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ANNUAL PATRONS TRIP: ART & ABOUT—ST. LOUIS

The Fabulous Fox, St. Louis, MO.

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RING THE ALARM…A Conversation with Sanford Biggers & Renee Cox

The idea for RING THE ALARM… A Conversation with series Renee Cox began with discussions on an exhibition of Black Artists that Renee Cox will be curating for the summer of 2023. The first in the series was a conversation with Derrick Adams and Renee Cox both noted artists, colleagues and friends, who have a long history of exhibiting work and curating exhibitions that focus on empowerment, the black experience, and issues of contemporary life.  
 
We are delighted to welcome Sanford Biggers as the next artist to engage in the Ring the Alarm series of conversations. Sanford Biggers’ work is an interplay of narrative, perspective and history that speaks to current social, political and economic happenings while also examining the contexts that bore them. His diverse practice positions him as a collaborator with the past through explorations of often overlooked cultural and political narratives from American history. Working with antique quilts that echo rumors of their use as signposts on the Underground Railroad, he engages these legends and contributes to this narrative by drawing and painting directly onto them. In response to ongoing occurrences of police brutality against Black Americans, Biggers’ “BAM” series is composed of bronze sculptures recast from fragments of wooden African statues that have been anonymized through dipping in wax and then ballistically ‘resculpted’.  
 
“The need for open dialogue on art, race and politics felt timely and something that we believe the community at large was looking for. The response to that first talk was truly inspiring and we plan to continue this series of conversations next year and leading up to the 2023 Summer exhibition.” noted Christina Strassfield, Museum Director/Chief Curator.

ON DEMAND: A Totally Disrespectful Evening of Short Plays by Joy Behar

A Totally Disrespectful Evening of Short Plays by Joy Behar
A Virtual Benefit Reading
Directed by John Gould Rubin 

Starring Bob Balaban, Brynne Amelia Ballan, Chris Bauer, Joy Behar, Lorraine Bracco, Rachel Dratch, Susie Essman, Paul Hecht, Danny Hoch, Robert Klein, Irene Sofia Lucio, Dylan McDermott, Albert Jack Peterson, Linda Smith, Brenda Vaccaro, and Steven Weber.

Five short, comic pieces performed by a dazzling array of funny performers (and maybe even the playwright!) 

The evening will benefit Guild Hall and two other non-profit organizations, Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreational Center, and JBJ Soul Kitchen.

Rosario Varela: Red, Gold, and You

Red, Gold, and You  is an outdoor installation and durational piece by  artist, Rosario Varela. Installed in Guild Hall’s Minikes Garden for two weekends, cellular patterns of red paper and gold tape weave through the trees and shrubbery while a team of mindful artists alter and gradually redesign the piece, embracing the beauty of impermanence and chance.   

Varela’s artistic curiosity stems from a passion for tactile experience, and a unique eye for pattern. From organic and gestural to precise and organized, her work in painting and ceramics reflects the patterns found in her natural surroundings, and the responsive effect of material in her hands. Red, Gold, and You expands the scope of Varela’s work, exploring a new medium and scale for the artist; returning to her roots in graphic design and architecture, and responding to the everchanging circumstances of a global pandemic.   

Varela found herself paused in the studio when the pandemic first broke-out. Not wanting to return to her ceramics or paintings, she discovered a roll of abandoned red paper. In experimenting with the material, Varela began creating links of various diameters, connecting and interconnecting them, forming cellular patterns. At times when the paper would tear, she would rejoin the ends with gold tape; a nod to the Japanese practice, Kintsugi. The process soon became a meditative act, allowing the artist to reflect on her, and society’s, need for connection and restoration.   

Red, Gold, and You expands this experience by opening the process to both a trained team of artists, comprised of Guild Hall’s Teen Arts Council, and the viewing public. Artists and patrons will interact to detach, reshape, and adjoin the paper links, replicating Varela’s experimentation and transferring the ownership and over-all design of the work from artist to community. In the best of worlds, this process involves collaboration, respect, and risk-taking, embracing the beauty of decay, appreciating the impermanence of our creation, and applauding the performance of our community.    

In tandem with the installation, Guild Hall will host a blood drive in partnership with the New York Blood Center (NYBC) on Friday, October 23, 11:30am–5:30pm. Guild Hall has organized blood drives in East Hampton during the most threatening of times, responding to the needs of World War II in the 1940s and through the 70s during the Vietnam War. According to NYBC, blood from volunteer donors is needed every two seconds to help meet the daily transfusion needs of cancer and surgery patients, accident and burn victims, newborns and mothers delivering babies, AIDS and sickle cell anemia patients, and many more. Today’s pandemic has shuttered reoccurring donation drives, causing an anticipated 75% decrease in donations. In hosting a blood drive during Varela’s Red, Gold, and You, Guild Hall transfers the artist’s reflection on connection and restoration towards the civic act of blood donation; acknowledging Guild Hall’s founding mission to be “a gathering place for the community where an appreciation for the arts would serve to encourage greater civic participation.”   

CURATORS
Casey Dalene, Curatorial Asst. & Lewis B. Cullman Assoc. for Museum Education
Anthony Madonna, The Patti Kenner Fellow in Arts Education 

Rosario Varela is an inaugural Guild Hall Community Artist-in-Residence. The Community-Artist-in-Residence program seeks to engage and support four regional artists. Given either an indoor exhibition space or outdoor performance and/or installation site on the Guild Hall campus, the artists will work with community groups to devise, create, and develop new work to be on view through the Summer and Fall months. Artists will be chosen by the senior leadership of Guild Hall based on the community-aspect of their work and a history or interest in public practice. Other Artist-in-Residence include Monica Banks, Viv Corringham, and Lindsay Morris. 

Red, Gold, and You is on view during regular Museum Hours. The Guild Hall Gardens are self-monitoring spaces. We ask that patrons reserve a visitation time, observe proper physical-distance, observe maximum capacity signage, and wear face-coverings on the grounds. 

Suzanne Vega: An Evening of New York Songs and Stories, Live streamed from the Blue Note Jazz Club

Grammy Award-winning artist Suzanne Vega will celebrate the release of her new, career-spanning live album, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories (out September 11 via Amanuensis/Cooking Vinyl) with a livestream event from New York’s iconic Blue Note Jazz Club on October 7 and 8. The first of the two performances will be timed for North American audiences and the second for UK and European fans. The full-band set will feature the album’s New York-centric repertoire, honoring Vega’s long musical relationship with her city.

At the Blue Note, Vega will be joined by longtime guitarist Gerry Leonard, bassist Jeff Allen and keyboardist Jason Hart. Recorded in early 2019, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories includes familiar songs like “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” alongside deep cuts from her catalog like “Frank and Ava” and “Ludlow Street.” The mix of repertoire also features “New York Is My Destination” from Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, Vega’s one-woman play about the Southern gothic novelist Carson McCullers. An Evening of New York Songs and Stories was produced by Leonard, mixed by Grammy Award-winning engineer Kevin Killen and mastered by Grammy Award winner Bob Ludwig.

Widely regarded as one of the foremost songwriters of her generation, Suzanne Vega emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s. Since the release of her self-titled, critically acclaimed 1985 debut album, her songs have become part of the contemporary music vernacular.

Virtual Reading: A Land Without Weather

What to do during a global pandemic? Former Guild Hall artist-in-residence and playwright/performer Dipti Bramhandkar offers varying viewpoints in A Land Without Weather, which premieres in a virtual reading on Sunday, October 4 at 8 PM.
 
“I’m swinging on a pendulum between pointless and purposeful. One day, I’m thinking this pandemic is a cosmic call to action and the next, I’ve got my hand in a bag of Ruffles. Anyone else feel like this?” 
 
Specially commissioned by Josh Gladstone, Artistic Director of the John Drew Theater at Guild Hall, A Land Without Weather creatively stems from interviews with both New York City residents and members of East End communities, expanding the playwright’s recent Quarantheater series. These encounters weave together a rich fabric of diverse experiences and outlooks expressed by a talented troupe in an exciting new work. 
 
With a running time of about an hour, A Land Without Weather interlaces monologues and scenes filled with nostalgia, fear, desire, humor, hope, and intimate moments of everyday life under the tyrannical hand of coronavirus. Vignettes include the patient care of a rosarian, the thoughts of a speculative new homeowner, and a senior citizen who, instead of retirement, is hopeful about her next chapter in a move to the country.
 
Stories were mined from individuals through Organicazión Latino-Americana (OLA) of Eastern Long Island; Ma’s House, a Shinnecock BIPOC Art Studio; the Bridgehampton Child Care & Recreation Center; Volunteers for Guild Hall, and others from the East End and New York City.
 
“I drew from the stories that were shared with me,” said Bramhandkar, “sometimes combining several different people into one character. It’s a work of fiction, but it’s based in real-life experiences from real people.”
 
Directed by multiple award winner Padraic Lillis (Artistic Director of The Farm Theater) and produced by Guild Hall’s Anthony Madonna, A Land Without Weather features Chris McGarry, David Anzuelo, Purva Bedi, Rajesh Bose, Nat Cassidy, Scott Hudson, Julia Knippen, Eric T. Miller, Kelley Rae O’Donnell, Rahoul Roy, Sidney Williams, Martha Wollner, and David Zayas. Josh Gladstone is the Executive Producer; Patrick Dawson is Virtual Technical Director.
 
THE PLAYWRIGHT:
Dipti Bramhandkar’s residency gained the attention of Guild Hall board members and local artist/writers, leading to an invitation to sit with Salman Rushdie at the 2020 Academy of the Arts dinner. Since then her one-woman performance piece, American Rookie—about her experiences being raised in rural upstate New York after moving from Mumbai, from mimicking ‘80s fashion and studying Judy Blume books to constructing a new American persona altogether—sold out and was extended during its January 2020 run at Luna Stage. That same month there was a reading of her play Islands of Contentment for LAByrinth Theater Company’s Barn Series at Cherry Lane. 
 
In 2014, Bramhandkar’s first play, The Accident, won numerous awards at the Frigid Festival. She is a graduate of Cornell University (BA) and Cambridge University (MA) in English literature.

CAST 
David Anzuelo
Purva Bedi
Rajesh Bose
Nat Cassidy
Scott Hudson
Julia Knippen
Chris McGarry
Eric T. MillerKelley Rae O’Donnell
Rahoul Roy
Sidney Williams
Martha Wollner
David Zayas 

CREATIVE 
Dipti Bramhandkar, Playwright
Padraic Lillis, Director
Patrick Dawson, Virtual Technical Director
Anthony Madonna, Producer
Josh Gladstone, Executive Producer

LIVESTREAM: Laurie Anderson & Christian McBride with special guest Rubin Kodheli

Two legendary artists come together in a showcase for their respective versatility and the pliability of jazz and the avant-garde. Due to popular demand this live performance from our John Drew Backyard Theater will be available via livestream to be enjoyed anywhere around the world.

Laurie Anderson, violin and synthesizers

Christian McBride, bass

Rubin Kodheli, cello

Individually, Laurie Anderson and Christian McBride are titans in their respective fields: Anderson as an award-winning visual artist and innovative musician working in pop’s avant-garde and McBride as a Grammy®-winning jazz polymath equally adept at leading anything from small ensembles to big bands. Together, complemented by cellist Rubin Kodheli, Anderson’s violin and synthesizers and McBride’s bass form a unique and unexpected combination, leading The New York Times to call their 2017 concert at Town Hall one of the best live jazz performances of the year.  This string-based trio blends the sound of several different worlds into a harmonious whole.

ON DEMAND: Matthew Broderick, John Leguizamo, Blair Underwood & an all-star cast in THE PACK, Comedies by Eugene Pack

Three premiere comedy shorts written and directed by Eugene Pack starring:
Matthew Broderick, John Leguizamo, Blair Underwood, Sherri Shepherd, Dayle Reyfel, Rachel Dratch, Cecily Strong, Santino Fontana, Maulik Pancholy, and Andrea Martin. The 3 comedies are adapted for virtual viewing in the form of intimate zoom films.

“A prodigiously gifted storyteller” –LA Times
“The Pack -Best culture at home!” –The Guardian
“The next Neil Simon FOR THESE TIMES” –Alec Baldwin

Monica Banks: Cloud Garden

Cloud Garden is a site-specific outdoor installation and community project by artist, Monica Banks. Installed in the trees of Guild Hall’s Furman Garden, tangles of wire, balled-up deer fencing, feathers, pop tops from seltzer cans, unidentifiable pieces of hardware, and other artifacts from the artist’s everyday life hang as mobiles, creating dangling objects that shimmer in the air like the stories we tell about ourselves. 

Banks’ “Cloud” series began in 2006 when the artist received boxes of her childhood toys, jewelry and trinkets. Wanting to give meaning to her history through sculpture, Banks combined souvenirs of her present life with these fragments of her past in tangles of wire that hang, cloud-like, from ceilings or tree branches. She is revisiting this process during the Covid–19 pandemic, when like most of us, she is spending more time at home immersed in the minutia of domestic life. The work in this installation updates her materials as a record of this extraordinary time, and includes samples from the bag of orphan socks she discovered in the back of a closet, pieces of a wall sculpture she made for her infant son (now 24 years old), fingertips of unused gloves, tufts of fur from her new puppy, and shards of the Nerf soccer ball he attacked, along with other items unearthed during the prolonged quarantine. 

The installation expands into Guild Hall’s Minikes Garden with an exhibit of student work; Saturday, September 19 – Monday, October 12. Through remote workshops with The Bridgehampton Childcare & Recreational Center, Banks has shared her work and process with children of The Center, resulting in an installation of the children’s own cloud sculptures. 

Curator
Christina Strassfield, Museum Director/Chief Curator 

Project Coordinator
Anthony Madonna, The Patti Kenner Fellow in Arts Education  

Cloud Garden is on view during regular Museum Hours. The Guild Hall Gardens are self-monitoring spaces; we ask that patrons observe proper physical-distancing, observe maximum capacity signage, and wear face-coverings on the grounds.

RING THE ALARM…A Conversation with Derrick Adams & Renee Cox

The idea for this program came about from discussions on a forthcoming Guild Hall exhibition of Black Artists that Renee Cox will be curating for the summer of 2023. Derrick Adams and Renee Cox, noted artists, colleagues and friends, both have a long history of exhibiting work and curating exhibitions that focus on empowerment, the black experience, and issues of contemporary life.
 
“The need for open dialogue on art, race and politics felt timely and something that we believe is needed by our community,” notes Christina Strassfield, Museum Director/Chief Curator. We hope to continue this series of conversations next year, leading up to the 2023 Summer exhibition.