The Art Scene: 09.10.15
Asis and Nivola
At Drawing Room
The Drawing Room in East Hampton will present concurrent solo exhibitions of work by Antonio Asis and Costantino Nivola from Saturday through Oct. 26.
“Cercles Concentriques” will illuminate Mr. Asis’s lifelong study of the relationships between light, color, movement, and sensory illusion. Born in Buenos Aires in 1932, he moved to Paris in 1956 and became part of the international community of kinetic and optical artists. The exhibition focuses on his small gouache compositions of concentric rings of dilating electric colors, made between 1961 and 2011, which reflect his scientific mind and precise hand.
“Early Concretes” will present rare sculptures and wall reliefs by Nivola that highlight his distinctive vision. Made between 1950 and 1982, the sculptures on view include 11 faceted abstract figures and two unique bas-reliefs, as well as a maquette related to the large mural commissioned by the Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis in 1963. The immediacy of his gestural sculpting in plaster or wet concrete is reflected in the work in this exhibition.
Gornik at Pace Prints
An exhibition of prints and monoprints by the North Haven artist April Gornik will open today at Pace Prints in Manhattan and continue through Oct. 10.
The show will feature her newest edition, “Desert Light,” inspired by her travels in Namibia, which she created with the Pace Editions Workshop using soft ground etching, aquatint, and spit bite aquatint to capture the light of a desert landscape.
Art Talks in Amagansett
“Art/History/Amagansett,” a new programming initiative of the Amagansett Library, will present free hourlong conversations focused on the art and artists of Amagansett and Springs in September and early October.
The series will launch Saturday at 6 p.m. with “Gossip Girls: Pollock and Krasner’s Biographers Tell All,” a conversation between Gail Levin, author of “Lee Krasner,” and Helen Harrison, director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, whose monograph “Jackson Pollock” was published in 2014.
On successive Saturdays at 6, gallery directors Sara De Luca of Ille Arts in Amagansett and Eric Brown of Manhattan’s Tibor de Nagy will discuss emerging artists and the art markets (Sept. 19); Christopher Kohan, president of the Art Barge, and Nicole Bigar and Michael Rosch, artists and trustees, will examine the development of that institution (Sept. 26), and John Alexander, a world-renowned painter who lives in Amagansett, will discuss how the East End has inspired his art (Oct. 3).
“The Business of Art: 10 Things You Should Know,” a talk by Carol Steinberg, a New York attorney who represents artists, will take place on Sept. 27, a Sunday, at 6.
At the Whaling Museum
“Our Town,” an exhibition of paintings by Barbara Hadden and Michael Butler, both self-taught artists, will open tomorrow at the Sag Harbor Whaling Museum and remain on view through Oct. 15. A reception will be held Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m.
A Sag Harbor resident, Ms. Hadden began painting in acrylic and ink in the late 1970s and has since moved to watercolor and oils. Many of her images are of the villages and landscapes of the East End.
Mr. Butler, a summer resident of Sag Harbor, works in acrylic on canvas in a style that has been described as naive or primitive. He prefers the terms “intuitive” or “narrative.”
“Our Town” is the second exhibition of a two-part series that is part of the 375th Anniversary of Southampton Town.
New at Peter Marcelle
“Michael Viera: New Paintings” will open at Peter Marcelle Project in Southampton on Saturday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. and continue through Sept. 20.
Mr. Viera paints unpopulated landscapes that seem still and pristine while at the same time suggesting something less benign lurking behind that serenity. His figures, too, seem to be part of a narrative withheld from the viewer and to provoke curiosity without satisfying it.
Meola Chases Rough Weather
“Storm Chaser,” an exhibition of photographs by Eric Meola, is on view now through Sept. 26 at the Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in Manhattan.
Three years ago, in order to “see if there was another visual side to the gray, rain-wrapped funnels that wreak havoc,” Mr. Meola, who lives in Sagaponack, joined a group of storm chasers who travel the Great Plains during tornado season. His large-scale photographs capture both the fury and the ephemeral beauty of tornadoes, storms, and slow-moving supercells that erupt each spring.
Hamada Paintings in Chelsea
Hiroyuki Hamada, who lives and works in East Hampton, will have a solo exhibition of paintings from today through Oct. 17 at Lori Bookstein Fine Art in Chelsea. A reception will be held this evening from 6 to 8.
Well known for his sculpture, Mr. Hamada has done preliminary drawings for years but only recently returned to painting. Marked by the same level of craftsmanship as his sculpture, the paintings are executed, with one exception, in a gray-scale that uses a mixture of acrylic, charcoal, enamel, graphite, and oil similar to that employed to polychrome his sculpture.
Photographic Self Portraits
“Me: Photographic Self Portraits,” a group exhibition at Ricco Maresca Gallery in Chelsea that will open next Thursday and run through Oct. 31, will include work by the East End artists Sara Salaway and Bastienne Schmidt.
The show will include both contemporary and vintage works by Vito Acconci, Weegee, Berenice Abbott, Imogen Cunningham, and Constantin Brancusi, among many others, as well as 144 Photomatics, or photo booth snapshots. A reception will take place next Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Four at Ashawagh
“No Common Denominator,” a show of four East End artists working in a variety of mediums, will be on view at Ashawagh Hall in Springs Saturday and Sunday. A reception will happen Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m., and the gallery will open at 10 a.m. both days.
The exhibition will include flower paintings by Adrienne Mim, soft sculpture by Gary Schatmeyer, mosaic sculpture by Marcie Honerkamp, and watercolors by K. Ivy.