ARTISTS CHOOSE ARTISTS JURIED EXHIBITION,

CELEBRATING THE DYNAMIC RELATIONSHIPS AMONG ARTISTS

ON THE EAST END, OPENS NOVEMBER 10

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Exhibition Features Work by Seven Jurors and 14 Selected Artists

Who Will Participate in Gallery Talks and Artist-in-Residence Educational Programs 

Artists: Top row, Irina Alimanestianu, Mary Boochever, Scott Bluedorn, Janet Culbertson, Margaret Garrett,

Tria Giovan Janet Goleas. Middle row: Priscilla Heine, Thomas Hoepker, Ronald Reed, Bastienne Schmidt, 

Anne Seelbach, Dan Welden, Mark William Wilson; Jurors: Bottom Row, Lillian Ball Ralph Gibson,

Valerie Jaudon, Jill Moser, Alexis Rockman, Lucien Smith, Allan Wexler

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The Parrish Art Museum presents the fourth iteration of Artists Choose Artists, the Museum’s ongoing juried exhibition that celebrates the artists of the East End and the dynamic relationships that unite the area’s creative community. On view at the Museum November 10, 2019 to February 23, 2020, Artists Choose Artists encourages fellowship among today’s expanded, multi-generational network of artists and demonstrates the diversity of contemporary creative practice. Each of the seven distinguished jurors made two selections from 300 online submissions and studio visits. The complete roster includes:

  • LUCIEN SMITH, with ANNE SEELBACH and MARK WILLIAM WILSON
  • RALPH GIBSON, with TRIA GIOVAN and THOMAS HOEPKER  
  • ALEXIS ROCKMAN, with IRINA ALIMANESTIANU and RONALD REED
  • ALLAN WEXLER, with MARGARET GARRETT and PRISCILLA HEINE
  • LILLIAN BALL, with SCOTT BLUEDORN and JANET CULBERTSON
  • VALERIE JAUDON, with JANET GOLEAS and BASTIENNE SCHMIDT
  • JILL MOSER, with MARY BOOCHEVER and DAN WELDEN

“Artists Choose Artists is one of the most rewarding exhibition projects of the Parrish Art Museum,” said Corinne Erni, Senior Curator of ArtsReach and Special Projects who organized the exhibition. “It sparks conversations and exchanges that normally don’t happen among established and emerging artists, and the Parrish continues its commitment to be a nurturing hub for artists in our East End community.”

The exhibition of work by the 12 women and 9 men, ranging in age from 33-87, comprises painting, sculpture, photography, prints, video, and mixed media in a variety of styles and genres; and features work never before shown in a Museum by Bluedorn, Garrett, Gibson, Giovan, Moser, Rockman, Schmidt, Smith, Wexler, and Wilson.

Erni, Alicia Longwell, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, and Curatorial Assistant Savannah Petrick made visits to selected artists’ studios that were recorded on videos compiled into a film that will be presented at the exhibition’s opening receptions, on view in the galleries, and on the Museum’s Vimeo page. Gallery talks by the artists will be held on November 22, December 13, January 10, January 24, and February 21. Several artists will also lead workshops as part of the Museum’s annual Artist-in-Residence program. Through the Museum’s partnerships with local and regional schools and organizations, nearly 350 East End students will visit the exhibition, meet the artists, learn about their artistic practices, and make art that will be displayed in the Parrish’s 2020 Student Exhibition.

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Jurors and Selected Artists

Abstract painter LUCIEN SMITH (American, b. 1989) is best known for his process-based works that employ both accidental and improvisational marks to create loose, all-over compositions. Smith presents three never-before-shown large-scale paintings from his Flood series, which he painted last summer during a residency as Inga Maren Otto Fellow at The Watermill Center in an ongoing partnership with the Parrish Art Museum. The 72 x 60-inch Flood Paintings 09, 10, and 11 (2019)—one red, one green, and one blue—represent the RGB color theory and reference the natural phenomena of flooding caused by excess rain fall. The works are a continuation of Smith’s The Rain Paintings series, created by paint being projected onto the canvas from a distance. ANNE SEELBACH (American, b. 1944) explores the mysteries of nature where earth and water meet as well as the conflict between the laws of nature and artificial attempts to control it—particularly on Eastern Long Island. The three mixed-media cutout collages Collision, Sunken Structure, and Turquoise Waters (all 2016) are made of acrylic, plastic mesh, woven cloth, and other materials found after Hurricane Sandy; Collision depicts fish that typically swim in rhythmic schools colliding with one another perhaps as a result of pollution. MARK WILLIAM WILSON’s (Australian, b. 1959) oil paintings Stacked #1 (after Chase) (2018), Shinnecock redux (2019), and Idle Hours (2019); and  works on paper, Way home (2018) and The Past Sure is Tense (2018) depart from the landscapes and natural scenes of East End 19th century American Impressionist William Merritt Chase, taking them into the present through more abstract images.

Throughout a nearly 50-year career defined by more than 40 published monographs, RALPH GIBSON (American, born 1939) has created images that often incorporate erotic and mysterious undertones, building narrative meaning through contextualization and surreal juxtaposition. Four photographs from his 2015/6Vertical Horizons Series, unframed and mounted directly to the gallery wall, explore the natural and manmade, figurative and abstract. TRIA GIOVAN’s (American, b. 1961) photographs span a wide range of subject matter. Traveling extensively to Cuba during the economic depression of the Special Period (1990–1996), Giovan shot over 25,000 images, creating a body of work that captured the subtleties and complexities of the country’s day-to-day life. Five photographs from The Cuba Archive reveal resiliency, creative defiance through aesthetics, and the unquashable human spirit amid oppression. Tres Muchachas-El Malecon, Havana, Cuba (1993), has never been previously exhibited. THOMAS HOEPKER (German, b. 1936), a member of Magnum Photos from 1989 and its president from 2003 to 2006, has traveled the world as a photographer and photojournalist for decades. The five images from his Strange Encounters monograph (2017) depict humorous interactions with art, including Sur Rodney performs a pantomime Free Advice at the opening of the art museum in Southampton, A visitor at the Museum of Modern Art in New York admires Andy Warhol’s Golden Marilyn, George Segal’s Depression Bread Line and Anselm Kiefer’s Sprache der Voegel at the Margulies Collection in Miami, Tony Martelli’s sculpture of a sleepwalker on the High Line Park in Lower Manhattan, and A visitor in the Whitney Museum, New York.

Working in the fields of architecture, design, and fine art, ALLAN WEXLER (American, b. 1949) focuses his work on the built environment, creating drawings, multimedia objects, images, and installations that alter perceptions of domestic activities. Acting as an investigator rather than searching for definitive solutions, Wexler creates buildings, furniture, vessels, and utensils as backdrops and props for everyday human activity such as eating, sleeping, and bathing. On view will be Wexler’s never-before-shown sculpture Bicycle For Picnicking (2019), a bike featuring multiple containers holding picnic utensils, creating a new scenario around a well-defined activity; Plein Air Studio (2016), a wearable kit recalling old tools of the trade: T-square, scale, roll of trace paper, and pink eraser; Glass Wear Armonica (2014) a wearable belt with drinking glasses that explores the intersection between accessory, adornment, and instrument; and the tongue-in-cheek Sabbath Cell Phone Silencer (2017) celebrating the Jewish day of rest and societal break from technology. MARGARET GARRETT’s (American, b. 1965) art practice is largely influenced by her background as a dancer. Her paintings and videos engage with the same compositional elements—linear movement, shape, rhythm, and the unfolding of contrapuntal patterns, as manifested in her new single channel video In My World II (2019), a solo dance set to Jacob Collier’s take on the Beach Boys’ song In My Room; and her large-scale painting Rhythm at Dusk (2019). PRISCILLA HEINE’s (American, b. 1956) paintings are results of vivid sensory experiences as in the large-scale Engine Room (2014). Her connection to the lily originated in 1988 in the Pyrenees where hundreds of freshly picked calla lilies were set out on a restaurant’s tables. Holding (2019) is a wall sculpture of fabric, gesso paint, and wire representing a bouquet of lilies as a manifestation of how individuals “hold it all together,” according to the artist.

ALEXIS ROCKMAN (American, b. 1962) has depicted a darkly surreal vision of the collision between civilization and nature—often apocalyptic scenarios on a monumental scale—for more than three decades. The Cuyahoga River (2019), the artist’s never-before-seen 3-panel large-scale painting (72 x 192 inches), was commissioned for Cleveland’s Great Lakes Science Center. It chronicles the history of Ohio’s major waterway feeding into Lake Erie, from the Pleistocene (12,000 years ago) to its near future, and depicts fires blazing on the river as a result of pollution. IRINA ALIMANESTIANU’s (American, b. 1957) mixed media, large-scale painting Deep Sea Vent (2017) combines oil, ink, pencil, glitter, and watercolor on oil paper in an explosion of organic shapes and dynamic color. Akin to the way natural elements or instances in life seek equilibrium after disruption, the artist introduces chaos before returning to harmony. RONALD REED (American, b. 1969) is a painter, sculptor, and architect who explores the intersections and relationships between built and natural environments, contemplated design and irrational design. His five mixed-media sculptures dating from 2016, including BOY MEETS GIRL which combines a book, horseshoe crab shell, and jar covered in crimson acrylic and mounted on board, address these dichotomies.

Ecological artist and activist LILLIAN BALL (American, b. 1955) works with wetland issues from her interdisciplinary backgrounds in anthropology, ethnographic film, and sculpture. Her Seasons in a Wetland (2016), a 6-minute animation of stills taken over five years, shows the transformation of WATERWASH Bronx River from an abandoned lot on the water’s edge to a thriving wetland park that filters stormwater runoff, protecting the river. The ongoing project (2010-2019) was initiated and led by the artist for native habitat restoration and protection. Ball’s GO H.O.M.E. Bimini (2018-19) is an interactive video game about threatened mangroves wetlands, commissioned by the 2008 International Seville Biennial. SCOTT BLUEDORN (American, b. 1986) addresses climate change by integrating cultural anthropology, primitivism, and nautical tradition into his imagery that speaks to the collective unconscious, particularly through myth and visual storytelling, in a world he refers to as “maritime cosmology.” His new large-scale drawing Genesis Flux is a surreal vision of climactic upheaval, including change, renewal, and flux in the unnatural Anthropocene era and sixth mass extinction. The drawing Integrated Ocean Energy Farm is the artist’s proposition to repurpose existing structures like oil drilling platforms into floating multipurpose ‘farms’ for growing kelp (for food, biofuels, and regenerative ecosystem services), while combining value-added energy production including solar, wind, and wave power. Through her extensive travels to experience the planet, eco-feminist and activist JANET CULBERTSON(American, b. 1932) has painted the dark volcanic islands of the Galapagos, the vanishing animals of Africa, and the degradation of the earth’s once wild places.Galapagos Tortoise (1975), a 90 x 72 inch portrait, is majestic even as the creature seems to fade and decompose; Abyss (1976–2003), is an unapologetic representation of a dystopic exploitation of nature.

During her distinguished 40-year career, VALERIE JAUDON (American, b. 1945) has been redefining the parameters of abstraction with painterly yet rigorous and complex geometrical works. Originally part of the Pattern and Decoration movement, Jaudon explores the language, grammar, and forms of abstraction, notably in the intricate black & white large-scale painting Cassation (2015). JANET GOLEAS (American, b. 1956) focuses on what she describes as “…issues that are often in direct conflict with one another such as depth and flatness, nature and artifice, expression and precision, and spheres and circles.” Never Mind (2018, ink, gouache on paper) is one of three works that mine these concepts, with bold black lines contrasted against a background of muted color. BASTIENNE SCHMIDT (German, b. 1961) is a multi-media artist working in photography, painting, and drawings. In her large-scale Colored Grids 1, 2, and 3 (2019), the artist first configures a grid through sewn lines on natural colored muslin fabric canvas, and subsequently adds colorful vintage fabrics and polymer paint. Schmidt is inspired by her childhood in Greece, where the reuse of materials was an economic necessity, and by the papiers coupes of Matisse, who used vibrant painted papers to create new imaginary spaces.

Best known for her strongly gestural paintings and prints, JILL MOSER (American, b. 1956) has explored painting, writing, and animated image for three decades. Her never before seen paintings Cinnabar, Gamboge and 10-3838 (Pantone’s color of the year for 2018) from her Borrowed Light series (2019) address her ongoing exploration of the temporality of gesture and the animated image through performative mark-making and color. Borrowed Light is the artist’s response to our darkened era of uncertainty and division where light and sight are threatened. In developing her own color language, MARY BOOCHEVER (American, b. 1954) has explored sources as diverse as the Kabala and Goethe’s Color Theory. The artist’s painting, sculpture, and installations draw the viewer into the immediacy of the color experience, as in Deo Herculi, High Tower, and Red Work (1990, acrylic on canvas, 94 x 49 inches), in which the color gradually transforms as the angular upper edges of the nearly 8-ft works round out at the bottom of the canvas. DAN WELDEN (American, b. 1941) is the innovator of the Solarplate printmaking technique, an environmentally sustainable process devoid of acids or dangerous chemicals. For his series Aesop’s Fable (1999), Welden resurrected old, found zinc etching plates and employed drypoint lines and salt etch—along with ink, paper and a press—to create 11 sets of 2 etchings each (30 x 27 inches). The powerful black & white images reference metaphors of opposites from the ancient Greek slave’s tales, such as Appreciative Lion and Sympathetic Mouse, Braying Donkey and Lap Dog, and Speedy Hare and Steady Tortoise.

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RELATED PROGRAMS: “THE ARTIST’S VIEW” GALLERY TALKS

Friday Evenings, 6 pm

November 22

Ralph Gibson, Tria Giovan, Thomas Hoepker

December 13

Janet Goleas, Priscilla Heine, Bastienne Schmidt

January 10

Irina Alimanestianu, Scott Bluedorn, Janet Culbertson

January 24

Margaret Garrett, Ronald Reed, Mark Willliam Wilson

February 21

Mary Boochever, Anne Seelbach, Dan Welden

 

Artists Choose Artists exhibition is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of the Robert Lehman Foundation; The Evelyn Toll Family Foundation; Jacqueline Brody; Herman Goldman Foundation; Linda and Gregory Fischbach, and Fred Schmeltzer.

Friday Nights are made possible, in part, by Presenting Sponsor, Bank of America. Additional support provided by The Corcoran Group and Sandy and Stephen Perlbinder.  

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Parrish Art Museum

Inspired by the natural setting and artistic life of Long Island’s East End, the Parrish Art Museum illuminates the creative process and how art and artists transform our experiences and understanding of the world and how we live in it. The Museum fosters connections among individuals, art, and artists through care and interpretation of the collection, presentation of exhibitions, publications, educational initiatives, programs, and artists-in-residence.  The Parrish is a center for cultural engagement, an inspiration and destination for the region, the nation, and the world.

www.parrishart.org

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Parrish Art Museum construction photographs © Jeff Heatley.

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AAQ Resource: Lear + Mahoney Landscape Architecture

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