MARKS FAMILY GALLERY NORTH
Spin a Yarn considers the close relationship between textiles and language, and particularly the use of fiber arts as story-telling devices, from ancient Andean times to the present. Originally a nautical term to describe the laborious process of rope making, the phrase “spin a yarn” evolved to refer to the stories sailors fabricated to pass their time during long sea voyages.
The exhibition features work by over 25 international artists and includes tapestries, embroideries, quilts, Vodou flags, and other fiber-based works. Spin A Yarn examines the historical importance of the tradition of textiles as tools for communication and cultural expression, as well as their increasing use in contemporary art to reflect on social, political, and environmental issues.
This exhibition is curated by Estrellita Brodsky, Founder/Director of ANOTHER SPACE, Chelsea, New York.
Galleries are open Friday to Monday, 12-5 PM. Museum admission is always free.
RELATED PROGRAM
In Conversation: Estrellita Brodsky & Joanne Pillsbury
Monday, July 15, 6 PM
MARKS FAMILY GALLERY NORTH/TITO SPIGA EXHIBITION SPACE
Born and raised in Chester, Pennsylvania, Edward “Ted” Fawcett Carey (1932–1985) moved to New York in 1955. There he pursued a career in graphic design, forged a close friendship with Andy Warhol, and later developed a distinctive mode of painting informed by his keen interest in American folk art. While living between New York and East Hampton in the 1970s and 1980s, Carey produced a small yet compelling body of work that mimics aspects of vernacular painting, chronicles his life and relationships, and pictures facets of queer culture. Sharply observed and highly detailed, Carey’s faux-naïf paintings depict some of his favorite haunts in New York and celebrate the creative lives of other gay men.
Indebted to the foresight and generosity of Carey’s longtime partner, this exhibition draws from the Tito Spiga Bequest to Guild Hall. It surveys Ted Carey’s art for the first time since 1985, when an East Hampton gallery mounted a memorial show of his paintings in the days following his death from AIDS.
This exhibition is organized by Matthew Nichols, PhD, independent curator.
Galleries are open Friday to Monday, 12-5 PM. Museum admission is always free.
RELATED PROGRAMS
Curator Talk: Matthew Nichols
Sunday, June 2, 2 PM
In conjunction with the exhibition Ted Carey: Queer as Folk, guest curator Matthew Nichols will discuss the art historical and cultural contexts of Ted Carey’s life and work. The queer content of Carey’s New York paintings and his tributes to other gay artists will also be examined.
In Conversation: Anne Buckwalter and Matthew Nichols
Sunday, June 23, 2 PM
In conjunction with the exhibition Ted Carey: Queer as Folk, guest curator Matthew Nichols will discuss aspects of the show with the artist Anne Buckwalter. Their talk will explore how Carey and Buckwalter share roots in southeastern Pennsylvania, draw inspiration from regional folk art traditions, and address gender and sexuality in their paintings.
MARKS FAMILY GALLERY NORTH
In anticipation of the reopening of the John Drew Theater, the final stage of Guild Hall’s facility-wide renovation, this exhibition celebrates artists who were and are the fabric of the East End artist community and integral to Guild Hall.
The East End has a history of providing an environment for artists to gather and a place of respite and contemplation where many artists work quietly and diligently seasonally and year-round, forming a vibrant creative community. This exhibition of photographic portraits of visual, literary, and performing artists is drawn largely from Guild Hall’s permanent collection, supplemented by projects by Linda K Alpern, Laurie Lambrecht, and Mark Mann.
Guild Hall was established in 1931 as a gathering place for the community where an appreciation for the arts would “promote a finer type of citizenship.” The institution was the first arts town hall of its kind, encompassing a museum, theater, education center, and meeting space under one roof. Guild Hall’s history parallels that of the American theater and art worlds, with many landmark performances and exhibitions documented in the publication Guild Hall for All (2021).
This exhibition was organized by the Director of Visual Arts, Melanie Crader.
Galleries are open Friday to Monday, 12-5 PM. Museum admission is always free.
Member Opening Reception: Saturday, March 9, 11 AM-12 PM
MARKS FAMILY GALLERY SOUTH/TITO SPIGA EXHIBITION SPACE
Darlene Charneco is the 2020 Artist Members Exhibition Top Honors Awardee, chosen by Susan Thompson, associate curator, Guggenheim Museum.
Charneco uses various materials and techniques to create a distinctive visual language and mapping system, evoking memory, connection, and evolution. The Weaves and Touchmaps are part of an ongoing series of artworks inspired by dreams, visions, nature studies, and the common thread of ritual found in many cultures and religions.
Each mixed-media wall piece is created through the meditative process of hammering nails, one by one. The resulting aggregations of nails represent positive wishes and visualizations for our present and future Earth. Charneco regards this as a “writing” process in which the nails are tangible objects that symbolize renewed hope, determination, and faith in the accumulation of many small but important actions through time. Each piece is composed of units that are woven together into tactile topographic fields that gradually reveal microcosms in which complex organisms evolve, taking on ever-shifting roles, identities, and collective movements. Charneco highlights the power of individual acts to effect change when compounded through our interconnectedness, both physical and virtual.
This exhibition is organized by Guild Hall’s Director of Visual Arts, Melanie Crader.
Galleries are open Friday to Monday, 12-5 PM. Museum admission is always free.
Member Opening Reception: Saturday, March 9, 11 AM-1 PM
Touring Exhibition
GUILD HALL: AN ADVENTURE IN THE ARTS
On View February 10 – April 28, 2024
Gallery Hours:
Sunday, 1-5 PM
Monday, 10 AM-5 PM
Tuesday, Four Arts members only, 1-5 PM
Wednesday through Saturday, 10 AM-5 PM
Guild Hall: An Adventure in the Arts presents highlights from our permanent collection. Established in 1931 by Mary Woodhouse (also a co-founder of The Society of the Four Arts), Guild Hall has become the cultural heart of the East End through its core principle that participation in the arts creates greater civic engagement.
Guild Hall’s collection comprises over 2,400 works by internationally renowned 20th and 21st century artists. An Adventure in the Arts features 72 works by 59 artists, including George Bellows, Lynda Benglis, Chuck Close, Jane Freilicher, Adolph Gottlieb, Jasper Johns, Thomas Moran, Robert Motherwell, Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg. Many of these artists lived and worked in the East End, highlighting the tradition of artists in residence since the 1870s. The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Guild Hall For All (2021), which was published in celebration of our 90th anniversary.
Join Artist Members Exhibition artist Michael A. Butler and Director of Visual Arts Melanie Crader for a conversation about his work. The discussion will center around the evolution of Butler’s artwork and its recurring themes of imagined representations of underrecognized peoples based on scarce written documentation.
Crossing Boundaries and Disciplines: Art and Academic Practices. How do these different practices come together and enrich our East Hampton community? Join Artist Members Exhibition artist Setha Low for this salon conversation. After a brief presentation of the material and metaphorical threads that underlie Low’s art and publications, she will lead a discussion of the multiple ways that Guild Hall is a community public space that supports the multidisciplinary nature of artists. Low argues that a better sense of community and activism can evolve through art and science, and she hopes you will join her in this endeavor.
Lunch Break is a series of open, insightful, participatory, and short discussions about art. Each Lunch Break is led by Guild Hall’s Patti Kenner Director of Learning + New Works, Anthony Madonna and focuses on various ways to absorb and interpret the work of the artists on exhibit.
Participants are welcome to join staff for lunch in the Guild Hall Pantzer Gallery or Minikes Garden after the program. Attendees may bring their own lunch or purchase small bites from Louise & Howie’s Coffee Bar in the lobby. *
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 12 PM: Leo Villareal: Celestial Garden
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 12 PM: Mary Boochever: Chart of the Inner Warp
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 12 PM: 84th Artist Members Exhibition
*Small croissant sandwiches from Tutto Caffè, will be available, first come, first served.
Lunch Break is a series of open, insightful, participatory, and short discussions about art. Each Lunch Break is led by Guild Hall’s Patti Kenner Director of Learning + New Works, Anthony Madonna and focuses on various ways to absorb and interpret the work of the artists on exhibit.
Participants are welcome to join staff for lunch in the Guild Hall Pantzer Gallery or Minikes Garden after the program. Attendees may bring their own lunch or purchase small bites from Louise & Howie’s Coffee Bar in the lobby. *
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 12 PM: Leo Villareal: Celestial Garden
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 12 PM: Mary Boochever: Chart of the Inner Warp
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 12 PM: 84th Artist Members Exhibition
*Small croissant sandwiches from Tutto Caffè, will be available, first come, first served.
Mary Boochever was chosen by MoMA PS1 Associate Curator Jocelyn Miller as the winner of the 2019 81st Artist Members Exhibition. Deeply rooted in research and investigations of color systems, Boochever creates color experiences for the viewer through her paintings, sculptures, and installations.
Lunch Break is a series of open, insightful, participatory, and short discussions about art. Each Lunch Break is led by Guild Hall’s Patti Kenner Director of Learning + New Works, Anthony Madonna and focuses on various ways to absorb and interpret the work of the artists on exhibit.
Participants are welcome to join staff for lunch in the Guild Hall Pantzer Gallery or Minikes Garden after the program. Attendees may bring their own lunch or purchase small bites from Louise & Howie’s Coffee Bar in the lobby. *
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 13, 12 PM: Leo Villareal: Celestial Garden
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 12 PM: Mary Boochever: Chart of the Inner Warp
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 15, 12 PM: 84th Artist Members Exhibition
*Small croissant sandwiches from Tutto Caffè, will be available, first come, first served.
Leo Villareal’s Celestial Garden (2023) is a monumental light sculpture composed of an array of LEDs diffused through a vinyl membrane and accompanied by a soundscape and artist-designed furniture. Villareal utilizes custom software to orchestrate compositions of perpetually evolving abstract forms inspired by the intricate patterns found in nature.
The artist grew up along the US-Mexico border, and his early interest in Mexican muralism is reflected in the historical references to mark-making in his large-scale works. Although his immersive light installations employ sophisticated technology to generate random sequences that recombine in infinite variations, his focus is on reducing systems to their essence—simple elements such as pixels or the zeros and ones of binary code—to better understand the underlying structures and rules that govern their workings.
Leo Villareal has created light works for museums and public spaces around the globe, including Westminster Bridge in London, the Bay Bridge in San Francisco, the Bleecker Street subway station in New York, and the facade of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
