2021: PRESENT EVENTS – THE CHURCH REOPENS
to the public with ROAD RAGE on JUNE 26TH
DON LEMON SPEAKS ON HIS BOOK THIS IS THE FIRE
IN CONVERSATION WITH DR. GEORGETTE GRIER-KEY
Sunday, June 13th, 10am-11am
REGISTER HERE
The Social Justice Committee of Temple Adas Israel, in partnership with The Church, is proud to welcome Sag Harbor resident Don Lemon, host of CNN Don Lemon Tonight for a virtual book event in celebration of his new book, This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism.
As America’s only Black prime-time anchor, Lemon’s daily monologues on racism and on America’s systemic flaws speak for his millions of fans. Lemon was the leading voice on CNN guiding viewers through the death of George Floyd and a summer of nationwide protests and riots. Now, in an urgent, deeply personal, riveting plea, he shows us all how deep our problems lie, and what we can do to begin to fix them.
Join us for a discussion moderated by local historian Dr. Georgette Grier-Key, the Executive Director of Sag Harbor’s Eastville Community Historical Society.
Signed copies of Don Lemon's book can be purchased from Canio's Books, Sag Harbor. Please call or email, 631.725.4926 or . Order today! Canio's is happy to ship to you if you'd like. Books, without signature, can also be purchased online at bookshop.org/shop/caniosbooks. Thank you for supporting a local independent bookstore!
Special thanks to the Social Justice Committee of Temple Adas Israel for thinking of us for this event. We are delighted to once again collaborate with Temple Adas Israel.
ROAD RAGE
Justin Favela, Gypsy Rose Piñata, 2017, Found objects, cardboard, styrofoam, paper and glue,
5' x 19.5' x 6.5' Photo Credit: Peterson Automotive Museum
The weekend of June 26th, get ready for the exhibition of the summer with ROAD RAGE, our very exciting and very stimulating show about automobiles of all kinds and interpretations, by artists of all kinds. As Eric Fischl, co-curator of the show with Sara Cochran, said, "Anyone who has been in a car, wanted a car, hated a car or lives for cars is going to be blown away by the wealth of work in this show."
Artist Justin Favela, now in residence at The Church, is making one of his fantastic lowriders, like the above, of found objects, styrofoam, paper and glue for the exhibition He is known for honoring his Mexican/Guatemalan heritage, working with traditional piñata materials.
2021: PAST EVENTS
DR. LESLEE STRADFORD SPOKE ON HER
WORK ON THE BLACK WALL STREET MASSACRE
Sunday, May 30, 4pm
Dr. Leslee Howes Stradford is a descendant of John Batiste (J.B.) Stradford, who was an attorney, entrepreneur and the owner of the prestigious Stradford Hotel in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A prominent community member, he managed to escape in the aftermath of the 1921 Black Wall Street Massacre but those terrible events marked him and his family. Using a collection of family documents and photographs, Stradford has created a series of works on silk that depict the sophisticated and prosperous lives of the African-Americans in Tulsa before the riots and the destruction that followed. She will talk about this work in front of a limited audience at The Church.
Simultaneously, Keyes Art, 45 Main Street, Sag Harbor, on May 27 presented an exhibition of some of the works Dr. Stradford has made relating to the her personal history and the Black Wall Street Massacre. We were honored to present Stradford's talk in conjunction with Keyes Art.
Sag Harbor in Focus, now in its 5th year, was hosted for the first time by The Church and opened on Friday, April 30th. It ran through Memorial Day.
The show was made possible by the talent of the students and the inspirational work of their teachers at Pierson High School, Peter Solow and Liz Marchisella, with support from the Reutershan Foundation, the Cygnet Foundation, and the generosity of judge and fine art photographer Mary Ellen Bartley.
The students rose to the occasion in spite of the pandemic and political unrest. please enjoy a fine essay on the show on our REFLECTIONS page by Eric Fischl.
IN DIALOGUE: AT THE EDGE OF THE SEA
ERIC FISCHL AND SARA COCHRAN
SPOKE ABOUT MEANING AND DYNAMICS IN THE WORKS
OF KERRY JAMES MARSHALL AND AWOL ERIZKU
Thursday, May 27 at 6pm
Fischl and Cochran presented a live-streamed webinar on the dynamics of these two works and the way they engage them. The small but engaged audience added a tremendous amount with excellent observations.
Essays by both presenters are also available here.
The exhibition ran through Memorial Day, May 31, 2021
Church Executive Director Sara Cochran interviewed Claude Lawrence and Dr. Leslee Stradford in the Church workspace where they have been painting up a storm on Sunday, May 23rd at 11am.
The interview is now available on Instagram TV (IGTV), accessible on our Insta channel @sagharborchurch
Please look for Dr. Stradford's upcoming talk on her work on the Black Wall Street Massacre coming up as a webinar on Sunday, May 30th, at 4pm. Just click the link and you will be admitted, and be sure to see her exhibition opening at Keyes Art, 45 Main Street, on Thursday, May 27th from 3pm-6pm.
The Church was officially opened with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 22, 2021, at 3pm. Dignitaries present included Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni and Sag Harbor Mayor Kathleen Mulcahy, with Sag Harbor Trustees Aidan Corish and Jim Larocca in attendance.
We were gratified by the excellent attendance and hope everyone now feels officially welcome!
You can watch the ribbon-cutting moment here!
SUNDAY, MARCH 21, 2021 AT 6PM
Join Sara Cochran, Eric Fischl, April Gornik and Tom Brokish for a discussion of the opening of The Church. This presentation is part of ThawFest, the annual event of the Hamptons Arts Network. Please bring your questions and suggestions! We are looking forward to chatting with you.
The talk will be preceded by a video tour of The Church by Nick Whelan.
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84513625138?pwd=alB5QlQwdGR1STlwTld5R0k5ZXVjZz09
For a complete roster of ThawFest events celebrating the coming spring, hosted by The Hamptons Arts Network, please click here.
Wednesday March 17 at 7pm
Many thanks to Rabbi Dan Geffen for hosting a virtual tour of The Church with Sara Cochran, Eric Fischl and April Gornik. Rabbi Geffen was knowledgeable and wonderfully enthusiastic and we are most grateful for his and his congregation's interest in the future of The Church!
We look forward to future collaborations and events.
Martha Graham Dance Company at The Church
During their residency for two weeks in February, the Martha Graham Dance Company made significant progress on a project inspired by a 1952 work by Martha Graham. The piece, Canticle for Innocent Comedians, was hailed in its time as Graham's magical "ode to nature," but was never filmed and is considered lost. Choreographers Sonya Tayeh and Jenn Freeman worked with Graham dancers Lorenzo Pagano, Leslie Andrea Williams and Jacob Larsen to build the foundation for a brand new version of Canticle. The completed new version of Canticle will premiere in late 2021.
VIDEOS ARE AVAILABLE ON OUR YOUTUBE CHANNEL
(Please subscribe but not mandatory!)
And please enjoy an essay written by Eric Fischl on the Body in Dance and Art on our new "Reflections" page.
Enjoy a snippet of rehearsals on our YouTube channel.
Click above to watch.
Janet Eilber, Artistic Director of MGDC, talking to Eric Fischl.
Click above to watch.
ART AS ECOSYSTEM III
ART AS ECOSYSTEM III: BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH
ARTIST-LED TRANSFORMATIVE SPACES
with Eric Fischl, Stephen Petronio, and Emily Simoness
moderated by Mary Jane Marcasiano
co-hosted by The Church and Guild Hall
Presented on January 24, 2021
A zoom panel led by Mary Jane Marcasiano and co-sponsored by Guild Hall enabled participants to publicly discuss the efficacies and challenges of artists' residencies and the way that they transform communities, creation, and the lives of participants. The discussion was frank and enlightening, and is
Available for viewing on our Youtube channel!
2020: PAST EVENTS
AN ELECTION EVE POP-UP ART EVENT
We had a very exciting pop-up art event Election Eve when Artists For Democracy/Get Out The Vote's project, organized and created by Christine Sciulli, was projected on the front of the Church just after dark on November 4th. You can watch the complete video here. Those lucky to catch it saw a dynamic response by artists about the importance of exercising our right to vote. Sciulli, who made the video, said:
ELECTION EVE... A collective of artists from Hawaii to the end of Long Island has produced this handcrafted non-partisan Get Out the Vote video to be shared widely on social media and to be projected in various locations to encourage voters at risk of sitting this 2020 election out. Projection sites include St. Anns Warehouse (Brooklyn, NY), The Jazz Club (Stonybrook, NY) Marquee Projects (Bellport, NY), Southampton Village Hall (NY), Taylor Rental (via LABspace (Hillsdale NY) in Great Barrington MA), East Hampton Village Hook Mill (NY), VSOP Projects (Greenport, NY), Trieber Farms (Peconic, NY) , Jamesport Meeting House (NY) , Route 39 (Tuckahoe area of Southampton, NY). Other locations are being added in the last minutes throughout Long Island and the NYC metropolitan area. Downloads and sharing allowed, with proper attribution (credits follow) to honor the intellectual property of each of these generous artists. Go to @ProjectProjectVote (PROject proJECT VOTE) for more information and posts of the projected work.
Credited were: Laurie Olinde, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Bill Morrison,mChristopher Milne, Judith Hudson, Nia Dawson, Tor Burwell, Rive Weiner, Bastienne Schmidt, Rachel Leventhal, Mie, Paloma Demers, Lindsay Morris, Ariel Pintos , Laurie Lambrecht, Caterina Verde, Mark van Wagner, JJ Veronis, Kelynn Alder, Scott Bluedorn, Alfredo Merat, We Make America, Sylvia Cedeno, Tycho Burwell, Carlos Morales, Margaret Garrett, Sylvia Hommert, LoVid, Liadain Warwick Smith, Anna Jurinich, Nora Breen, Nina Yankowitz/ Barry Holden, Andrea Cote, John Jinks, Laura Margulies, Toni Ross, Yuka Silvera Ross Watts, Watts Ross, Philippe Cheng, Candace Hill, Christine Morro, Nicole Rosenthal, Almond Zigmund, Cliff Baldwin, Orson Cummings, Maya Molin, Kerry Sharkey-Miller, Kathy Engel/Layton Miles DavisSusan Jennings, Saskia Friedrich, Amy Kirwin, Nika Nesgoda and Tali Muchnic, Virva Hinnemo, Mikko and Viggo Negroponte, Brianna Ashe, Olana Flynn, Janet Goleas, Lo’am Lapidus, Neil Parker, Christine Sciulli
Ahead of its formal opening, The Church held an exhibition of works on paper in the historic Prime House from 12-5pm every day from Friday, September 18, to Sunday, September 27, 2020.
The works included in Tempus Fugit: An Intimate Exhibition of Collected Works on Paper in the Prime House are drawn from the personal collection of Eric Fischl and April Gornik, who have been collecting since the 1980s. The 40 works in the show depicted the human figure—nude and clothed, from drawings to watercolors to photographs—by artists active in the 20th and 21st centuries. They included Cindy Sherman, Francesco Clemente, Pierre Bonnard, Auguste Rodin, Gustav Klimt, Diane Arbus, Bill Brandt, Francesca Woodman, Alice Neel and Richard Diebenkorn among many others.
This exhibition was made possible by the transitional moment of the sale of the Prime House, a historic 18th century residence in the village of Sag Harbor. Empty of furniture, it gave the public a window in time to see its construction, becoming perfect setting for a show of delicate works on paper - a fugitive medium that is notoriously sensitive to time and light. The timing of the show was therefore limited by a number of factors, including the medium of work shown and the logistics of the sale of the house. This made the exhibition all the more precious and meaningful in the odd, dislocated and fraught moment in history, during a global pandemic, national unrest and a much anticipated presidential election. The exhibition offered the opportunity to step back from current affairs and look closely at how artists, over more than a century, have focused on the human form and created images that are sensuous, poignant, and funny.
The Colonial-era Prime House is a landmark building in the village of Sag Harbor. Originally built in 1795, the house is named for Nathaniel Prime who was the Pastor of the nearby Presbyterian Church and served as the manse for the Presbyterian church for many years. This 2-story, 3-bay structure is typical of the vernacular Federal style popular from 1780 to 1820 when the United States of American was a new nation and searching to establish its own cultural identity. The house has period molding and fireplaces, wood beamed ceilings and 200-year-old floors. It was previously owned by celebrated Jazz musician Hal McKusick (1972-2017) and stage and screen actor Hurd Hatfield (1951-1972).
– Sara Cochran, Executive Director and Chief Curator of The Church
A selection of photographs from the exhibit may be seen HERE.
Panelists L-R Jeffrey Colvin, Andina Wekonah Smith, Bonnie Michelle Cannon, Sara Cochran,
Willie Jenkins, and Allanah Evans
WRITING THE PAST TO RIGHT THE FUTURE
The panel WRITING THE PAST TO RIGHT THE FUTURE is part of the larger project PRESENT TENSE: BLACK LIVES MATTER(ED) that celebrated author Jeffrey Colvin’s debut novel AFRICAVILLE and was produced by Christine Sciulli. It was organized by The Church, Arts Center at Duck Creek, Guild Hall, The East Hampton Star and Canio's Books.
Panelists included Jeffrey Colvin, Shinnocock writer and director Andina Wekonah Smith, Bridgehampton Child Care and Reactional Center Director Bonnie Michelle Cannon, activist Willie Jenkins, and Mental Health expert Allanah Evans. It was moderated by Sara Cochan.
Due to rain, the panel was held on August 16, 2020, virtually, by webinar.
PRESENT TENSE: BLACK LIVES MATTER(ED) was sponsored by Sag Harbor Partnership and Kenbe Foundation, with additional support from L+W Market, Harbor Market, Honest Man Restaurant, and The East Hampton Star.
In case you missed it, the panel is available online on our YouTube channel: CLICK HERE
LEE SKOLNICK – A TALK AT THE CHURCH
On Sunday, August 23rd, we held our first on-site program in the garden of The Church. It was a panel discussion to celebrate the release of the book Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership: Public/ Private by Pointed Leaf Press. Since 1980, the New York City-based integrated design firm has specialized in architecture, exhibition design, interpretation, master planning and graphic design. Their monograph was designed in a unique double-sided format with a two-cover format in order to give context to the studio’s extensive work in both the public and private sectors.
Founding partner Lee Skolnick headed up the panel along with his partners, Paul Alter and Jo Ann Secor. They talked about how the manner in which they work together over the last 30 years has evolved, as well as their perception of their profession. Technology has been a huge influence and it was particularly interesting to hear them discuss how a younger generation of architects use it and see differently because of it. They also mentioned how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed their work, and how it will drives future changes in architecture as a whole. During lock-down their entire office, that was spread across the country and the world, came together to brainstorm and experiment with different ideas and forms of public housing. It started as a playful way of working together but has delivered fruitful ideas that they believe will be useful to their work in the future.
Lee Skolnick and his firm are leading the architectural transformation of The Church into a creative cultural center. We look forward to being able to welcome you into its transformed space towards the end of this year.
2019: ART AS ECOSYSTEM PANELS
IN COOPERATION WITH GUILD HALL
ART AS ECOSYSTEM 1
We began plans for The Church with two inaugural events, held in cooperation with Guild Hall, our host while we were without a facility.
The first panel was held on SATURDAY, JULY 20, 2019 AT 2PM AT GUILD HALL
158 Main Street, East Hampton, NY 11937
This first panel brought together luminaries of the art world known for their philanthropy and vision.
Fischl engaged the public panel on “Art as Ecosystem” in order to identify the way art impacts communities and the world, and the way philanthropy invests in a community’s future and connection.
Panelists for the first event were FLAG Art Foundation’s Glenn Fuhrman, Roy Lichtenstein Foundation President Dorothy Lichtenstein, and MacArthur Genius artist Rick Lowe, whose Project Row Houses has radically changed an underserved Houston neighborhood and become a model for such projects nationwide.
ART AS ECOSYSTEM 2
Held on SATURDAY, AUGUST 24, 2019 AT 2PM AT GUILD HALL
158 Main Street, East Hampton, NY 11937
Participants for this second panel were Christine and Andy Hall of the Hall Art Foundation, business strategist and inaugural director of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Christy MacLear, and renowned President of the New York Academy of Art David Kratz.