Artists Talking
Two pioneering artists, Liliana Porter and Coco Fusco, will be at The Church in Sag Harbor on Saturday at 3 p.m. for a conversation moderated by Ines Katzenstein, the curator of Latin American art at the Museum of Modern Art and director of the Cisneros Center,
Co-presented with the Dia Art Foundation, the program will be introduced by Sheri Pasquarella, The Church’s executive director, and Humberto Moro, deputy director of programs at Dia.
Ms. Porter was born in Buenos Aires and is now based in Rhinebeck, N.Y. Her practice spans painting, drawing, photography, assemblage, video, installation, public art, and theater. Her work can be seen at Dia Bridgehampton through June 2025.
Ms. Fusco is an interdisciplinary Cuban-American artist whose work explores gender, identity, race, and power through performance, video, and interactive installations. Her video “The Couple in the Cage: Guatinaui Odyssey” is now on view at The Church in “Are You Joking? Women & Humor.”
Tickets are $20, $15 for members.
A Reading, With Artwork
The Leiber Collection in Springs will host a reading of “Virgin Territories — Tales of a Caribbean Movie Theatre” by Vera Graaf, accompanied by a new painting by Sabina Streeter inspired by the story, on Sunday at 4 p.m.
Ms. Graaf’s 2022 memoir recounts her own experience in the 1970s, when she and her partner, Michael Zimmer, opened the first movie theater on the British island of Virgin Gorda. Jimmy Buffett called the book “fact, not fiction, filled with stories of life in the islands before cell phones, SAT TV and the internet. It was a different place, and this book is a must read for those who want to know what it was like in those days.”
Ms. Streeter is a contemporary artist based in Sag Harbor whose portraits are based on classical traditions and include a diverse range of current and historical figures.
Ross Bleckner Monotype
Guild Hall has announced the release of commemorative prints created by Ross Bleckner, a prominent artist perhaps best known for his paintings dealing with loss and memory. The series of unique variable edition monotypes celebrates the final phase of Guild Hall’s renovation by highlighting the iconic circus tent-style ceiling of its theater.
The monotype, 11.75 by 16.5 inches, is printed on black Fabriano paper. Only 50 prints are available, at a cost of $2,000 unframed and $2,300 framed. Purchases can be made online only at bit.ly/3WXJa8K.
Mercedes Matter at Borghi
“To Be an Artist Is to Embrace the World in One Kiss,” a retrospective exhibition celebrating the life and work of Mercedes Matter, is now on view at the Mark Borghi Gallery in Sag Harbor. The works range from 1936 to 1995 and offer a deep exploration of her artistic evolution.
Matter’s paintings, which range from bold abstract compositions to more introspective still lifes, reveal her engagement with the complexities of visual perception and the expressive potential of color and line, says the gallery.
The artist and her husband, Herbert Matter, a Swiss graphic designer and photographer, were integral members of the New York School, counting among their close friends Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Franz Kline, Philip Guston, and Willem de Kooning. They moved to East Hampton in 1982.
Chaos on Paper
“Eye of the Storm,” a solo show of recent works on paper by Elizabeth Karsch, will open at AB NY Gallery in East Hampton with a reception tomorrow from 5 to 7 p.m. and continue through August. 31.
The show has been organized by Casey Dalene, an art advisor and independent curator, who first saw the artist’s tornado-like abstractions on Instagram.
Created in her backyard studio in Sag Harbor during the summer of 2023, Ms. Karsch’s work was driven in part by the hot weather and smoke from the northern wildfires, which led her to push acrylic, charcoal, and pastels across large sheets of paper, generating what Ms. Dalene has called “brilliant chaos in the mark-making.”
Plein-Air Painting
Barbara Thomas, a Springs artist who has conducted plein-air painting workshops across the South Fork, will be artist in residence at Third House Nature Center in Montauk from today through Monday.
She will lead a free landscape-painting class tomorrow from 9:30 to noon, during which students, working outside, will learn how to use paints, how to create landscape and skyscape effects, and how to paint trees, grass, clouds, and water.
A free sunset picnic-and-painting session will happen on Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. Participants can take food, drink, and family members ages 12 and up to picnic on the grounds before capturing the evening light on canvas. The rain date is Sunday at 6.
Suggested supplies, which can be bought at any local art store, include watercolor or gouache-watercolor paint, a small palette, a few watercolor brushes, pencil and eraser, and watercolor paper or a multimedia sketch pad. (Also, a container for water and a folding chair or stool.)
Mizrahi Solo
“Pry Swell,” a solo exhibition of 50 new paintings by Haim Mizrahi, opens today at Ashawagh Hall in Springs and will continue through Sunday, with a reception set for Saturday from 4 to 9 p.m.
The artist has said that his intention, through Abstract Expressionism with touches of Surrealism, is to “navigate the interplay between the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown.”
A poetry reading will take place on Sunday afternoon at 3.
The exhibition will travel to the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton in September, with an opening scheduled for Sept. 6 from 2 to 4 p.m.
