The Art Scene 08.18.11

Pollock’s Politics

    Michael Leja will discuss Jackson Pollock’s political views on Sunday at the Fireplace Project, a gallery space across Springs-Fireplace  Road from the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs.

    The illustrated lecture, “The Pollock Brothers and the Politics of Art in the 1930s,” is based on Mr. Leja’s recent book about letters written by and to family members from 1927 to 1947. Three of five Pollock brothers became artists during the Depression years.

    Mr. Leja, a professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of “Reframing Abstract Expressionism: Subjectivity and Painting in the 1940s,” which won the Charles Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The 5 p.m. lecture costs $5 but is free for Pollock-Krasner members.

Montauk Artists on the Green

    This weekend marks the 17th annual juried exhibit of Montauk artists on the green at the entrance to the hamlet.

    The exhibit, from tomorrow through Sunday, will include hundreds of art works — paintings, sculptures, fabric art, jewelry, photography, and other mediums.

    Some 90 artists and artisans will participate. The show is sponsored by the Montauk Artist Association and admission is free. Hours are from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., closing at 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Keszler to Feature Banksy

    Banksy’s street works will be shown at the Southampton Village Power Plant at 200 North Sea Road on Saturday from 6 to 11 p.m.

    The works, acquired by the Keszler Gallery, are literally taken from the street, with the walls that the artist painted on brought into an exhibit setting, one that is large and strong enough to hold them. According to the gallery, some pieces weigh several tons. The show includes “Out of Bed Rat” from 2006, which was featured, as it was being created, in the movie “Exit Through the Gift Shop.”

    Banksy is an anonymous English graffiti artist, active since the 1990s. This is the second show the gallery has devoted exclusively to his work, which is often political and humorous. He has been executing “subverted art attacks” since 2003, hanging his works next to prominent pieces in the collections of the world’s most famous museums.

Nightingale Presents Two

    Eric Dever and Alexis Martino will have shows at the Sara Nightingale Gallery in Water Mill through Sept. 12, with an opening reception on Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m.

    Mr. Dever uses a palette knife and a flat bristle brush to apply different compositions of black and white. “I work on linen, burlap, and canvas, sized or gessoed, all manifesting grades of absorbency and viscosity,” he has said.

   “My four-year investigation into the limits of titanium and zinc whites, and ivory black, has given me a sense of mixing light itself with paint.”

    The artist will exhibit his work in Paris in September.

    Ms. Martino will show “Wait,” a series of large-scale photographs of mostly single subjects, that almost appear to be film stills. According to the gallery, “A sense of unease underneath the beautiful polished surfaces provides these miniature, self-contained  dramas with a sense of longing and anticipation.” The artist lives and works on Shelter Island, using her students as models.

People, Places, and Dreams

    The Delaney Cooke Gallery in Sag Harbor will show “People, Places, and Dreams” from Friday through Tuesday. The show includes work by three Long Island artists who have explored the literal and figurative aspects of travel.

    Beryl Bernay, a photojournalist, will exhibit color and black-and-white photographs and collages representative of the many different villages and peoples she has encountered, including a visit to Bali with Margaret Mead.

    Ann Brandeis will show a photo-essay, “Drawn and Painted,” presenting individuals and couples who choose to use their bodies as a personal canvas. The images are sepia-toned and printed on a fine Japanese Kozo paper to make the tattoos look more subtle. The photographer

    Guy Pierno will exhibit images from his latest work, “California 101,” from Big Sur through Point Reyes.

    Saturday’s opening reception, beginning at 5 p.m., will include music from many cultures.

Drawings by Scarlett at Kalaher

    The Arthur Kalaher Galleries in Southampton and Sag Harbor are featuring drawings by Rolph Scarlett, an early abstractionist from Canada.

    The artist, who died in 1984, was a favorite of Hilla Rebay, whose museum of nonobjective painting became the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The artist was also a designer of stage sets, industrial products, and jewelry. He exhibited alongside early 20th-century European painters such as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and Rudolf Bauer, producing both realist and abstract compositions. He is best known, however, for abstract geometrical works.

    The Guggenheim still owns almost 60 of Mr. Scarlett’s paintings and monoprints. His work is also in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

Watermill to Shelter Island

    Tomorrow at 6 p.m., at Sylvestor Manor on Shelter Island, Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center will present a work designed by participants in the center’s international summer program.

    The design of the work, called “Shelter,” is the result of a collaboration between the artists of Watermill and the staff of Sylvester Manor, who have carved out several “rooms” from the landscape, in which the artists’ performances will take place.

    This is the fourth such cooperative project between an East End institution and the Watermill International Summer Program. Past collaborators have included The Bridge golf club in Bridgehampton and East Hampton’s Guild Hall.

    Refreshments will be provided by Sunset Beach. Reservations, which are required, can be made through sylvester manor.eventbrite.com.