Visual Arts Archives - Page 7 of 13

Home
Visual Arts
Events
Visual Arts

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.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Rules, Guidelines, and Drop–Off/Pick–Up Information
Click here to Schedule to Pick Up Your Work

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.

Student Art Festival 2021: Past-Present-Future

The Guild Hall Student Art Festival (SAF) is a beloved tradition that encourages and showcases the artistic achievement and imagination of students, Kindergarten to Grade 12, on the South Fork of Long Island.

As a celebration of both Guild Hall’s 90th Anniversary, and the centennial of the Village of East Hampton, this year’s festival, Student Art Festival 2021: PAST-PRESENT-FUTURE, looks to both our shared past and an imagined future. Through the practice of art and design, ranging from imagery of natural growth and metamorphosis to Futurism and Science-Fiction, students across the East-End have collectively produced an exhibit that reflects our past, acknowledges and celebrates our present, and imagines a changed and hopeful future.

This festival begins with a free public opening of the exhibition, a series of weekend family workshops, and concludes with an awards ceremony for high school students.

Curators
Casey Dalene, Curatorial Assistant & Lewis B. Cullman Associate for Museum Education
Anthony Madonna, The Patti Kenner Senior Associate for Learning and Public Engagement

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.

Virtual Studio Visits with Christina Strassfield

Now that we are all home and want to be as productive as possible, take this opportunity to straighten up your studio, get your artist statement in draft form and invite the Guild Hall Museum Director/Chief Curator in! You can register for a 30-minute, remote one-on-one Zoom or studio visit with Christina Strassfield, Museum Director/Chief Curator. Here is the opportunity to share your work, discuss your direction and get a formal critique of your work. Please register for one 30-minute session. Registration is on a first come basis.

Session 1: 1-1:30PM

Session 2: 1:35-2:05PM

Session 3: 2:10-2:40pm

“Studio visits are the best part of my job but unfortunately often get pushed and put off because of time constraints. This is the perfect time to hold this virtual studio visit program so that we can connect with one another and be ready to share actual work once the stay-at-home ban is lifted. It is always exciting to see work in progress or transitions in an artist’s work. I welcome the dialogue with the wonderful artists that have been so supportive of Guild Hall.” – Christina Mossaides Strassfield

Registration Required – Free or additional Donation to support Guild Hall