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Beginning this Saturday, June 11, at The Watermill Center, artist G.T. Pellizzi will introduce to the public “Constellation in Red, Yellow and Blue”—the largest light installation he has ever done.
This installation of light sculptures will feature arrangements of conduit pipes and colored light bulbs of the three primary colors. It will be displayed in a courtyard-like exterior space in the entrance to the center, creating a construction site or New York subway type of aesthetic.
“I’m honored to be offered this space because it is an important place and foundation,” Mr. Pellizzi said of The Watermill Center. “I think I’ve gotten compliments and congratulations from people all over the world when they heard about this show.”
He has done about a dozen solo exhibitions internationally, but none were ever of this magnitude. He said this is his first time having to create an entire environment within a given space.
Mr. Pellizzi, 37, grew up splitting his time between New York City and Mexico. He studied architecture at Cooper Union in Manhattan and was involved in several art collectives until he became a solo artist in 2011.
This year, he was granted an Inga Maren Otto Fellowship at the center after the namesake philanthropist reviewed his work. This fellowship supports emerging and mid-career artists by providing them with a four- to six-week residency, allowing them to use the center’s space to exercise and boost their artistic development.
He was invited to display this light installation during his residency for the month of June. The founder and artistic director of the center, Robert Wilson, became interested in Mr. Pellizzi’s work when some of his installations were previously showcased in the center.
“For me he is one of the most interesting of the younger artists I know,” Mr. Wilson said in an email. “He has a brilliant sense of color, light and space. He thinks architecturally.”
Mr. Pellizzi had a solo exhibition of his existing paintings and light installations last September at the center. Mr. Wilson said he personally acquired nine pieces at that exhibition, as well as two others at an auction.
For this new installation, Mr. Pellizzi said he became inspired by the center’s collection of almost 8,000 artifacts from various cultures and time periods, especially those from Mayan and Peruvian cultures. The collection’s textiles and their mythological and astronomical representations were really what inspired him to create this installation, he said. The three primary colors he uses, also mentioned in the title of the work, are often represented in the textiles.
He added that Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian also greatly inspired him to create this industrial landscape, noting that when Mr. Mondrian worked in New York in the 1940s up until his death, he incorporated much of the city’s dynamism and movement in his last paintings. Mr. Pellizzi wanted to include similar concepts in his work as well.
“The materials I use for the light installations are ubiquitous in the city landscape,” he said.
G.T. Pellizzi’s “Constellation in Red, Yellow and Blue” will open at The Watermill Center, 39 Water Mill Towd Road, Water Mill, on Saturday, June 11, at 3 p.m. and will remain on view until August 28. For more information, or to make a reservation for the exhibition opening, visit watermillcenter.org.
on Jun 6, 2016