Three Exhibits Debut At Guild Hall

This weekend, three exhibitions will open at East Hampton’s Guild Hall. On display will be “Alice Hope,” “Hiroyuki Hamada: Sculptures and Prints,” and “The Artist Curated Collection: Toward Abstraction,” which was organized by artist Bryan Hunt. The shows are on view from Saturday through March 25.

“In keeping with Guild Hall’s mission of presenting the artists of our region, we are delighted to show two one-person exhibitions featuring the works of Alice Hope and Hiroyuki Hamada,” said Andrea Grover, Guild Hall’s executive director.

Hope’s work will be displayed in Guild Hall’s Moran Gallery. The installation features site-specific works composed with mass produced materials associated with industrial/consumer functions. Think items like can tabs, ball chain, steel shot, and neodymium magnets. These found objects are then transformed into generative large-scale works. She often incorporates binary code and repetition in her compositions.

Hope has created numerous public and private commissions including “Under the Radar,” a large-scale magnetic installation at Camp Hero State Park in Montauk for the Parrish Art Museum in 2012. Hope will discuss her work in a gallery talk on Saturday, March 24, at 2 PM.

Hamada’s sculptures and prints will be exhibited in the Spiga Gallery. His work explores the formal elements of texture, light, space, and scale, and also includes visual references to nature and science. The exhibition will feature a major new work created specifically for the show. The artist lives and works in the Hamptons and was the recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant in 1998. Hamada will talk about his work and process on Saturday, March 10, at 2 PM.

Both Hope and Hamada’s shows were curated by Christine Mossaides Strassfield, Guild Hall’s museum director and chief curator.

“We are also honored to have Bryan Hunt be the first in a new series where collection artists are invited to select artworks from Guild Hall’s permanent collection and work with the museum’s curatorial staff to organize innovative exhibitions,” continued Grover.

Hunt, who lives and works in New York City and East Hampton, has pieces included in collections at the Met, MoMA, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim Museum.

“The Artist Curated Collection: Toward Abstraction” will be displayed in the Woodhouse Gallery. The show features paintings and works on paper that demonstrate the path an artist takes from representation to abstraction. Spanning various genres and generations, Hunt’s choices offer the viewer an opportunity to examine the process of abstraction.

On Sunday, March 18, at 2 PM, Jess Frost, associate curator and registrar of the permanent collection, will discuss the inspiration behind this new series, and give insight into the selection process.

To celebrate the opening of all three shows, there will be a private member reception on Sunday from 2 to 4 PM. For more info, visit www.guildhall.org.