A Juried Show With a Twist: Artists Choose Artists at the Parrish

Jackie Black’s “William Joseph Kitchens” from the “Last Meal (Series)” will be on display as part of the Parrish Art Museum’s “Artists Choose Artists” show.

The work of seven distinguished jurors and the 14 artists they have selected

Oct. 27, 2016

Mark Segal

Since their inauguration in 2009, the Parrish Art Museum’s biennial “Artists Choose Artists” exhibitions have demonstrated the enduring depth and diversity of the East End’s art community. The series’ fourth iteration, which will open Sunday and remain on view through Jan. 16, will again feature the work of seven distinguished jurors and the 14 artists they have selected from more than 200 submissions.

This year’s jurors and their choices are Tina Barney with Dinah Maxwell Smith and RJT Haynes; Lynda Benglis with Garrett Chingery and Saskia Friedrich; Tony Oursler with Jackie Black and Marianne Weil; Donald Lipski with Suzanne Anker and Ben Butler; Jorge Pardo with Anne Bae and Monica Banks; Cindy Sherman with Bill Komoski and Toni Ross, and Leo Villareal with Karin Waisman and Almond Zigmund.

Among the pleasures of the exhibitions are the sometimes surprising choices made by jurors, who are not necessarily drawn to work similar to their own. Mr. Oursler, for example, is perhaps most closely associated with video projections of talking faces onto objects. “#ISO,” his work in the exhibition, consists of a large aluminum panel shaped into a face and embedded with video screens of eyeballs and mouths.

The photographs of Ms. Black, one of his selections, examine the ambiguity surrounding mortality. “Last Meal,” for example, is an image of the final meal requested by a Death Row prisoner. Ms. Weil’s sculptures, made from textured, twisted metal encased in smooth curving glass, focus on the properties of disparate materials.

In keeping with the intention of encouraging fellowship among the community’s multigenerational network of artists, the jurors not only viewed submissions online but also visited selected artists’ studios. Corinne Erni, the museum’s curator of special projects, and Alicia Longwell, chief curator, also made studio visits that were recorded on video for presentation at the exhibition’s opening reception and on the museum’s Vimeo page. Five of the participating artists — Ms. Anker, Ms. Banks, Mr. Butler, Ms. Friedrich, and Ms. Waisman — will conduct workshops as part of the museum’s annual artist-in-residence program. Students from local and regional schools will visit the exhibition, meet the artists, and create art that will be included in the museum’s 2017 student exhibition. Gallery talks by the artists will take place from November through January.