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The Parrish Art Museum and The FLAG Art Foundation are pleased to present UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN, a two-part exhibition that contemplates the wide-ranging modes and methods used by contemporary artists to engage with landscape. Part I is currently on view at FLAG until July 31, 2026. Part II of this exhibition will take place at the Parrish from August 1– November 8, 2026, building upon its Manhattan counterpart to consider how conceptions of landscape can be reimagined beyond the literal.
Creating abstract sculptures from substances like wood and stone, American artist Martin Puryear has stated that the driving force behind his work is “the power of nature.” He describes, “It is my background, and it is the base of my expression.” In accordance with this sentiment, UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN focuses on formal explorations rooted in natural materials. From the experimental arrangements of plants and seaweed depicted in Andy Goldsworthy’s Long Island Road Line Diary (2024) to the beeswax and pigment employed by Michelle Stuart in Passage Bream Bay (1999), each of these works engages with substances gleaned from the earth. The artists presented in this exhibition eschew pictorial depictions of land, turning instead to abstraction to examine personal and collective attachments to place. What emerges through line, form, color, and materiality are not literal landscapes, but meditations on memory, sensory experience, and the layered histories of land.
The exhibition’s title, UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN, is drawn from a 1994 text-based work of the same name by conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner. Printed in vinyl and presented on the Parrish façade, the work suggests dramatic natural forms simply through the function of language. Inhabiting the space between literal and abstract, Weiner’s piece provides a grounding principle for the entire exhibition.
“UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN at the Parrish is deeply aligned with the artistic tradition of Long Island’s East End, where countless artists have been inspired by the light and landscape of the region,” said Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Executive Director of the Parrish Art Museum. “This exhibition foregrounds artists who engage with this very materiality, inviting us all to reflect on the expansive ways we each experience our surrounding landscapes. Representing a diverse range of geographies and perspectives, each of these works allows us to reimagine our own conceptions of land and space.”
Dating from the 1990s to the present, the works presented in this exhibition engage in formal exploration through a wide variety of natural materials and modes of creation. In Dan Colen’s Zero for Conduct (2011), the artist crushes flower petals into linen, at once evoking the all-over compositions of mid-century Abstract Expressionists while also permitting the fragility of plant matter to guide the painting’s form. Delcy Morelos uses pigment and soil to dye the hanging jute strings of her Organized Salt Water (Agua salada organizada) (2014) sculptures blood red, reinforcing the earthly origins of the human body.
Cultural histories and narratives of belonging and displacement also emerge in these direct engagements with natural materials. In Arch-A Passage Formed By A Curve (2020), Christine Howard Sandoval creates geometric forms from adobe mud, referencing colonial mission architectures of California that were built with Indigenous technologies and forced labor. The hide paintings of Sonya Kelliher-Combs feature gestural marks shaved directly into animal furs sourced from her homeland in Alaska, while Jonathan Sánchez Noa’s Untitled (Matomba) (2026)—composed of Cuban tobacco leaves and handmade paper—similarly integrates innovative techniques with culturally significant natural elements. Examining personal memory and bodily experience through organic forms, each piece exhibited in UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN complicates the very act of representing landscape, providing the necessary framework to reimagine modern constructions of land and space.
“Presented in two parts across both organizations, this exhibition allows the Parrish and FLAG to explore myriad experimental approaches to engaging with land,” said Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish Art Museum. “UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN at the Parrish presents a group of intergenerational artists responding to the natural world through the visual languages of abstraction, finding meaning and form in the natural materials they use in their practices. Weaving together two significant threads of the East End’s artistic history—traditional depictions of landscape and innovative approaches to abstraction—this exhibition examines how physical and emotional relationships to place can be conveyed by way of material, line, color, and form.”
The presentation at the Parrish features work by Dan Colen (American, b. 1979), N. Dash (American, b. 1980), Andy Goldsworthy (British, b. 1956), Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq and Athabascan, b. 1969), Wolfgang Laib (German, b. 1950), Richard Long (British, b. 1945), Delcy Morelos (Colombian, b. 1967), Jonathan Sánchez Noa (CubanAmerican, b. 1994), Martin Puryear (American, b. 1941), Eric-Paul Riege (Diné, b. 1994), Christine Howard Sandoval (Chalon Ohlone, b. 1975), Michelle Stuart (American, b. 1933), Martha Tuttle (American, b. 1989), Meg Webster (American, b.1944), and Lawrence Weiner (American, 1942–2021). UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN is curated by Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish Art Museum, and Jonathan Rider, FLAG’s Director, with Caroline Cassidy, FLAG’s Deputy Director.
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About the Partnership
UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN marks the second iteration of a new curatorial partnership between The FLAG Art Foundation and the Parrish Art Museum. Between 2026 and 2030, the organizations will collaborate on three exhibitions annually across two adjoining galleries at the Museum. This partnership builds on the recent FRESH PAINT collaboration, a rotating series of single-artwork exhibitions at the Parrish that began in June 2024. Signaling the deepening relationship between FLAG and the Parrish, this expanded partnership also marks the growth of FLAG’s commitment to supporting contemporary art practices of all forms beyond its brick-and-mortar exhibition spaces in Manhattan.
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Upcoming Programs
Friday, July 31, 5 PM | Member Opening Reception
Friday, September 11, 3 PM | Curator-led Tour
Exhibition Support
UNTIL THE MOON COMES OVER THE MOUNTAIN is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The FLAG Art Foundation. In-kind support is provided by Duggal Visual Solutions.
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