Arts

    This year has been a busy one for Joan Semmel. She had a solo exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in the spring, solo shows at both Alexander Gray Associates, her New York dealer, and Art Basel, exhibited at Frieze New York, and now has two paintings at the Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum in Bremen, Germany, in the group exhibition “Sie. Selbst. Nackt.” The title, which translates as “She. Herself. Naked,” could be applied to much of Ms. Semmel’s career as a painter.

    Bookmarks have not always been made of heavy paper stock. Selections from one of the world’s largest collections of antique silver bookmarks are on view at the Pelletreau Silversmith Shop in Southampton through Dec. 23. Approximately 330 examples made by European and American silversmiths between 1800 and 1920 have been selected from the collection of Myra Weiser. These bookmarks, many of which were used not only to hold a place but also to detach pages from each other, reflect the fine craftsmanship of the silversmith.

    Scott Schwartz’s choice for the first production of his first main stage season as Bay Street Theatre’s artistic director augurs well for the goal of returning Bay Street to the cutting edge of America’s regional theater scene.

    “Conviction” by Carey Crim will make its world premiere at Bay Street in 2014 with Mr. Schwartz directing. It is the story of a trusted and honored teacher accused of sexual misconduct with a student.

    “Carnivale!” — a concert of classical works for piano and clarinet by Maksim Shtrykov and Alina Kiryayeva — is coming this weekend to the Montauk Library and the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton. The Montauk program is scheduled for Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The Southampton concert will take place Sunday afternoon at 3. “Carnivale!” includes works by Bassi, Chopin, Liszt, Saint-Saens, Messager, Giampieri, Rachmaninoff, and Rossini. The program, which is free at both locations, has been recommended for younger audiences, first-time concertgoers, and families with children.

    Qi Xu, a 19-year-old pianist from China, will present a program of works by Chopin and Liszt on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Levitas Center for the Arts at the Southampton Cultural Center. Qi Xu, a Pianofest alumnus who performed at the Levitas Center in 2011, is enrolled in the Columbia-Juilliard exchange program. He has performed in Poland, Ukraine, Germany, France, and Morocco, where he won first prize in the Morocco Philharmonic International Piano Competition.

    Pritam & Eames in East Hampton will host a book signing of “Speaking of Furniture: Conversations With 14 American Masters” on Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. Just published by the Artist Book Foundation, the book is based on interviews with 14 furniture designers by Bebe and Warren Johnson, the owners of Pritam & Eames, where all the artist-craftsmen have exhibited.

    There was history on the screen at Bay Street Theatre Saturday night, and history in the room.

New at Halsey Mckay

    An installation by Kysa Johnson and paintings by Annabelle Speer will go on view Saturday at the Halsey Mckay Gallery in East Hampton. Ms. Johnson’s paintings, drawings, and installations utilize as imagery what she terms “microscopic or macroscopic ‘landscapes,’ ” including maps of the universe and the molecular structure of pollutants.

    The Met: Live in HD at Guild Hall will have an encore screening of Verdi’s “Falstaff” on Wednesday at 6 p.m. Robert Carsen’s production, the first new Met “Falstaff” since 1964, is set in the English countryside in the mid-20th century. Ambrogio Maestri sings the title role, and James Levine, the Met’s musical director, conducts. Tickets cost $22, $20 for members, and $15 for students.

       The Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons continues to offer intellectual sustenance for garden enthusiasts during the winter months with two programs this weekend. Saturday morning at 11, Carolyn Gemake will moderate a discussion of two books, Edward Hyams’s “Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton” and Doug Tallamy’s “Bringing Nature Home.” The talk, which is free and open to the public, will take place in the horticultural library on the ground floor of the Bridgehampton Community House.

      Cynthia Hopkins, a performance artist, will present a work-in-progress showing of her newest piece Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at the Watermill Center, where she is currently in residence. Titled “A Living Documentary,” the work combines elements of musical comedy, autobiography, documentary, and fiction to create a portrait of the difficulties of earning a living as a theater artist in the 21st century. The piece will have its world premiere at New York Live Arts on March 5.

      The Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival returns to Bay Street Theatre this weekend with a slate of 11 features and 11 shorts, including special programs devoted to D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, pioneers of cinema verité, and Lana Jokel, this year’s Filmmaker’s Choice Award winner.

Meola’s “Born to Run” Photos

       Eric Meola, a photographer and Sagaponack resident who captured the iconic image of Bruce Springsteen and Clarence Clemons for the cover of the 1975 album “Born to Run,” is exhibiting a selection of photographs at the Tulla Booth Gallery in Sag Harbor from among the 700 taken during the two-hour photo shoot. While images from that session have been widely published in magazines, they have seldom been exhibited as large, archival prints, according to Ms. Booth.

      The “Willem de Kooning: Ten Paintings, 1983-1985” exhibition at the Gagosian gallery on Madison Avenue is grand in scale and vision. An expertly chosen sampling of the best works of the artist’s late period, the paintings sing together in a room that, while full of white space, seems barely able to contain them.

       Lana Jokel, whose documentary “Larry Rivers Public and Private” won this year’s Filmmaker’s Choice Award from the Hamptons Take 2 Documentary Film Festival, has enjoyed a long career as a film director and editor, but it’s not one her upbringing encouraged. One of three children of a wealthy Shanghai industrialist, she spent her early years in that city before the 1949 triumph of Mao Zedong’s army forced the family to move to Hong Kong.

      Darynn Zimmer, a soprano and former Sag Harbor resident who sang with the Choral Society of the Hamptons, will perform in two English-language operatic miniatures this weekend at the Poet’s Den and Gallery in East Harlem. Ms. Zimmer will play Mrs. Clancy in Lee Hoiby’s “The Italian Lesson,” based on the Ruth Draper monologue, and Estelle in Hugo Weisgall’s “The Stronger,” based on the Strindberg play. Neither work has been performed in New York City for more than 20 years.

      Our Fabulous Variety Show, a troupe of performers dedicated to polishing their craft while raising money for nonprofit organizations, will perform at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and Saturday in a benefit for WPPB 88.3 at Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater.

    Billy Rayner hasn’t been to China. Or Japan. But he’s been practically everywhere else during the past 50 years and kept diaries filled with watercolors, photographs, observations, historical information, and memorabilia. “Notes and Sketches: Travel Journals of William P. Rayner,” a two-volume set, has just been published by Glitterati Incorporated, allowing readers a view into a life fully lived.

Ruffins at John Jermain

    Reynold Ruffins, an award-winning painter, illustrator, and designer, will exhibit a selection his illustrations at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor from Wednesday through Jan. 18. Mr. Reynolds, who lives in Sag Harbor, graduated from Cooper Union and received its most prestigious honor, the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Award for outstanding professional achievement in arts.

    The Choral Society of the Hamptons will present “In Terra Pax” on Dec. 8. The program is named for Gerald Finzi’s piece of the same title, which mixes the verse of Robert Bridges, a British poet who died in 1930, with the Gospel of Luke. In passages the voices mimic the sound of church bells. Other works include Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Fantasia on Christmas Carols” and compositions by Cecilia McDowall and Peter Warlock.

    Linda Russell, a balladeer and musician who performs early American music at historic and cultural sites around the country, will bring a musical celebration of an 18th-century Christmas to the Montauk Library on Dec. 1 at 3:30 p.m. The program, “Sing We All Merrily: An Early American Holiday,” will feature Ms. Russell on hammered dulcimer and other historic instruments; the soprano Margery Cohen, and Christa Patton on flute and harp. The group will perform carols, hymns, dance tunes, rounds, and drinking songs, interspersed with Yuletide poems, folklore, and recipes.

    The Upright Citizens Brigade Tour Company will bring 90 minutes of long-form improvisation to the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor on Nov. 30 at 8 p.m.

    In long-form improvisation, which was pioneered by Del Close in Chicago and brought to New York City by the Upright Citizens Brigade, performers create an entire show consisting of interconnected scenes, characters, and ideas without any pre-planning or pre-writing.

Nature Times Two

    “East/West,” an exhibition of work by Annie Sessler and John Todaro, will be on view at Ashawagh Hall in Springs Saturday and Sunday. The title of the show reflects Ms. Sessler’s use of the Japanese craft tradition of Gyotaku, fish printing, and Mr. Todaro’s travels to the American West. Nature is subject and inspiration for both artists.

    Donna Freitas, author of “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture Is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy,” will speak at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Dec. 2 at 5:30 p.m. Her talk will address the social challenges faced by young people today as they begin to lead independent lives.

    Clinton Academy in East Hampton is celebrating the holiday season with “It’s a Child’s World: Exhibition of Antique Dolls and Toys,” which will open Saturday and remain on view through Dec. 31. Among the highlights is a Christmas village that sits beneath a tall Douglas fir, the childhood display of an East Hampton resident who has decided to share it with the community.

    The exhibition will be open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free.

       An artistic love child of Jackson Pollock and his mistress Ruth Kligman has garnered new legitimacy through the kind of police crime-lab science popularized in “CSI”-type television shows.

       Kligman was living with the artist in 1956 at his house in Springs while his wife, Lee Krasner, was in Europe, a separation prompted by the affair. It would be Pollock’s last summer, his life taken that August in a fatal car accident not far from the house. Kligman, who was in the car, survived, and lived on until 2010.

    It seems perfectly appropriate that a meeting at the crossroads — in this case, Crossroads Music on Amagansett Square — should spark a local musical phenomenon.

    The East Hampton Historical Society’s 2013 House and Garden Tour, scheduled for Nov. 30 from 1 to 4:30 p.m., will feature five residences, ranging from a historic East Hampton cottage to a compound whose main house’s low, modern profile recalls the work of Frank Lloyd Wright.

    The tour begins near East Hampton Village, then visits Georgica Pond and Amagansett’s Bluff Road Historic District before concluding in the Napeague dunes will the hexagonal house of David Netto, an interior designer.

    The Horticultural Alliance of the Hamptons is sponsoring two events this weekend, both at the Bridgehampton Community House. An informal discussion on cleaning up the garden and other preparations for winter will be moderated by Pamela Harwood, Saturday at 10 a.m. in the horticultural library. Admission is free.

Shinnecock Celebration

    The Shinnecock National Cultural Center and Museum is hosting a celebration of the artisans of Wikun Village, Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m. Wikun Village (“wikun” is the Shinnecock word for “good”), which opened in May on the grounds of the museum, is the first Native American-operated living history village on Long Island. While the village is modeled after life in the Shinnecock community from 1640 to 1750, the staff does not role-play. Rather, they are native people from the reservation talking about their own culture and history.