PETER DAYTON: DARK GARDEN

Site Specific Installation. Peter Dayton, 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘎𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯, 2024. Ink on premium vinyl with low-luster laminate and collage overlay. Photo: Gary Mamay

Tag: Visual Arts

Gallery Talk: Executive Director’s Choice with Andrea Grover

Take a tour of the 83rd Artist Members Exhibition with Andrea Grover, Executive Director.

This year Guild Hall Celebrates its 90th Anniversary and its 83rd Artist Members Exhibition. The first Artist Members Exhibition took place in 1938, shortly after Guild Hall’s inception in 1931. The exhibition is the oldest non-juried show on Long Island and one of the few non-juried exhibitions still running. Deeply rooted in the history of the East End artist colony, early participants included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, Perle Fine, Bill King, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, John Little and many more, showing their support of Guild Hall and its role as their community Museum, Theater, and Education Center.

Due to the wonderful popularity of this exhibition, around 400 artists participate each year. The Artist Members Exhibition attracts remarkable art world professionals as awards jurors who select winners in the categories of Top Honors, Best Abstract, Best Representational, Best Photograph, Best Work on Paper, Best Sculpture, Best Mixed Media, Catherine and Theo Hios Best Landscape Award, Best New Artist and up to 10 Honorable Mentions. The Top Honors winner is also awarded a solo exhibition in the Museum at a later date. We are honored to welcome Antwaun Sargent as this year’s awards juror.

The new tradition of creating an ecommerce website in conjunction with the exhibition continues this year in addition to virtual gallery tours and artist talks.

Gallery Talk: Curatorial Assistant’s Choice with Casey Dalene

Take a tour of the 83rd Artist Members Exhibition with Casey Dalene, Registrar/Curatorial Assistant/Lewis B. Cullman Associate for Museum Education.

This year Guild Hall Celebrates its 90th Anniversary and its 83rd Artist Members Exhibition. The first Artist Members Exhibition took place in 1938, shortly after Guild Hall’s inception in 1931. The exhibition is the oldest non-juried show on Long Island and one of the few non-juried exhibitions still running. Deeply rooted in the history of the East End artist colony, early participants included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, Perle Fine, Bill King, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, John Little and many more, showing their support of Guild Hall and its role as their community Museum, Theater, and Education Center.

Due to the wonderful popularity of this exhibition, around 400 artists participate each year. The Artist Members Exhibition attracts remarkable art world professionals as awards jurors who select winners in the categories of Top Honors, Best Abstract, Best Representational, Best Photograph, Best Work on Paper, Best Sculpture, Best Mixed Media, Catherine and Theo Hios Best Landscape Award, Best New Artist and up to 10 Honorable Mentions. The Top Honors winner is also awarded a solo exhibition in the Museum at a later date. We are honored to welcome Antwaun Sargent as this year’s awards juror.

The new tradition of creating an ecommerce website in conjunction with the exhibition continues this year in addition to virtual gallery tours and artist talks.

Gallery Talk: Meet the Exhibition Winners

Meet the Exhibition Winners and take a tour of the 83rd Artist Members Exhibition with Casey Dalene, Registrar/Curatorial Assistant/Lewis B. Cullman Associate for Museum Education.

This year Guild Hall Celebrates its 90th Anniversary and its 83rd Artist Members Exhibition. The first Artist Members Exhibition took place in 1938, shortly after Guild Hall’s inception in 1931. The exhibition is the oldest non-juried show on Long Island and one of the few non-juried exhibitions still running. Deeply rooted in the history of the East End artist colony, early participants included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, Perle Fine, Bill King, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, John Little and many more, showing their support of Guild Hall and its role as their community Museum, Theater, and Education Center.

Due to the wonderful popularity of this exhibition, around 400 artists participate each year. The Artist Members Exhibition attracts remarkable art world professionals as awards jurors who select winners in the categories of Top Honors, Best Abstract, Best Representational, Best Photograph, Best Work on Paper, Best Sculpture, Best Mixed Media, Catherine and Theo Hios Best Landscape Award, Best New Artist and up to 10 Honorable Mentions. The Top Honors winner is also awarded a solo exhibition in the Museum at a later date. We are honored to welcome Antwaun Sargent as this year’s awards juror.

The new tradition of creating an ecommerce website in conjunction with the exhibition continues this year in addition to virtual gallery tours and artist talks.

Jeff Muhs: The Uncanny Valley

Winner of the 2018 Annual Guild Hall Artist Members Exhibition

Jeff Muhs: The Uncanny Valley will open on October 30 in tandem with the Permanent Collection exhibition. As a local multidisciplinary artist, Jeff Muhs has worked in a variety of mediums and genres and this exhibition will feature both his sculptural works as well as his paintings. In 2018, Muhs participated in Guild Hall’s annual Artist Members Exhibition where he received the Top Honors award for his concrete sculpture Callipyge, selected by Connie Choi, Associate Curator at The Studio Museum of Harlem. The prize for the recipient of the top honor is a solo exhibition in the Spiga Gallery.

The Uncanny Valley originates from a sculptural process the artist calls “Dynamic Free Casting.” By discovering this method, the artist has developed new means for forming concrete, all while embracing its inherent fluidity and weight. By pushing the physical limits of the materials as well as his own ability to manipulate, he has discovered a personal source of infinite creativity.   

“The Uncanny Valley is a hypothesized relationship between the degree of an objects’ resemblance to a human being and the emotional response to such an object,“ shared artist Jeff Muhs. “For me, The Uncanny Valley was the moment when I first saw the results of my concrete sculpture as flesh. What had previously been an exploration of more architectural forms, by manor of my process, presented itself as flesh-like. I have been participating in the Guild Hall Artist Members Exhibition for about 25 years. I see it as a great focal point for our creative community. An opportunity for camaraderie and to share our artistic expressions with one another. It is a great honor to have been chosen as the Top Honors recipient for my sculpture and to be awarded the opportunity to exhibit at this cultural institution, so rich in the history of our local artistic community and 20th century art.”

Spiga Gallery

Fitted face masks are required for all guests over the age of 2 indoors regardless of vaccination status, except when eating or drinking. Click HERE for full COVID-19 protocol.

Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks

Guild Hall is proud to present Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks. This exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by American artist Alexis Rockman looks at the world’s waterways as a network by which all of history has traveled. The transport of language, culture, art, architecture, cuisine, religion, disease, and warfare can be traced along the routes of seafaring vessels dating back to and in some cases predating the earliest recorded civilizations. Through depictions of historic and imagined shipwrecks and their lost cargoes, Alexis Rockman addresses the impact—both factual and extrapolated—that the migration of material culture, people, plants, and animals has on the planet. The artist’s virtuosity with paint and his appreciation for the marine landscape genre connect this body of work to maritime art history and its abundant sociological themes. This timely exhibition is propelled by impending climate disaster and the current largest human migration in history, which is taking place in part by water.

An excellent platform for the discussion of the 2020 global pandemic, Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks examines the long history leading up to globalization, including the exploitation of humans, animals, and natural resources, and the ways in which all parts of the planet are now inextricably connected.

Inclusive of non-Western depictions of waterborne vessels and journeys, Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks departs from traditional euro-centric maritime images associated with the Age of Exploration and embraces other periods and global regions that contributed to the history of seafaring.

Curator
Andrea Grover, Executive Director of Guild Hall

March 6 to May 31, 2021: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
June 12 to July 26, 2021: Guild Hall, East Hampton, NY

Per CDC and state guidelines, people who are not fully vaccinated must continue to wear face coverings while indoors.

Family ARTivity Guide: All for the Hall

A new collaboration between Guild Hall and the Children’s Museum of the East End, the Family ARTivity Guide encourages children and parents of all ages to collectively explore the Guild Hall galleries. Using the guide as a prompt to observe and discuss the works on view, families will be introduced to various ways of engaging with the work, like drawing, discussing, writing, and even dancing! 

Family ARTivity Guides are available onsite at Guild Hall, or digitally available to complete at home with our Matterport tour. Registration for in-person visits is highly recommended.

Download the Guide.

To ensure the health and safety of its visitors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Guild Hall has instituted the following measures: 

  • Reservations to visit the Museum are recommended. You can reserve timed tickets online or by calling 631-324-0806 Saturday-Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Drop-ins are also welcome!
  • Visitors are asked to be on time for their appointment. Visits are for a maximum of one hour and no more than 50 people will be allowed in the museum galleries at a time.
  • Visitors should enter through the left most front door of the building and check in with the Receptionist at the box office. A one-way footpath proceeds throughout the museum.
  • Masks are required in the building for all patrons over the age of 2.
  • Social distancing of at least 6 feet is encouraged in the museum galleries and lobby.

ON DEMAND: A Virtual Conversation on the making of Shirin Neshat’s Land of Dreams

It seems only natural that the globally celebrated Iranian-born photographer and filmmaker Shirin Neshat — who has spent a lifetime revealing the injustices between classes and genders, mostly in Islamic societies — would eventually turn her iconic kohl-lined eyes toward the same discrepancies in her adopted home country, the United States.

The result — released earlier this year — is the Land of Dreams exhibition, a poignant and at times satirical two-part video installation on the hopes and desires of America’s marginalized masses, in particular, people of color in New Mexico, one of the poorest states. Neshat, who was named the most important artist of the decade by Huffington Post critic G. Roger Denson, included communities of immigrants (mostly Latino), African-Americans, and the Native American population.

And while she was filming Land of Dreams, Sophie Chahinian of The Artist Profile was filming her.

It all came together at Guild Hall in A Conversation on The Making of Shirin Neshat’s Land of Dreams on Sunday, October 18, at 5:30pm, featuring both Neshat and Chahinian on the John Drew Theater stage, interviewed by Guild Hall’s Executive Director Andrea Grover, recorded with all of the proper COVID-19 protocol in place.

The Making of Shirin Neshat’s Land of Dreams by Sophie Chahinian runs 25 minutes, and is part of the one-hour Guild Hall event, which focusses on Neshat’s life as an immigrant artist, the art world, and how it has changed in the current climate. 

“Recently I realized that part of the reason I never worked in America, even though I lived in this country, was that I never assimilated completely . . . as an Iranian-American, I still felt like an outsider,” Neshat admitted during the interview on stage at Guild Hall. “I never allowed myself to make a narrative about America, until today.”

Grover is uniquely positioned as a presenter, not only because of her relationship with Guild Hall, but as the founder of Houston’s Aurora Picture Show when she was only 27.

“Initially, Sophie had wanted to do a profile of Shirin Neshat for The Artist Profile Archive. Instead, Shirin invited her on-location to shoot a behind-the-scenes, making-of documentary. Shirin Neshat is probably one of the most renowned living artists. It was a huge honor to have her at Guild Hall and to interview her,” Grover said.

Chahinian’s film was included as part of the public programming of Neshat’s major exhibition Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again at the Broad Art Museum, October 2019 through Feb. 16, 2020. The documentary provides an alternate perspective on Neshat’s process and intention. Key members of the Land of Dreams film team provide insightful commentary about the personal and political backdrop to the surreal videos as they were being created. 

“Shirin Neshat is an artist whose work I have admired for years,” said Guild Hall’s Museum Director Christina Strassfield. “Her use of herself and other female characters in her art as well as behind the scenes in the creation of her films has always fostered an innate feeling of female empowerment. As a first generation Greek-American, I truly could relate to the issues she put forth on immigration, acceptance, and assimilation, and what each of those cost to you as the individual. Her films juxtapose the ethereal and gritty reality of life, and the play between them, as well as the psychological back and forth.” 

Of The Artist Profile’s founder, Strassfield added, “Sophie Chahinian is an amazing filmmaker who is doing excellent work documenting artists of every level and letting them speak in their own voice. The films that are part of The Artist Profile Archive will have a lasting effect and be an asset for generations to come. The Making of Shirin Neshat’s Land of Dreams is by far Sophie’s best work. She was able to capture Shirin’s energy and passion and have it come across in her own voice.”

83rd Artist Members Exhibition

Click here to view all works available for purchase.

This year Guild Hall celebrates its 90th Anniversary and its 83rd Artist Members Exhibition, and we are thrilled to announce Gagosian Director and Curator Antwaun Sargent as the awards juror.

The first Artist Members Exhibition took place in 1938, shortly after Guild Hall’s inception in 1931. The exhibition is the oldest non-juried show on Long Island and one of the few non-juried exhibitions still running. Deeply rooted in the history of the East End artist colony, early participants included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, Perle Fine, Bill King, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, John Little and many more, showing their support of Guild Hall and its role as their community Museum, Theater, and Education Center.

Due to the wonderful popularity of this exhibition, over 400 artists participate each year. The Artist Members Exhibition attracts remarkable art world professionals as awards jurors who select winners in the categories of Top Honors, Best Abstract, Best Representational, Best Photograph, Best Work on Paper, Best Sculpture, Best Mixed Media, Catherine and Theo Hios Best Landscape Award, Best New Artist and up to 10 Honorable Mentions. The Top Honors winner is also awarded a solo exhibition in the Museum at a later date. We are honored to include Antwaun Sargent to the list of esteemed jurors.

The new tradition of creating an ecommerce website in conjunction with the exhibition continues this year in addition to virtual gallery tours and artist talks.

 

TIMED TICKETS AND VISITOR INFORMATION

To ensure the health and safety of its visitors in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Guild Hall has instituted the following measures:

  • Reservations to visit the Museum are recommended. You can reserve timed tickets online or by calling 631-324-0806 Friday-Sunday, 12-5 p.m. Drop-ins are also welcome!
  • Visitors are asked to be on time for their appointment. Visits are for a maximum of one hour and no more than 50 people will be allowed in the museum galleries at a time.
  • Visitors should enter through the left most front door of the building and check in with the Receptionist at the box office. A one-way footpath proceeds throughout the museum.
  • Masks are required in the building for all patrons over the age of 2.
  • Social distancing of at least 6 feet is encouraged in the museum galleries and lobby.

RING THE ALARM…A Conversation with Sanford Biggers & Renee Cox

The idea for RING THE ALARM… A Conversation with series Renee Cox began with discussions on an exhibition of Black Artists that Renee Cox will be curating for the summer of 2023. The first in the series was a conversation with Derrick Adams and Renee Cox both noted artists, colleagues and friends, who have a long history of exhibiting work and curating exhibitions that focus on empowerment, the black experience, and issues of contemporary life.  
 
We are delighted to welcome Sanford Biggers as the next artist to engage in the Ring the Alarm series of conversations. Sanford Biggers’ work is an interplay of narrative, perspective and history that speaks to current social, political and economic happenings while also examining the contexts that bore them. His diverse practice positions him as a collaborator with the past through explorations of often overlooked cultural and political narratives from American history. Working with antique quilts that echo rumors of their use as signposts on the Underground Railroad, he engages these legends and contributes to this narrative by drawing and painting directly onto them. In response to ongoing occurrences of police brutality against Black Americans, Biggers’ “BAM” series is composed of bronze sculptures recast from fragments of wooden African statues that have been anonymized through dipping in wax and then ballistically ‘resculpted’.  
 
“The need for open dialogue on art, race and politics felt timely and something that we believe the community at large was looking for. The response to that first talk was truly inspiring and we plan to continue this series of conversations next year and leading up to the 2023 Summer exhibition.” noted Christina Strassfield, Museum Director/Chief Curator.

Rosario Varela: Red, Gold, and You

Red, Gold, and You  is an outdoor installation and durational piece by  artist, Rosario Varela. Installed in Guild Hall’s Minikes Garden for two weekends, cellular patterns of red paper and gold tape weave through the trees and shrubbery while a team of mindful artists alter and gradually redesign the piece, embracing the beauty of impermanence and chance.   

Varela’s artistic curiosity stems from a passion for tactile experience, and a unique eye for pattern. From organic and gestural to precise and organized, her work in painting and ceramics reflects the patterns found in her natural surroundings, and the responsive effect of material in her hands. Red, Gold, and You expands the scope of Varela’s work, exploring a new medium and scale for the artist; returning to her roots in graphic design and architecture, and responding to the everchanging circumstances of a global pandemic.   

Varela found herself paused in the studio when the pandemic first broke-out. Not wanting to return to her ceramics or paintings, she discovered a roll of abandoned red paper. In experimenting with the material, Varela began creating links of various diameters, connecting and interconnecting them, forming cellular patterns. At times when the paper would tear, she would rejoin the ends with gold tape; a nod to the Japanese practice, Kintsugi. The process soon became a meditative act, allowing the artist to reflect on her, and society’s, need for connection and restoration.   

Red, Gold, and You expands this experience by opening the process to both a trained team of artists, comprised of Guild Hall’s Teen Arts Council, and the viewing public. Artists and patrons will interact to detach, reshape, and adjoin the paper links, replicating Varela’s experimentation and transferring the ownership and over-all design of the work from artist to community. In the best of worlds, this process involves collaboration, respect, and risk-taking, embracing the beauty of decay, appreciating the impermanence of our creation, and applauding the performance of our community.    

In tandem with the installation, Guild Hall will host a blood drive in partnership with the New York Blood Center (NYBC) on Friday, October 23, 11:30am–5:30pm. Guild Hall has organized blood drives in East Hampton during the most threatening of times, responding to the needs of World War II in the 1940s and through the 70s during the Vietnam War. According to NYBC, blood from volunteer donors is needed every two seconds to help meet the daily transfusion needs of cancer and surgery patients, accident and burn victims, newborns and mothers delivering babies, AIDS and sickle cell anemia patients, and many more. Today’s pandemic has shuttered reoccurring donation drives, causing an anticipated 75% decrease in donations. In hosting a blood drive during Varela’s Red, Gold, and You, Guild Hall transfers the artist’s reflection on connection and restoration towards the civic act of blood donation; acknowledging Guild Hall’s founding mission to be “a gathering place for the community where an appreciation for the arts would serve to encourage greater civic participation.”   

CURATORS
Casey Dalene, Curatorial Asst. & Lewis B. Cullman Assoc. for Museum Education
Anthony Madonna, The Patti Kenner Fellow in Arts Education 

Rosario Varela is an inaugural Guild Hall Community Artist-in-Residence. The Community-Artist-in-Residence program seeks to engage and support four regional artists. Given either an indoor exhibition space or outdoor performance and/or installation site on the Guild Hall campus, the artists will work with community groups to devise, create, and develop new work to be on view through the Summer and Fall months. Artists will be chosen by the senior leadership of Guild Hall based on the community-aspect of their work and a history or interest in public practice. Other Artist-in-Residence include Monica Banks, Viv Corringham, and Lindsay Morris. 

Red, Gold, and You is on view during regular Museum Hours. The Guild Hall Gardens are self-monitoring spaces. We ask that patrons reserve a visitation time, observe proper physical-distance, observe maximum capacity signage, and wear face-coverings on the grounds.Â