The Art Scene: 08.09.12
Baby You Can Drive My Car
The Eric Firestone Gallery in East Hampton will show “Parts & Service,” a show dedicated to the “glory of the garage,” on Saturday beginning with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The theme is racing, motorcycle culture, mechanics, and other automotive concerns and fetishes. The show will include artifacts, photography, and mixed-media works with images of car wrecks, burning rubber, car designs, and pinups.
The artists are John Chamberlain, Pia Dehne, Nick Dine, Robert Lazzarini, Shelter Serra, Max Snow, Eric White, and Firooz Zahedi, among many others. The show will be on view through Sept. 2.
Lerma and Martinez
Beginning tomorrow, Halsey Mckay in East Hampton will show the work of Jose Lerma and Eddie Martinez. According to the gallery, “both artists use creative material approaches to painting and its history as the starting point for their practice.” All fictive, the works display the political histories of made-up nations and conflicts using the interaction of the denizens. Mr. Lerma has a linear and sinewy approach, whereas Mr. Martinez “scrapes and scratches the oils onto the picture plane in an exorcism of angst.”
This is the first showing of the artists’ work on the South Fork, and it will be on view through Aug. 29. A reception will be held on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Beres at Olko
The Monika Olko Gallery in Sag Harbor will show the paintings of James Beres beginning Saturday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Over the course of a 40-year career, the artist has had his work exhibited in museums such as the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Connecticut and the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan, as well as in galleries such as the David Whitney Gallery in New York and the one at the School of Visual Arts. He was discovered by Klaus Kertess, who had a long association with the Whitney Museum.
Mr. Beres describes his abstract work as “images floating off the surface, at the same time reinforcing the flatness through the negative space.”
Photography by Berman
The Youngblood Gallery in Sag Harbor will show the photographs of Fern Berman beginning Saturday and running through Aug. 25. Ms. Berman, who lives in Connecticut and East Hampton, prints her images on watercolor paper. While the images she captures are realistic, she focuses on close-up details that make the photographs seem more abstract. Her work has been collected by Wesleyan University and the New Britain Museum of Art.
“Convergence” Emerges
Those who missed Christopher Engel’s paintings at Hampton Hang in Water Mill can see his work at Romany Kramoris in Sag Harbor beginning today. A reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m.
“Convergence” is a selection of his recent works with an ancestral theme. “There are points in life when all lines come together,” Mr. Engel said. “They converge. There is an alignment of thoughts and ideas.” In the paintings, figures may mix with Byzantine angels, and shamanistic figures play with toys and the spirit world, or they may refer to Matisse or other artists. The work is on view through Aug. 30.
Davis at Marcelle
Beginning on Saturday, the Peter Marcelle Gallery in Bridgehampton will present paintings by Lisa Corinne Davis with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Her oil-on-wood-panel works suggest an underlying graph or map-like structure that appears to be obliterated by the application of painted elements on top of it. Other times it appears to dissolve as the surface liquefies in saturated colors, some that look like blood, bile, or other vital fluids. The compositions integrate geometric and expressionistic abstraction, breaking down one and solidifying the other.
Her work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and has been exhibited and reviewed widely. An associate professor at Hunter College in New York, she has taught art at the Parsons School of Design, the Cooper Union School of Art, and Yale University. The show will be on view through Aug. 23.
Diaspora Vibe 2.0
The Southampton Cultural Center will show “Diaspora Vibe 2.0,” featuring the work of more than 30 artists from the Latin American and Caribbean diaspora. A benefit reception and party on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. will honor Grace Y. Ingelton, an artist advocate. She will receive the 365 Art for Change Award for supporting several generations of outstanding artists through the organization she helped found, the Dedicators. Among those artists are Romare Bearden, Lois Mailou Jones, Benny Andrews, and Roy DeCarava.
The mediums of painting, photography, installation, mixed media, metal works, wood carvings, printmaking, textiles, and miniature drawings on handmade paper are part of the show. According to the organizers, the works on view will “express the daily struggles, triumphs, and spiritual journeys of many of the artists exhibited.” Tickets to the party cost $125 and can be purchased online at globalartsmediainc.com. The exhibit runs through Aug. 26.
On the Pottery Trail
Five ceramicists in East Hampton, Springs, and Sag Harbor will hold a studio tour and sale on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The East Hampton studios belong to Phyllis Spiegel at 15 Springwood Way and Karen Lissack at 85 Old Northwest Road, and the Springs studio is Joel Kaplan’s at 28 Cedar Ridge Drive. The Sag Harbor potters are Beverly Granger at 24 Soundview Drive and Nancy Robbins at 51 Round Pond Lane. Those who visit all five studios will receive a free gift.
Franklin and Sobel
The Crazy Monkey Gallery in Amagansett will show Anna Franklin’s flower paintings and Cynthia Sobel’s abstract paintings in a show opening today. A reception will be held Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. Other artists on view in a separate group show will be Andrea McCafferty, Daniel Schoenheimer, Jana Hayden, Wilhelmina Howe, Lance Corey, Bob Tucker, Sheila Rotner, and Diane Marxe.
Ms. Franklin’s series is called “ Incandescence,” to mark summer and its bounty of colorful and fragrant flowers and memories of her childhood in Italy. Ms. Sobel’s new paintings are abstract memories of the island of Capri and Gardiner’s Bay. She will also show impressionistic plein-air watercolors from both places. The exhibition is on view through Aug. 27.
Watermill Open House
The Watermill Center will open its doors to the public on Sunday from 3 to 6 p.m. In addition to tours of the grounds, on view will be a Mike Kelley video display and installations put together for the center’s annual benefit, which this year is called the Big Bang. Artists who have been participating in the center’s summer residency program will be on hand to speak about their work. The event is free.
Lola Schnabel at Tripoli
“Night Vision,” a solo show of work by Lola Montes Schnabel, will open next week at the Tripoli Gallery of Contemporary Art in Southampton. A reception will be held next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m.
The show will feature 13 new paintings that resulted from the artist’s experiments painting with a single candle burning in an otherwise dark room. The focus is on the burning wick and the properties of the flame. The series is about constraints — in subject, light, and a limited palette of black, gold, and white. It will be on view through Sept. 13.