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A CREATIVE RETREAT—PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS

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

DARLENE CHARNECO: FIELD MAPPINGS—WEAVES AND TOUCHMAPS

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

JOEL MESLER: MILES OF SMILES

Joel Mesler: Miles of Smiles is the artist’s first museum exhibition in the region of his adopted home, where he began a new life in 2017. Mesler’s practice sheds light on universal themes by filtering them through autobiography, humor, self-deprecation, and surprising compositional juxtapositions, often employing graphic patterns and motifs, elaborate typography, and personal iconography. He has explored the power of acceptance, allowing emotions—as well as the cultural forms in which they become entangled—to exist at the center of his projects.

Mesler—a former art dealer—has always been an artist as well as a collector, connoisseur, archivist, artistic collaborator, and cultural steward. Miles of Smiles pulls together all of these facets in one presentation. In his East Hampton office and studio, he lives and works among art and personal effects in a horror vacui environment, in which he has an unmediated experience with art and objects that inhabit every square inch of his space. The installation features a varied selection of the artist’s own work, as well as personal objects and works from his collection by other artists with whom he has deep personal connections, including his contemporaries Sarah Aibel, Roger Herman, Sheree Hovsepian, Rashid Johnson, Henry Taylor, and Austyn Weiner as well as artists who have influenced his practice: Francesco Clemente, Mauricio Lasansky, and Ben Shahn.

Through the installation Miles of Smiles, Mesler takes us on a journey—a glimpse into the complexity of life, the value we place on objects, and our emotional attachment to them. The space will function as a gathering and meeting place, in which the artist will also host office hours and public programs.

This exhibition is organized by Melanie Crader, Museum Director and Curator of Visual Arts, with Philippa Content, Museum Manager and Registrar, and Claire Hunter, Museum Coordinator and Curatorial Associate.

MUSEUM ON THE ROAD: AN ADVENTURE IN THE ARTS

Touring Exhibition

GUILD HALL: AN ADVENTURE IN THE ARTS

On View February 10 – April 28, 2024

The Society of the Four Arts
Esther B. O’Keeffe Building
102 Four Arts Plaza, Palm Beach

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.

Community in Dialogue: Michael A. Butler

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.

Community in Dialogue: Setha Low

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: 84th Artist Members Exhibition

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: 84^th Artist Members Exhibition

*Small croissant sandwiches from Tutto Caffè, will be available, first come, first served.

LUNCH BREAK: Chart of the Inner Warp

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: 84^th 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: Celestial Garden

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: 84^th 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.

Mary Boochever: Chart of the Inner Warp

Mary Boochever was chosen by former 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.

Mary Boochever’s work will be on view in the Marks Family Gallery North – Tito Spiga Exhibition Space in conjunction with the 2023 Artist Members Exhibition.

Guild Hall’s members exhibition started in 1938, and serves as an opportunity for any current museum member at any level of artistic practice. The popular, democratic exhibition typically yields over 300 entries. A long tradition that is deeply rooted in the history of the East End’s artist colony, early participants included Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Alfonso Ossorio, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, and many more.

GALLERY HOURS
Friday to Monday, 12-5 PM
Admission is FREE

Louise & Howie’s Coffee Bar featuring Tutto Caffè is open in the lobby during gallery hours. Refreshments are not allowed in the galleries but may be enjoyed in the lobby and in our gardens.