The Art Scene: 10.02.14
Crazy Monkey in Transit
The Crazy Monkey Gallery, located in Amagansett for 14 years, is in the process of relocating to a larger space on Main Street in Bridgehampton.
New at Halsey Mckay
Solo exhibitions of work by Augustus Nazzaro and Timothy Bergstrom are on view at the Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton through Oct. 20. Mr. Nazzaro layers and sands black acrylic on wood to blur the line between representation and abstraction. For his images, which slowly appear from the haze of the paintings, the artist sources “redacted documents from covert operations, spying by the N.S.A., September 11th, the rise in gun violence and school shootings.”
Mr. Bergstrom’s exhibition, “Moon Milk: Part I,” takes its title from a reference in an Italo Calvino short story to a mythical muck fermenting on the moon. The paintings, which are meant to be explored up close, are filled with screws, brushes, bottle caps, pastry tips, sandpaper, tape, and tissue, all held in place by thousands of viscous threads of acrylic paint. Like the surface of the moon, which is unaffected by wind or weather, Mr. Bergstrom’s canvases are built up layer by layer but never erased.
Two at Grenning
The Grenning Gallery in Sag Harbor will present retrospective exhibitions of paintings by James Del Grosso and Dennis Ramsay from Saturday through Nov. 2. A reception will take place Saturday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Mr. Del Grosso, who lived in Springs from 1986 until his death in 2013, focused in his paintings on the natural world, rendering objects with a delicate, classically trained hand. His ordinary subjects, among them a corkscrew, sparkplugs, Hershey Kisses, and lightbulbs, were painted at a scale and with a precision that lends them a surprising gravity.
Mr. Ramsay is represented by six meticulous still-life paintings that reflect his classical training in the ancient tempera grassa technique, which he learned while studying in Florence in the 1950s. Born in England, he taught in London and painted portraits of such notables as King Faisal of Iraq, Sir Winston Churchill, and, more recently, Prince Philip. He moved in 1986 to Australia, where he lived until his death in 2009.
“Cut Worlds” in Southampton
“Béatrice Coron: Cut Worlds,” an exhibition of the artist’s intricate papercuts, will be on view at the Southampton Arts Center through Nov. 2. The artist was born and raised in France, lived in Taiwan, Mexico, and Egypt, and has lived and worked in New York since 1984.
Ms. Coron stages narrative allegories in silhouette in her papercuts, books, and public art. She sees herself as a teller of “archetypal stories that transcend time and space.” While some of the works are intimate in scale, others are large, including one nine-foot-long piece of cut Tyvek. Her work is in the collections of museums, libraries, and educational institutions throughout the United States and abroad.
People and Animals
“People and Other Four-Legged Friends,” an exhibition of paintings by Dinah Maxwell Smith, will open Saturday at the Rogers Mansion of the Southampton Historic Museum with a reception at 3 p.m. and remain on view through Dec. 31.
Ms. Smith, who lives in Southampton, is inspired by both historic photographs and her own observations of people and animals that have frequented the East End over the years. Through a feel for gesture, stance, and happenstance, and a loose, painterly style, the artist captures fleeting moments of life by the sea.
On William Glackens
The Parrish Art Museum in Water Mill will present an illustrated lecture by Judith Dolkart about the lifelong friendship between William Glackens, the subject of the museum’s eponymous exhibition, and Albert C. Barnes, the noted collector, on Saturday at 11 a.m.
Glackens and Barnes met while attending high school in Philadelphia and reconnected in 1912 when Barnes, flush with a fortune, sent the artist to Paris with $20,000 to purchase works by Renoir and Sisley. Glackens returned with paintings by those artists, as well as by Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Picasso, among others. The result of their collaboration is the collection of the Barnes Foundation, housed in Philadelphia.
Now the director of the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, Mass., Ms. Dolkart previously served as chief curator and deputy director of art and archival collection at the Barnes Foundation. Tickets are $10, free for members, students, and children.
Denise Gale at Ille
Ille Arts in Amagansett will open a solo show of paintings by Denise Gale, a Springs artist, with a reception Saturday from 5 to 7 p.m. The exhibition will remain on view through Oct. 27.
Ms. Gale constructs her paintings with large swaths of color, drips, splashes, and aggressive lines. In her words, “I am always excited to create a painting that has discord. That is arrived at with gesture and color. All the things in life that cannot be explained, the abstract and the ephemeral, are what interest me.”
She lived and worked in Southern California before moving in 1980 to New York, where she had solo shows at the Painting Center and 55 Mercer. Since moving to Springs, she has exhibited regularly on the East End.