The Church: ‘This Land: Considering the American Landscape’ / Discussion & Opening Recept, June 20th

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SPECIAL DISCUSSION &
EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION of

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THIS LAND: Considering the American Landscape

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SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 2026
Panel Discussion: 5 PM – 6 PM
Opening Reception: 6 PM – 7:30 PM

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TICKETS FOR PANEL DISCUSSION:

General: $10

Member: Free, RSVP Required

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Opening Reception:

FREE, no RSVP REQUIRED

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The Church invites you to a very special opening of our Summer Exhibition THIS LAND: Considering the American Landscape. Sit down with our Guest curators Donna De Salvo and Seph Rodney, as they discuss their curatorial perspectives of the show. Joined in conversation by The Church’s Executive Director Sheri Pasquarella, the group will explore the impetus for the show and their responses to the query “What is the American Landscape?” Learn how they navigated their curatorial decisions, the major themes of the show, and how these themes are explored through the works of art in the exhibition. Following the discussion, guests will be led upstairs to the main gallery for the first look at the summer Exhibition.

De Salvo and Rodney have conceived of a transhistorical exhibition that explores artistic responses to the American landscape both at its inception and today, reflecting our nation’s 250th anniversary.

Featured Artists include: Jeremy Dennis, Thomas Doughty, Asher B. Durand, Cristina Fernandez, April Gornik, Leslie Hewitt, Sky Hopinka, An-My Lê, Zoe Leonard, Richard Mayhew, Charles Henry Miller, Kent Monkman, Mary Nimmo Moran, Thomas Moran, Arcmanoro Niles, James Perkins, Albert Pinkham Ryder, Lucy Raven, Anastasia Samoylova, Meg Webster, selections from Hudson River School paintings and works on paper related to Dan Flavin, and a contribution from the Center for Land Use Interpretation.

With over thirty years of curatorial expertise and senior leadership to museums across the United States and United Kingdom, Donna De Salvo brings an artist-centered approach to our exhibition. Currently the Senior Adjunct Curator at Dia Art Foundation De Salvo also spent fifteen years at the Whitney Musuem of American Art as its inaugural Chief Curator and Deputy Director of Programs. Her invaluable experience adds a very special dimension to This Land, which we are grateful to share with our audience.

A former senior art critic and opinions editor for Hyperallergic and regular contributor to The New York Times among other publications, Seph Rodney, PhD adds another special dimension to This Land, by incorporating an understanding of the viewer and their approach to art. In addition to writing for The New York Times, CNN, NBC, The Guardian, Art Forum, and Art in America, Rodney is also the author of The Personalization of the Museum Visit (Routledge, 2019). Currently at work on a book about learning how to look at art, tentatively titled A Certain Minor Light, the writer and educator joins us with a unique perspective that centers on our visitors and their experience, which we are excited to share with our community.

Join us for a very special evening and celebrate the start of the summer season. Space is limited for the discussion, please RSVP in advance.

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ABOUT THE CURATORS

DONNA DE SALVO brings over thirty years of curatorial expertise and senior leadership to museums across the United States and United Kingdom, distinguished by her artist-centered approach and innovative exhibition-making practice. She currently serves as Senior Adjunct Curator at Dia Art Foundation, where she previously worked as a curator (1981-1986.) Her recent projects at Dia include a presentation of Steve McQueen’s work at Dia Chelsea and Dia Beacon—featuring Bass, co-commissioned with the Laurenz Foundation, Schaulager, Basel—as well as an installation of Roni Horn’s early works and Jack Whitten’s Greek Alphabet Paintings (co-curated with Matilde Guidelli Guidi), both at Dia Beacon. Currently on view is Walter De Maria: The Singular Experience, which she curated for Gagosian, Le Bourget, Paris.

De Salvo spent fifteen years at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2004-2019) as its inaugural Chief Curator and Deputy Director for Programs, overseeing all curatorial activities including acquisitions, collection presentations, exhibitions, and the Whitney Biennial. She was instrumental in developing the museum’s building at 99 Gansevoort Street and reimagining its curatorial vision. Under her leadership, a multi-year Luce Foundation-funded collection study resulted in strategic acquisitions that significantly expanded representation of women artists, artists of color, and diverse geographic regions. She directed the team behind the museum’s inaugural exhibition in its new home, America Is Hard to See (2015), curated the major retrospective Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (2018), and co-curated the retrospectives Hélio Oiticica: To Organize Delirium (2017), Roni Horn aka Roni Horn (2009), and Lawrence Weiner: As Far as the Eye Can See (2007), along with projects featuring Steve McQueen (2016) and Barbara Kruger (2010), among numerous collection installations. With Linda Norden, she co-curated Course of Empire: Paintings by Ed Ruscha for the US Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale, which traveled to the Whitney (2005).

Prior to the Whitney, De Salvo served as Senior Curator at Tate Modern, from 1999 to 2004, where she organized exhibitions including Open Systems: Rethinking Art, c. 1970 (2005), Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (2002), Anish Kapoor’s commission for The Unilever Series (2002), Giorgio Morandi (2001), and Century City: Art and Culture in the Modern Metropolis (2001) and numerous collection displays. She played an active role in building the collection and was founding curator for what is now the North American Acquisitions Committee. Prior to Tate Modern, from 1995 to 1999, she was a member of the senior program team at the Wexner Center for the Arts, and from 1991-1995 was the Robert Lehman Curator at The Parrish Art Museum.

A leading scholar on Andy Warhol, De Salvo has lectured and published extensively on the artist’s work and organized significant exhibitions including the major retrospectives Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again (Whitney, 2018) and Andy Warhol: A Retrospective (Tate Modern, 2002), as well as Hand-Painted Pop: American Art in Transition, 1955-1962 (LA MoCA, 1992), “Success is a Job in New York”: The Early Business and Art of Andy Warhol (Grey Art Gallery, NYU, 1989), Andy Warhol: Hand-Painted Images, 1960-1962 (Dia Art Foundation, 1986), and Andy Warhol: Disaster Paintings: 1963 (Dia Art Foundation, 1986). She served as Adjunct Curator for The Andy Warhol Museum from 1989 to 1991.

She has authored essays, lectured, and organized exhibitions on artists including Barbara Bloom, Lee Bontecou, John Chamberlain, Walter De Maria, Robert Gober, Grace Hartigan, Michael Heizer, Robert Irwin, Ray Johnson, Isa Genzken, Imi Knoebel, Barnett Newman, Charles Ray, Gerhard Richter, Cy Twombly, and Franz Erhard Walther, while also addressing new methodologies in the presentation of postwar and contemporary art.

De Salvo has lectured, moderated, or participated in panels at the Art Institute of Chicago, Brown University, CIMAM Singapore, Harvard University, Institute of Fine Arts (NYU), Global Art Forum (Dubai), Kunsthaus Bregenz, Menil Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art (Los Angeles), Museum of Modern Art, Royal Academy of Art, Royal College of Art (London), Rhode Island School of Design, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, The Studio Museum in Harlem, UCLA Hammer Museum, and the Vera List Center for Art & Politics.

She has served on distinguished juries and committees including the Berlin Biennale, the Gwangju Biennale, and The Sotheby’s Prize, and was a member of the 3rd Academic Committee for Shanghai’s Power Station of Art, among others. De Salvo is a recipient of the College Art Association’s Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Award for Distinguished Catalogue.

SEPH RODNEY, PhD is a regular contributor to The New York Times, and a former senior critic and opinions editor for Hyperallergic. He has also written for CNN, NBC, Art in America, Art Forum, The Guardian, and several other publications. In 2020 he won the Rabkin Arts Journalism prize and in 2022 won the Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant. He is also a curator of contemporary art exhibitions, previously cocurating Get in the Game, at SF MoMa, the largest show that museum has undertaken. Get in the Game Recently reopened at the Perez Museum in Miamai after travelling from Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas.

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The Church was established in 2019 by artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik. Housed in a deconsecrated 19th-century church, its doors were opened in April 2021. Our mission is to foster creativity and to honor the living history of Sag Harbor as a maker village. The East End represents an exceptional artistic legacy, spanning the practices of indigenous art of several centuries ago, Abstract Expressionists of the mid-20th Century, and the many celebrated writers, makers, musicians, and visual artists of the recent past and current moment. Core programming includes visual art exhibitions, concerts and events, educational programming, workshops, lectures, and an artist’s residency.

The Church’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.