On View: Hamptons and North Fork Art Shows to See this Weekend

It’s said art is in the eye of the beholder. It’s also said that the East End is one of the best places to behold it. With so many galleries showing world-class art, it would be hard not to find something that floats your artistically minded boat. Check out the shows at these Hamptons and North Fork galleries while you still can.

Land, Sea, & Sky is a new exhibition from artists Joan Branca and Deborah Katz on view at Gallery North, a nonprofit gallery in East Setauket, from July 27–August 24. Both artists are intensely aware of color, light and form and have come to understand how important it is to be connected to the natural world. The combination of these two artists will show how color, light and form can be interpreted and presented in different ways. 90 North Country Road, East Setauket. 631-751-2676, gallerynorth.org

The definition of “captivate” is to hold the interest and attention of, to attract and delight. Now through July 29 at The White Room Gallery in Bridgehampton five featured artists—Linda Sirow, Brian Craig, Martha McAleer, Kat O’Neill and Dennis Leri—bring together sculpture, photography, encaustic painting and mixed media, all living up to that definition. Crayon wrappers are part of the art, as is the beauty of the East End in its myriad movements and colors; cool palates and textures hang alongside vibrant abstracts; painted welded steel curls in magical ways. Captivate, the exhibit, does not disappoint. 2415 Main Street, Bridgehampton. 631-237-1481, thewhiteroom.gallery

VSOP Projects in Greenport has two new exhibitions on display through July 30. In the downstairs showroom Tommy Thomas: Constructions and Her Final Works shows a number of pieces delicately assembled from wood and myriad found materials. With her constructions, Thomas, who passed away in November 2016, explored the architectural landscape of the places she loved best: New York City, Long Island’s North Fork, Key West and more.

On view in the upstairs Project Space are 17 paintings from Brooklyn-based conceptual artist (and comedian, podcast host, self-proclaimed psychotherapist and Miss Subways 2017) Lisa Levy’s series The Thoughts In My Head. Minimalistically rendered in white text on monochrome color fields, the paintings in The Thoughts In My Head allow Levy space to express her internal monologue, dealing with issues as disparate as feminism, family, finance, mental illness and the art market itself. 311 Front Street, Greenport. 631-603-7736, vsopprojects.com

The South Street Gallery (SSG) specializes in superior paintings, drawings and works by artists from the Northeast and around the country. The gallery represents a variety of artistic styles and disciplines and shows works by both established and emerging artists. The gallery’s turn-of-the-century building, once Greenport’s town hall, provides ample space for exhibits, events, workshops and master classes. SSG’s current exhibition, Imagined—New Dimensions in Digital Art, features work by Ron Barron, Roz Dimon, Colin Goldberg, Kasmira Mohanty and Alan Richards and runs through July 31. In August SSG will show Viewed—From an Artists Perspective, featuring the work of Jeanne Betancourt, Doug Reina, Eileen Dawn Skretch and Laura Westlake. 18 South Street, Greenport. 631-477-0021, thesouthstreetgallery.com

The Dan Flavin Institute was established in 1983 as a permanent installation of Flavin’s work. Planned by the artist for the second-floor gallery of the space, the permanent installation traces Flavin’s practice from 1963—when he decided to work solely with standard fluorescent fixtures and tubes—to 1981, just before the presentation was realized. In creating this exhibition, Flavin conceived of the sculptures and the architecture as a single, unified installation. By manipulating the formal, phenomenal, and referential characteristics of light, the installation asks viewers to consider a series of contrasts—between colors, intensities of light, structure and formlessness, the obvious and the mysterious, and the serious and the humorous. On display now through May 26, 2019 is Keith Sonnier’s Dis-Play II (1970), an environmental installation of foam rubber, fluorescent powder, strobe light, blacklight, neon, plywood and glass. 23 Corwith Avenue, Bridgehampton. diaart.org

Living in a time when virtually every object we use in our daily lives is made of metal, plastic or some new cutting-edge, high-tech material, it’s hard to imagine a time when almost everything was made of wood.  But for the first centuries of America’s history, wood was not only the most prevalent choice of material, it was often the only choice—so much so that historians sometimes call the years 1650 to 1850  “America’s Wood Age.” A new show at the Sag Harbor Whaling and Historical Museum, When The World Was Wood, explores this amazing period in America’s history by presenting some 100 objects (primarily from the 19th century) made of wood. Some you might expect—utensils, bowls, barrels, buckets, signs, toys and tools—and some will be delightfully surprising, including a tricycle, gears for a tower clock and a washing machine manufactured right in Sag Harbor in the 1860s. When The World Was Wood is on view through August 12. 200 Main Street, Sag Harbor.
631-725-0770, sagharborwhalingmuseum.org

Travelling Light is a new exhibition of the work of Robert Schwarz, showing now at the Southampton Cultural Center. Schwarz’s carefully crafted metal and monofilament “Starbridges” represent both titanic space ships exploring outer space and, at the same time, meditations emerging from the unconscious. He combines monofilament, aluminum and LEDs to form sculptures which seem suspended in three-dimensional space and that change as the viewer moves around them. The exhibit continues through August 26. 25 Pond Lane, Southampton. 631-287-4377, scc-arts.org