The Lee Freeman show at Rental Gallery in East Hampton borders on the slight. It’s essentially just a few light-up sculptures in the window and entrance of the gallery, but that is by design.
Rental is technically closed for the season, accessible by appointment only. Yet anyone who passes by can enjoy this exhibition from the outside, particularly at night. It’s like a joyful seasonal gift the gallery has made to the community.
The show has a name, “Things I Forgot the Name Of,” and a theme: objects that use both light and material form to express themselves.
Mr. Freeman, who spent summers here and aspired to be a year-rounder beginning in his youth, lives in New York City but still visits his parents’ house in Southampton in the summer.
His sculptures take on the mantle of the found or “readymade” object, but he stays involved in their further evolution as art pieces, whether by adding light or otherwise manipulating them.
Plastic paint buckets hang from the ceiling or sit, as table lamps, on a surface in a spectrum of colors. Activated by pull chains or other familiar switches and devices he has inserted and wired, they look both utilitarian and celebratory in their simple palette and balloon-like distance from the ceiling.
On the entrance wall, automobile side-view mirrors find a higher purpose as sconces. The pieces work well as functional art and would look great in an urban setting. Another example hangs near the front window.
In addition to the echoes of the local artists Dan Flavin and Keith Sonnier present in the room, a floor piece looks to be an homage to Constantin Brancusi. It is really just an assemblage of lampshades without individual bases. Instead, a long fluorescent light set into a concrete base becomes the spine of the piece, and the shades are balanced atop each other, sometimes inverted, other times upright. At some point the interior bulb will die, reminding us of temporality.
Last but not least are the unusual concrete sculptures in the window. These are backlit and come in an array of composite and often geometric shapes reminiscent of rough-hewn wooden building block assemblages.
Whether up close or from the outside looking into the gallery, this is a show that will leave warmth and cheer in its wake, at least through its closing on Jan. 5.
