The Art Scene: 10.24.13

Miller at Four Seasons

    Steve Miller, an artist who divides his time between New York City and a renovated potato barn in Wainscott, created an installation at the Four Seasons one night last week. The “one-night stand with Philip Johnson,” the architect who designed the restaurant, consisted of work from his series about the Amazon entitled “Health of the Planet.”

    “The forests of the Amazon are the lungs of our planet,” Mr. Miller said. “This project gives Brazil a medical checkup by taking X-rays of the plants and animals of the Amazon.” Images from the series were projected on the ceiling of the bar and installed as light boxes and furniture around and in the pool.

    “When art and science intersect, it changes the context, beefs up the scale, and alters responses to imagery in unexpected ways. Images of the smallest of things become images you can get lost in,” the artist has said. Mr. Miller has exhibited worldwide, with recent solo shows in Rio de Janiero, Switzerland, and Washington, D.C.

John Gruen Interview

    Happen to be in Manhattan tonight? John Jonas Gruen, photographer and critic, and Deborah Rothschild, former senior curator of modern and contemporary art at the Williams College Museum of Art, will be there as well, to discuss life in the Hamptons during the mid-20th century.

    They will speak at 6:30 p.m. at the Susan Eley Fine Art gallery, 46 West 90th Street, in conjunction with Mr. Gruen’s current exhibition there, “Young in the Hamptons.” Mr. Gruen has been an integral part of the East End’s artistic community since the ’50s, and his photographs, especially those of artists, constitute a singular record of that time and place.

    In an e-mail announcing the talk, Mr. Gruen said, “I plan to tell all.”

Pollock-Krasner Symposium

    The Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center is sponsoring a daylong symposium at Stony Brook Manhattan on Nov. 8, for which advance registration is required.

     “Art From the Ground Up: The Protection of Cultural Heritage Through Connoisseurship, Conservation, and Authentication” will include five lectures, each of which will be followed by questions, with closing remarks by Patricia Cohen, an arts reporter for The New York Times. A reception will follow.

    During the morning session, Francis V. O’Connor, an independent scholar who has written extensively on Jackson Pollock, will discuss the role of the educated eye in determining authorship of artworks: connoisseurship as the first line of defense against forgery. James Hamm, professor of paintings conservation at Buffalo State College, will review case histories involving advanced analytical techniques, and forgery in the 21st century will be the subject of a talk by Jeffrey Taylor, assistant professor of arts management at Purchase College.

    After a lunch break, Colette Loll Marvin, founder and director of Art Fraud Insights, will discuss her research on fakes. David L. Hall, an attorney who specializes in art and museum law, will speak on the investigation and prosecution of cultural-property crimes. Ms. Cohen’s concluding remarks will address the symposium’s issues from the perspective of a journalist.

    Admission to the symposium is free. Registration is by phone at 324-4929 or by e-mail to [email protected].