Guild Hall had concurrent solo shows of work by Enoc Perez and Karin Waisman scheduled for last spring, but the pandemic put everything on hold, and at the time nobody knew for how long. “We’re normally scheduled three years out,” said Christina Strassfield, Guild Hall’s museum director and chief curator. “So we had to do a lot of juggling. But we told Enoc and Karin we would do everything we could to bring their shows back this year.”
A new spring has arrived, and with it “Enoc Perez: Paradise” and “Karin Waisman: The Horizon Is Not a Straight Line” will launch on Saturday, along with “Full of Noises,” a self-guided sound walk created by Viv Corringham, a sound artist.
Mr. Perez is a Puerto Rican-born artist known for his paintings and oil stick drawings. “Paradise” will explore the theme of natural disasters, particularly the devastation the island experienced during Hurricane Maria in 2017. The exhibition will feature four large paintings of bent, but not broken, palm trees that represent the hope for the island’s recovery.
Mr. Perez, who divides his time between New York City and East Hampton, is also known for his monumental paintings of modern architectural icons such as the Seagram Building and the TWA Terminal at Kennedy Airport. “Paradise” will include two new paintings of Puerto Rico’s Ponce Intercontinental Hotel. One shows it as he remembers it, as an example of Puerto Rico’s vibrancy and modern style; the second shows it in disrepair after the hurricane.
In “Ocean Park,” a YouTube video, Mr. Perez said, “My favorite beach in Puerto Rico disappeared because of global warming. It reminded me how I felt almost uprooted after Hurricane Maria. So I decided to make these paintings of one of the last palms that was standing on that beach. . . . I made one of the four palm trees invisible, because a lot of the stories of the Caribbean are usually erased from history. One of the beauties of being an artist is to have a voice . . . and to bring awareness to this natural disaster we are witnessing.”
Ms. Waisman is an Argentinian-born artist whose work investigates the rhythmic cadence and pulsating patterns of nature. Her practice includes large-scale public installations, wall reliefs, and drawings that explore our perception of the natural world.
In “The Horizon Is Not a Straight Line,” Ms. Waisman, who lives in New York City and Bridgehampton, will exhibit a site-specific, 250-inch-long ceramic and cast-resin wall relief of the same name, which investigates the notion of the border not as a line but as a complex contact point between two elements that push and pull while supporting each other. The piece is having its first showing at Guild Hall.
The exhibition will also include several large tondos, also of cast resin and ceramic components, and two series of drawings on Mylar. “Fragments of a Mountain” studies the passage of geological time and the effects of erosion, while “The Ocean Drawings” immerse the viewer into varying depths, currents, and temperatures.
Of her wall reliefs, Ms. Waisman said, “The patterns overall start usually from a piece of lace, and lace was created by observation of nature.” She noted that in the 17th century, lace was more valuable than gold. “So when I start with a piece of lace, basically I work with nature. It’s just one step removed, because it was somebody else working from nature and doing a pattern, and I work from that.”
Public programs for the exhibitions include a gallery talk on May 8 with Ms. Waisman and Estrellita Brodsky, a scholar and collector with a focus on artists from Latin America, and a conversation between Mr. Perez and Ms. Strassfield on May 22. The exhibitions, which were organized by Ms. Strassfield, will run through May 31.
Village Walking Tour
“Full of Noises: A Village Soundtrack,” an audio tour composed and narrated by Ms. Corringham and available through Gesso, a free app, leads listeners through such well-known village spaces as Guild Hall, the duck pond at the Nature Trail, and Clinton Academy, with prompts for finding, imagining, and remembering sounds. A video created by the Teen Arts Council member Anni Spacek, which acts as an introduction to the sound walk, is available here.
