DISPATCH - NOV 8, 2012 (9:50 p.m.)
WATER MILL, NY -
Visitors to this weekend's Open House festivities will have a lot more than art and a new museum to take in. A full line-up of special performances is bound to make the celebrations lively. Events include live concerts with original music inspired by art, a concert that conjures the days of silent films, participatory art and a Family Fall Festival.
But no worries--if you're looking for art, there will be plenty to see. The museum is unveiling two temporary exhibitions and seven permanent ones featuring artworks from the museum's collection.
Open House celebrations are being held on Saturday, Sunday and Monday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. Admission is free.
Kicking things off is the Joshua Light Show. They perform on Friday at 6 p.m. The innovative psychedelic light show, set to live music, inaugurates the museum's Lichtenstein Theater. Details can be found in a separate story at Hamptons Art Hub by clicking here.
"Glory of Spring (Radiant Spring) by Charles Burchfield, 1950. Watercolor on paper, 40 1/8 x 29 3/4 inches. Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Coming Clark, Clark Collection.
Saturday brings a full day of performances.
"Watercolors" will be presented at the Lichtenstein Theater at 12:30 and 2:30 p.m. The multimedia concert was inspired by the watercolor paintings of Charles Ephraim Burchfield (1893-1967). Each of the four movements in the wind quintet corresponds to a different painting by Burchfield.
Images of the painting will be projected during the concert, tying muse and music together. The paintings are "An April Mood," "Autumnal Fantasy," "Sun and Rocks," and "Glory of Spring (Radiant Spring)," which is part of the Parrish's collection.
"Watercolors" was composed by Neil Shaw Cohen. It will be performed by the Chelsea Quintet, according to the composer's website. Cohen grew up, part-time, in Sag Harbor, NY.
The music-art intersection continues at 6 p.m., when the experimental acoustic-electronic music duo Gray performs A False Sense of Darkness at the Lichtenstein Theater. Tickets are $10 for museum members and $15 for nonmembers.
Gray was founded by artists Michael Holman and Jean-Michel Basquiat in 1979 and reunited in 2010.
A False Sense of Darkness is a surreal tribute to silent film-era with live musical scores.
The film is an absurdist romantic-comedy adventure that channels the intensity, color and emotional charge of the band's evocative music, according the museum.
Gray was part of the Downtown scene, performing at the Mudd Club, CBGB, and Hurrahs. Since reuniting, they have performed at the New Museum, Corcoran Gallery of Art, and Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Performance art takes place throughout Saturday's Open House.
Gray band members Michael Holman and Nick Taylor. Photo by Linda Covello.
Launching on Saturday inside the museum is "The Future is Ours." The participatory project was conceived by artist Hope Sandrow. It is part of her museum-wide installation called "Genius Loci," which inaugurates a year-round series of site-specific installations using the museum as muse.
"The Future Is Ours" invites visitors to write on a provided card the way they envisioned the new museum in their lives. Returned answers will be suspended from a line until layers of responses morph into sculptural forms with shifting meanings. "The Future Is Ours" continues through Dec 31.
The performance art piece "Free Advice" takes place on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to noon. Performer Sur Rodney will be seated behind a table, waiting for visitors to ask him a single question. He then will go to his easel to sketch, draw and gesture to channel the answer and what the future will hold.
The piece is meant to recall the ancient custom of consulting with a soothsayer or oracle to help plan for the future, according to the museum. "Free Advice" is also part of "Genius Loc."
The performance art piece "Floored" will take place on Saturday at 5:45 p.m. "Floored" is a sculptural dance that incorporates dance poses inspired by the friezes located outside the former Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, NY. It aims to raise questions about old and new ideas on ideal proportions, the human body and its relationship to art and architecture. It will be performed by Elke Lutyen and Kira Alker.
On Sunday, a Family Fall Festival takes place from 1 to 5 p.m. It will include BubbleMania by Casey Carle, Art Activities, Transformation Face Painting by Agostino Arts, Stilt-Walkers, Caricature Portraits, Balloon Art, and more. The festival is free.
BASIC FACTS: Current information and details about the Parrish's Open House events and programming can be found on the Parrish Art Museum's website.
Tickets to The Joshua Light Show and Gray can be purchased through Eventbrite. Tickets are not required for other performances held during the Open House weekend.
Temporary exhibitions opening this weekend are "Malcolm Morley: Painting, Paper, Process" and "Genius Loci" by Hope Sandrow.
Exhibitions displaying works from the museum's permanent collection are "Selected Recent Acquisitions: Building a Collection," "Look and Look Again: Contemporary Observation," "American Views: Artists at Home and Abroad," "William Merritt Chase: A Life in Art," "Fairfield Porter: Modern American Master," "Esteban Vicente: Portrait of the Artist" and "Collective Conversations: Abstract Expressionism, Figuration, and Pop."
The Parrish Art Museum is located at 279 Montauk Hwy, Water Mill, NY 11976. www.parrishart.org.
RELATED STORIES: Hamptons Art Hub: "Psychedelic Light Show Inaugurates the new Parrish Art Museum." Published Nov 8, 2012.
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© 2012 Pat Rogers and Hamptons Art Hub. All rights reserved.