Guild Hall, one of the first multidisciplinary centers in the country to combine a museum, theater, and education space under one roof, was established in 1931 as a gathering place for community where an appreciation for the arts would serve to encourage greater civic participation. For nearly nine decades, Guild Hall has embraced this open-minded vision and provided a welcoming environment for the public to engage with art exhibitions, performances, and educational offerings. Art and artists have long been the engine of Guild Hall’s activities and the institution continues to find innovative ways to support creativity in everyone.
In 1930, East Hampton resident and philanthropist Mrs. Lorenzo E. Woodhouse anonymously dedicated land and an initial financial gift toward building one of the country’s first interdisciplinary centers. Her vision was “to heighten the importance of the arts” and provide a building that would “serve as meeting place.” The community rallied to secure additional funding, as well as manage and oversee the development and maintenance of a new facility.
In August 1931, Guild Hall opened, boasting a jewel-box proscenium theater and fine art galleries. The much-loved institution has been a cultural cornerstone of the Hamptons ever since.
Guild Hall presents more than 200 programs and hosts 60,000 visitors each year. The Museum mounts eight to ten exhibitions, ranging from the historical to the contemporary, and focuses on artists who have an affiliation with the Hamptons. The Theater produces more than 100 programs―including plays, concerts, dance, screenings, simulcasts, and literary readings―from the classics to new works. In addition to these endeavors, Guild Hall supports the next generation of artists with in-school and on-site education programs.
“Guild Hall couldn’t have happened just anywhere. It needed the kind of land and seascapes that could seduce artists; it needed a city like New York nearby to nourish it; and, most of all, it needed the dedicated people who make the exemplary cultural center it is today.”
—Enez Whipple, Guild Hall Executive Director from 1943–1991
The Museum at Guild Hall, 158 Main Street, East Hampton, New York 11937, 631-324-0806, GuildHall.org. Free admission generously funded by BNB Bank and Landscape Details. Museum Hours: Mon & Fri & Sat 11am-5pm; Sun noon-5pm
On View Through December 16
Syd Solomon: Concealed and Revealed – Moran Gallery
The late painter Syd Solomon once described himself as an “Abstract Impressionist” alluding to the fact that his work infused Impressionism into the processes, scale, and concepts of Abstract Expressionism. While his paintings have often been framed as an extension of Abstract Expressionism, a current cataloguing project of Solomon’s archives has revealed new information about the singular artist and his milieu. The exhibition Concealed and Revealed, coming to Guild Hall in October 2018, is the first to examine Solomon’s work through the lens of his personal archive. For example, the artist worked as a camoufleur (a person who designs and implements military camouflage) during WWII, but just how expert Solomon was in this field, and more significantly, how this exceptional skill came to inform the development of his painting techniques is just now being understood. After returning from the Western Front at the end of the war with five Bronze Stars, Solomon joined a coterie of artists whose wartime experience undoubtedly transformed their art.
Additionally, the archive uncovers that Solomon’s high school training in “technical arts” and lettering led to early work in advertising, creating signs and promotions for stores, ads for newspapers, magazines and brochures, and political campaigns. Like his close colleague James Brooks, the influence of typography becomes a significant factor in his latter brushwork, calligraphy, handwriting and other gestural aspects of his paintings.
These discoveries and more allow us to see Solomon’s achievements in a new and more accurate way, leading us to understand layers of his work not previously or totally appreciated. Concealed and Revealed is presented in partnership with the Estate of Syd Solomon and accompanied by a 96-page exhibition catalogue with essays by Michael Auping, George S. Bolge, Gail Levin, and the artist’s son Mike Solomon.
Sponsors:
This exhibition is organized by the Estate of Syd Solomon.
Image Credit :
Night on Bastille Day (George Plimpton’s), 1978
Acrylic and aerosol enamel on canvas
66 X 76 inches
Estate of Syd Solomon
Please Send To: Ray Johnson, Selections from the Permanent Collection – Woodhouse Gallery
Drawn from Guild Hall’s Permanent Collection, Please Send To: Ray Johnson will feature over 30 works by the famously reclusive artist, the majority of which are classified as Mail Art, a movement pioneered by Johnson in the 1950s. The artist sent small, mixed-media works to a network of fellow artists through the post, instructing them to intervene in the original work or forward the materials to another person. Mail Art offered Johnson alternative modes of circulating ideas and gaining recognition, and one could argue that these subversive methods anticipated the digital dissemination of images through platforms like Instagram and Facebook.
The cryptic arrangements of notes, doodles, newspaper clippings and rubber stamped texts in these works offer great insights into the shifting social dynamics of this fertile period in American art. As viewers try to decode the visual information presented, they are drawn into Johnson’s complex observations about his immediate art orbit and society at large. Despite regular exhibitions with Feigen Gallery and a 1970 show of his Mail Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the artist remained wary of the public eye. When he retreated to a suburb on Long Island, limiting his communications to the telephone and post, his work became increasingly populated by narratives surrounding the celebrities and members of the art scene he had vacated.
In January of 1995, Johnson ended his life by jumping off the Sag Harbor – North Haven Bridge, a mysterious gesture that was true to his life’s work. This final performance was orchestrated to include a legacy in the form of thousands of works, carefully arranged in his otherwise empty home in Locust Valley. In Johnson’s absence, his works became more readily available for public consumption, and historians began to recognize these works as early examples of Pop art and Conceptual art.
This extensive and important cache of material entered Guild Hall’s Permanent Collection through the Tito Spiga Bequest, for whom one of the museum’s galleries is named. As with all of the museum’s holdings, the works reveal the rich culture and relationships to the region, and the museum’s commitment to preserving that history.
Curated by Jess Frost, Associate Curator/Registrar of the Permanent Collection
Programs:
- Sunday, November 25, 4pm – Film Screening: How to Draw a Bunny
- Sunday, December 2, 12:30pm – Gallery Talk with Jess Frost
Image Credit:
Detail: Ray Johnson (1927-1995)
Untitled Mailing (Ted, I enjoyed trying to “pick you up”), n.d.
Mixed Media in 3 parts
Photo credit: Gary Mamay
Sponsored in part by The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation. Additional support from the Gerry Charitable Trust, Robert Lehman Foundation, and The Helen and Claus Hoie Charitable Trust.
Sara Mejia Kriendler: In Back of Beyond – Spiga Gallery
Sara Mejia Kriendler’s solo exhibition in the Spiga Gallery was awarded in 2016 when she received the Top Honors Prize in Guild Hall Museum’s 78th Annual Artist Members Exhibition. Kriendler’s work was chosen out of 424 artists by the guest awards judge Jia Jia Fei, Director of Digital at the Jewish Museum in New York City.
Kriendler’s installation at Guild Hall will consist of all new works, variations on her current body of work, exhibited for the first time at the Museo de Arte de Pereira (The Museum of Fine Arts of Pereira) this past Spring. This body of work investigates her maternal Colombian roots inspired by pre-Columbian gold, the history of the Spanish conquest of the new world, and the legend of the El Dorado.
At first glance, Kriendler’s sculptures are reverent artifacts in gold leaf, terracotta and plaster, but after closer consideration recognizable mass-produced contemporary products make up the basic forms. Historical references in material choice and color palette give way to ideas of consumerism, a reminder that the products of today will tell the story of our time.
Curated by Casey Dalene, Registrar/Curatorial Assistant/Lewis B. Cullman Associate for Museum Education
Programs:
Saturday, December 8, 11:30am – Gallery Talk with artist Sara Mejia Kriendler
Sponsored in part by the Guippy Nantista Fund and Helen Hoie Fund
Photo Credit: Andrés Rojas
All Museum Programming is supported in part by Crozier Fine Arts, Gerry Charitable Trust, Hess Philanthropic Fund, The Lorenzo and Mary Woodhouse Trust, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, The Robert David Lion Gardiner Foundation, Vital Projects Fund, and public funds provided by Suffolk County.
Free Admission is generously funded by BNB Bank and Landscape Details
