The Art Scene 10.06.11
More Plein Air at Ashawagh
Springs residents and other gallery followers can again take in plein-air paintings by South Fork artists at Ashawagh Hall, this time from the Plein Air Peconic group, which is associated with the Peconic Land Trust. The show begins tomorrow.
Plein-air painting is art inspired by direct observation of a landscape, in this case farmland, salt marshes, beaches, and other places, many of which have been preserved through the efforts of the Peconic Land Trust. Plein Air Peconic, which also includes photographers, is made up of Casey Chalem Anderson, Susan D’Alessio, Aubrey Grainger, Gail Kern, Michele Margit, Gordon Matheson, Joanne Rosko, Eileen Dawn Skretch, Tom Steele, Kathryn Szoka, and Ellen Watson.
The reception will be held on Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. There will also be a coffee talk with the artists on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The show will be up through Monday, and a portion of the sales will benefit the Peconic Land Trust. A selection of smaller, moderately priced works will also be part of the exhibit.
“On Loop” at Halsey McKay
The Halsey McKay Gallery in East Hampton will show Arielle Falk’s video installation “On Loop” beginning Saturday with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m.
According to the gallery, the installation is inspired by a childhood memory reinterpreted through the lens of Jacques Lacan’s concept of “objet petit a,” defined by Lacan as “any object that sets desire in motion.” Yet, it is also an object that can never be obtained.
For Ms. Falk, it is the idea of chasing as an end in itself, as in a childhood game she recalled playing in which she chased a friend around a tree. The game to her is a “perfect metaphor for the fact that we, as humans, go through our lives searching for a chimerical something (objet petit a) and are forever wrapped up in endless loops of desire.”
There are two videos in the installation. One recaptures the spirit of the chase game and the other shows the artist capturing the images for the first video, circling the tree over and over again.
Ms. Falk was born in Washington, D.C., and now lives in Brooklyn. She has had a performance piece in Union Square in Manhattan and has shown her work internationally.
Temple Gallery Opens
Temple Adas Israel in Sag Harbor will exhibit Annette Heller’s Kabbalah series of paintings starting Sunday with a reception from 3 to 5 p.m. Ms. Heller, an Abstract Expressionist artist from East Hampton, has made 10 mixed-media canvases to represent the 10 symbols of the mystical philosophy based in the Jewish tradition.
The new gallery space at the temple will be devoted to art with Jewish and biblical themes or work by Jewish artists who were inspired by Jewish, religious, or secular themes, a release said. In addition to Ms. Heller, three other artists will have work in the show.
East Hamptoners at Findlay
The David Findlay Jr. Gallery in Manhattan is showing work by South Fork artists during the month of October.
They are Herman Cherry, John Ferren, Ibram Lassaw, Kyle Morris, John Opper, Alfonso Ossorio, Philip Pavia, Robert Richenburg, and David Slivka, who found their way to the South Fork as much for the community of artists already here as for the beauty of the landscape. As abstract painters they took elements of their experiences and communicated them as discrete parts or a blurred whole.
In an essay for the brochure, Helen Harrison, the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in Springs, wrote, “For these painters and sculptors, the unifying creative principle was a devotion to subjective expression.”
The exhibit is on view through Oct. 22 at 724 Fifth Avenue and 57th Street.