Join artists Ross Bleckner and David Salle for a conversation moderated by Melanie Crader, museum director and curator of visual arts at Guild Hall. The discussion will focus on Bleckner’s summer exhibition at Guild Hall, Never The Less, which spans intimate studies dating back to the 1980s and features larger, more recent paintings. Bleckner and Salle first met in the early 1970s at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), before moving to New York City, where they established themselves as two of the most influential painters of the last fifty years.

Come early to visit the galleries and enjoy live music in the garden from 5:30-7:30 PM as part of Third Thursdays programming.

  • Ross Bleckner

    Ross Bleckner was born in New York City and raised in Hewlett, on Long Island.  He received a Bachelor of Arts from New York University in 1971, and a Master of Fine Arts from Cal Arts in 1973.
     
    Bleckner has exhibited throughout the United States and Internationally at venues such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco;  ICA, Philadelphia; Kunsthalle, Zurich; Moderna Museet,  Stockholm; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin; Reina Sofia, Madrid; L.A. County Museum, Los Angeles; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Luzern; and his work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of Art, New York, among others.
     
    For seventeen years, Bleckner served as the president of the AIDS Community Research Initiative of America, a non-profit, community based, AIDS research and treatment center. And in 2009 he was awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations for his work helping to rehabilitate child soldiers in northern Uganda.
     
    Ross Bleckner lives and works in East Hampton, NY, and New York City.

  • David Salle

    David Salle helped define the post-modern sensibility in painting.  Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at museums and galleries worldwide, including the Whitney Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MoMA Vienna; Menil Collection, Houston; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Castello di Rivoli; MoCA, Chicago, and the Guggenheim, Bilbao. A highly lauded writer on art, Salle is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. A collection of his essays, HOW TO SEE: Looking, Talking, and Thinking about Art, was published by W.W. Norton in 2016. An exhibition of recent paintings will be on view at the Palazzo Cini in Venice, Italy, from May 6 through September 27.

    Born in 1952 in Norman, Oklahoma, David Salle grew up in Wichita, Kansas. In 1970, he began his studies at the newly founded California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he worked with John Baldessari. Creating abstract paintings, installations, and video and conceptual pieces, Salle earned a BFA in 1973 and an MFA in 1975, both from CalArts.

    Photo: Costas Picadas

     

Sponsors

ROSS BLECKNER: NEVER THE LESS
Principal Sponsors: Caroline and Robert Taubman – A. Alfred Taubman Foundation 
Lead Sponsors: The FLAG Art Foundation, Ellen Katz, and Fiona and Eric Rudin 

Visual Arts programs are supported by lead funding from Lucio and Joan Noto, with additional support provided by Barbara and Richard S. Lane, The Michael Lynne Museum Endowment, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, The Giuppy Nantista Fund, and The Hoie Fund. 

Additional support provided by Friends of the Museum: Shari and Jeff Aronson, The Artist Profile Archive, William L. Bernhard, Elizabeth Gordon and Woody Heller, The Hayden Family Foundation, Robert Longo and Sophie Chahinian, Elin and Michael Nierenberg, Onna House, Lori and John Reinsberg, Jeff and Audrey Spiegel, Hillary and Jeff Suchman, Jane Wesman and Don Savelson, and Yurman Family Foundation. 

Become a Sponsor

Become a Sponsor View All Programs & Events