5 Must-See Hamptons Art Shows This Weekend, June 1–4, 2023

Summer in the Hamptons is officially underway, and with it comes an array of exciting art exhibitions. Check out these five must-see shows on view on the South Fork this weekend, June 1–4, 2023.

5 Must-See Hamptons Art Shows

Artists Choose Parrish Part I
JR Les Enfants d’Ouranos
Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill

One of the East End’s most respected art institutions, the Parrish Art Museum is showing Part I of its yearlong Artists Choose Parrish exhibition series in celebration of the museum’s 125th anniversary.

Installed in two sections, A and B — on view through August 6 and July 23 respectively — Part I brings together 21 artists who selected works from the permanent collection to be shown along with their own.

The result is a multilayered anthology of artists from the past and present, including Nanette Carter, Pamela Council, Robert Gober, Mary Heilmann, Sam Moyer, Ugo Rondinone, Cindy Sherman, Leslee Stradford, Michelle Stuart in Part IA, and Tony Bechara, Ross Bleckner, Jeremy Dennis, Eric Fischl, Claude Lawrence, Robert Longo, Eddie Martinez, Enoc Perez, Hank Willis Thomas, Nina Yankowitz and Joe Zucker in Part IB.

Also don’t miss artist JR’s “Les Enfants d’Ouranos,” a new site-specific installation that will be up for the entire year (through May 26, 2024) on the south façade of the museum building. The 200-foot long banner, depicting children playfully running, features a black and white photographic image the artist transferred from the negative directly onto wood.

It covers much of the exterior wall and is visible from Montauk Highway. The mural will be augmented in the Parrish’s interior lobby gallery by “Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Bois #6,” a large piece from JR’s 2022 series that will be on view through October 22.

JR will be on hand for a talk and book signing at the museum next Friday, June 9 at 6 p.m. parrishart.org

Don Christensen Wood Paintings in a Wood Barn
Brianna L. Hernández Aquí Descansamos
The Arts Center at Duck Creek, 127 Squaw Road, East Hampton

Up through Sunday in Duck Creek’s John Little Barn, Springs painter Don Christensen’s installation of paintings on locally found wood and furniture explores abstraction and color with individually painted panels put together in strong, mosaic-like compositions and patterns.

The artist also showed a new series of “sign paintings” throughout the grounds with constructions resembling traditional signage but replacing words and symbols with thoughtful planes of color.

The Arts Center at Duck Creek is also showing Brianna L. Hernández’s “Aquí Descansamos,” a site-specific installation in the Little Gallery through June 4. The powerful work examines the complex layers in end-of-life care, the dying process, grief, and mourning rituals.

An alternative to somber stone cemeteries with which we’ve become accustomed, these sculptural memorials highlight color, growth, decomposition and renewal using organic, ephemeral materials such as moss, soap, sand, seaweed and beeswax.

These vessels come together in the form of a funeral showroom, creating a familiar yet novel environment. duckcreekarts.org

Playtime
The White Room Gallery, 2415 Main Street, Bridgehampton

This show about adults getting to celebrate their toys and take back, or share, the arena of play, kicks off White Room Gallery‘s 2023 season highlighting contemporary painter Seek One’s series of luxury goodies, along with artists Punk Me Tender, Mr. Brainwash, Nelson De La Nuez, Steve Zaluski, FRINGE, Rock Therrien and others.

The exhibition is open through Sunday, June 4, so see it this weekend before it’s gone. thewhiteroom.gallery

Salon Summer 2023
Eric Firestone Gallery, The Garage 62 Newtown Lane, East Hampton

Featuring a new installation combining historic material represented by the gallery, and younger generations of contemporary artists, this 7,000-square-foot open warehouse space was recently renovated with specially designed, large moveable walls to create exciting exhibition possibilities.

The gallery hopes that the Salon installation will encourage viewers to spend extended time looking as they visually showcase and highlight the gallery’s mission: “an ongoing reevaluation of the art historical canon, and its legacy and influence on younger artists.”

The inaugural installation includes painting and sculpture from the 1950s–1990s by Ellsworth Ausby, Martha Edelheit, John Ferren, Pat Lipsky, Pat Passlof, James Phillips, Jeanne Reynal, Thomas Sills, and Nina Yankowitz showing alongside more recent works by Meg Lipke, Ted Kurahara, Keiko Narahashi and Ben Pritchard.

Open Saturday–Monday 11 a.m.–6 p.m. and by appointment. ericfirestonegallery.com

Found and Imagined/ The Collages of Janice Stanton
John Jermain Library, 201 Main Street, Sag Harbor

Every list of area art shows should look outside the major museums and galleries to find the hidden gems at some alternative venues in the region. Found and Imagined is a solo exhibition featuring the collages of artist Janice Stanton, who works from her studios in Bridgehampton and West Chelsea in Manhattan.

Her work was exhibited by FolioEast and was published in the 2020 FolioEast book Hamptons Artists: The Current Wave. In 2021, Stanton was chosen for the Visiting Artists and Scholars Program at the American Academy in Rome.

Her art will be on view at John Jermain through June 23. johnjermain.org