series of photographs in “Nature: Unseen” at Sylvester & Co. at Home in Amagansett beginning on Saturday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The artist said the work’s focus is on the beauty of nature that goes unnoticed or avoided — the underside of leaves, weeds, tree stumps, roots, and storm clouds. “There are many things in life that go unseen, ignored, or even disdained that, upon a fresh re-examination, can be found to be interesting and maybe even quite beautiful.” The show will be on view through Sept. 12.

Dalessio at Grenning

    Marc Dalessio’s “Recent Paintings” will be shown at the Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor beginning today with a reception on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The exhibit is anchored by two monumental landscape paintings. They will be joined by Sag Harbor scenes and works from the late spring, when Mr. Dalessio painted in Montalcino, Italy. The gallery has likened his style to that of a contemporary Hudson River School painter.

    The artist has a studio in Florence, Italy, where he paints portraits and other works, but he is also a devoted plein-air painter. Although he has explored a variety of international locations, he has been painting on the East End for 11 years.

    The works will remain on view through Aug. 21.

Two Parrish Talks

    Dorothea Rockburne, who is the subject of a retrospective exhibit at the Parrish Art Museum, will speak about her work on Saturday at 6 p.m. at the museum. Titled “Foundations,” her talk will cover the inspirations and motifs that lie at the heart of her work. These include mathematics, astronomy, and architecture, as well as ancient and Renaissance art.

    Next Thursday, Patricia Albers will speak about Joan Mitchell, one of the second generation of Abstract Expressionist painters who found their way to the South Fork during the 1950s. Ms. Albers is the author of a new biography of Mitchell, who was married to Barney Rosset Jr. of the Grove Press and known for knockout paintings that stood up to the rigorous, male-centric aesthetic of action painting.

    The lectures cost $10 each, free for members of the Southampton museum.

Licht Solo at Markel

    Beginning tomorrow, Kathryn Markel Fine Arts will show “Recent Still Lives” by Sydney Licht. Ms. Licht focuses on the overlooked objects one might encounter every day and makes them monumental. A candy box, a shopping bag, and other ho-hum containers are her subjects, and she transforms them by fashioning towering structures built from them and then painting the resulting colorful edifices.

    The artist lives and works in New York City and has exhibited in galleries around the country. She has recently completed a Yaddo residency and was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome.

    A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7:30 p.m. The show is on view through Aug. 22.

Ross Benefit at Valentine

    Gallery Valentine in East Hampton will hold a reception for the Ross School on Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. Tommy Mottola and Ryan Ross, who own the gallery, will host the free event. A portion of the evening’s sales will benefit the Ross School Chamberlain-Fairweather Scholarship Fund for the Arts. Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

    Art on view includes work by Pablo Picasso, Willem de Kooning, Hans Hofmann, Andy Warhol, Richard Prince, George Condo, Alex Katz, and Tom Wesselmann. Alexandra Fairweather, the director of the gallery and a Ross School graduate, created the Chamberlain-Fairweather Scholarship Fund with John Chamberlain and her mother, Prudence Fairweather, in 2006 to benefit students at Ross interested in the arts and in need of financial aid.

    Those who would like to attend the reception have been asked to respond to [email protected].

Botanical Art in Southampton

    “Garden to Field: An International Exhibition of Contemporary Botanical Art” is on view at the Southampton Cultural Center through Aug. 30 with a reception next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m.

    The show features more than 60 works by contemporary botanical artists organized by Ursus Prints in New York. The artists use various mediums, such as colored pencil on paper and watercolor on vellum, “to capture the essence of each specimen and generate a new perspective on traditional European nature studies,” according to the organizers. Images will include cultivated and uncultivated plants.

Calvert at Canio’s

    Rob Calvert, an artist who lives in Sag Harbor, has work on view at Canio’s Books in that village through the end of the month.

    Mr. Calvert works in a variety of mediums. His work is abstract and often brightly colored. “An important formal quality I seek is for a drawing or painting to be both something and nothing,” the artist said in a statement. “Parts recombine to create different wholes, scales, places to be, rest, feel, and reflect. The observer is grounded and adrift. Only then am I on the right track.” He studied at the Vermont Studio Center and Harvard. 

    Canio’s will also offer a photography workshop with Kathryn Szoka. In a four-week course, three weeks will be devoted to shooting in the field, with the fourth and final class focused on critique. A basic knowledge of the camera is required. Further information and