5 Must-See Hamptons Art Shows on Thanksgiving Weekend
Thanksgiving weekend is traditionally a good time for art openings and shows in the Hamptons, and this year is no different. Get out and about and find your muse in galleries from Westhampton Beach to Montauk. To get you started, we’ve selected these five “must-see” art shows.
Use the exhibitions below to start your local art adventure, then visit our online events calendar at events.danspapers.com and find many more options to carve your own path through the Hamptons cultural landscape.
1. Mica Marder at Silas Marder Gallery (illustrated above)
120 Snake Hollow Road, Bridgehampton, 631-702-2306, silasmarder.com
Extended through Sunday, November 29, this is the last weekend to see Mica Marder’s solo exhibition of truly stunning recent work. This most recent show proves that this artist’s already substantial talent is continuing to grow by leaps and bounds. Marder’s primitive fish assemblages, as well as drawings and paintings of various species, feel authentic and carry visual power that inspires long and thoughtful looks. For this series, Marder sources his materials from the flotsam and jetsam of day-to-day life. The areas surrounding his studio and welding shop are stockpiled with a trove of discarded objects, waiting to be repurposed in the form of a fin, a tail, a cheek or an eye. It’s truly a joy finding each of these objects and picking them out of the well-considered whole. This is what art should be: unpretentious, interesting and full of life, vigor and feeling. The show is not to be missed.
2. Adam Handler – Hot and Fast at Vered Gallery
68 Park Place (Starbucks Passage), East Hampton, 631-324-3303, veredart.com
In his latest exhibition at Vered Gallery in East Hampton, artist Adam Handler continues to push his boundaries and his refusal to be limited to one defining style. For Hot and Fast, Handler looks back at his greatest artistic influences and then turns them on their head by adding his own brand of line, color and approach to each subject. Says Vered gallerist Janet Lehr: “His characters are reduced to the purest shapes and textures reminiscent of uninhibited adolescence. However, echoing a similar sophistication to Willem de Kooning’s figures, Handler competently and intriguingly allows figure and background to integrate at moments. His technical expression in stroke resonates in his color palette. He skillfully builds a pointedly dynamic atmosphere within the canvas utilizing an impressive range of hues. Some pieces focus in rich, deep colors and others find resonance in pastels to further internal conversation.” Open through Thursday, January 7.
The gallery is hosting an artist’s reception with Handler this Saturday, November 28 from 6–8 p.m.
3. Thanksgiving Collective at Tripoli Gallery x 3
30A Jobs Lane, Southampton, 631-377-3715; 87 Newtown Lane, East Hampton, 631-324-0149; and at the Southampton Arts Center – 25 Jobs Lane, Southampton, tripoligallery.com
Colossal in scope for its 11th edition this year, Tripoli Gallery’s popular annual Thanksgiving Collective—a large group exhibition featuring a wide array of local and international artists—extends beyond his original Southampton space to his new Tripoli Gallery East Hampton and the large Southampton Arts Center across the street from his gallery on Jobs Lane. Curated by gallery owner Tripoli Patterson and open through January 31, the exhibition will include works by Ross Bleckner, Stefan Bondell, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Michael Chiarello, Matthew Clark, Dan Colen, Scott Covert, Quentin Curry, Anh Duong, Sabra Moon Elliot, Eric Freeman, Saskia Friedrich, Félix Bonilla Gerena, Michael Halsband, Robert Harms, Mary Heilmann, Judith Hudson, Yung Jake, Benjamin Keating, Mike Kelley, Harmony Korine, Brendan Lynch, Dylan Lynch, John Messinger, Lola Montes, Enis Sefersah, Nathalie Shepherd, Bruce M. Sherman, Lucien Smith, Bosco Sodi, Keith Sonnier, Gordon Stevenson, Billy Sullivan, Nick Weber, and Darius Yektai. Clearly, there will be no shortage of work and the event will no doubt be among the key art world occasions this Thanksgiving weekend. In short, be there or be square.
A preview reception will be held at Tripoli Gallery East Hampton on Friday, November 27 from 4–6 p.m.
Tripoli Gallery Southampton is hosting the grand opening on Saturday, November 28 from 5–7 p.m., and an after-party will be held at Southampton Arts Center theater on Saturday, November 28 from 8 p.m.–12 a.m.
4. Picturing Artists at the Parrish Art Museum
279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill, 631-283-2118, parrishart.org
Open through October 30, 2016, this exhibition of artist’s photographs of artists explores the collaborative effort between photographer and subject—a relationship most evident when the subject is a fellow artist. The show includes nineteenth-century French photographer Nadar, who captured the images of the great painters and writers of his day, Annie Leibovitz’s striking image of Chuck Close, Nan Goldin’s portrait of her longtime friend, the artist and activist David Wojnarowicz in his loft overlooking the Bowery, Cindy Sherman’s college image of herself as the young starlet Lucille Ball—one of the master’s earliest “film still” shots. Aslo in the exhibition: Henri Cartier-Bresson’s photograph of Alberto Giacometti, Renate Ponsold’s recorded visit to Roy Lichtenstein’s Southampton studio, photographer and musician Linda McCartney’s shot of her legendary husband Paul McCartney with neighbor Willem de Kooning. Picturing Artists is one of several permanent collection installations up at the museum since November 1. Go to the museum and see them all.
5. Things In Themselves Virva Hinnemo & George Negroponte at Ille Arts
216A Main Street, Amagansett, 631-905-9894, illearts.com
These deceptively simple “my kid could do that” pieces ask for a sophisticated eye, but there’s much to appreciate in Virva Hinnemo and George Negroponte. Beauty and compositional grace is found in basic materials such as house paint, cardboard boxes, pizza containers, wood, enamel and spackle. Nothing is realistically or perfectly rendered, but the shapes and pleasing arrangements harken back to works of masters like Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline. The show could be as pretentious or as unpretentious as it gets, depending on one’s point of view. Either way, there’s something special here. Go see it during this last weekend before the exhibition closes.