A Look Back at the Parrish Art Museum's First Three Seasons in its New Space

[caption id="attachment_46872" align="aligncenter" width="576"] Eric Fischl (American, born 1948), A Funeral, 1980. Oil on canvas, 60 x 96 inches. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.[/caption]

By Annette Hinkle

“It seems like it was only yesterday in a certain sense,” says Terrie Sultan, director of the Parrish Art Museum. “In another sense, I feel like we’re so integrated in the community, it’s almost like we’ve been here forever.”

Three years. That’s how long it’s been since the Parrish Art Museum first opened the doors of its new building in Water Mill.

“The day we opened, 1,000 people came in in the first hour,” recalls Ms. Sultan. “They were doing what they were supposed to be doing — walking through the galleries, the café, the theater and they made it their own.

“There was this big change over on this one day,” she adds. “People came in and said this is our museum. It’s been that way ever since.”

[caption id="attachment_46873" align="alignright" width="500"] Cindy Sherman “Lucille Ball” 1975.[/caption]

The date was November 12, 2012 and the move from the museum’s former Job’s Lane space in Southampton Village (which was built in 1897 by Samuel Parrish) to the new Herzog & de Meuron has been nothing short of monumental for the institution. With more than 12,000 square feet of exhibition space alone, the new structure is huge, not just in terms of its physical size, but in terms of its visibility on the East End and throughout the museum world.

Three years on, Ms. Sultan puts the museum’s role in the community into perspective and with a new year on the horizon, talks about where the Parrish is headed in 2016. Because of the amount of available exhibit space, one of the key things the Parrish now does every year is showcase work from the permanent collection that has rarely, if ever, been on display, putting the art in context, both then and now.

“We’ll have a lot of abstraction this year because we had a lot of representation last year,” explains Ms. Sultan. “What we try to do is thematic installations in each gallery. It was never intended to be a walk through time or an encyclopedia — it’s not that kind of museum.”

“We have 3,000 objects in the collection and we turn it over every year,” adds Ms. Sultan. “This is our third year and we come up with fresh new ways to contextualize the work and show things we never have before.”

The 2016 installation of the permanent collection, “Connections and Contexts,” opened last month and will remain on view through next November. The show features some 70 works presented in nine thematic, mini-narratives that explore the concept of dialogue. In addition to pieces from the permanent collection that have not yet been shown in the new building, “Connections and Contexts” highlights significant recent acquisitions as well, including Hans Hofmann’s “Image in Green,” and “Lucille Ball” a 1975 photograph by Cindy Sherman.

[caption id="attachment_46874" align="alignleft" width="600"] Three Rafts by Swoon. Tod Seelie photo.[/caption]

In early May, the Parrish will head for the high seas with “Radical Seafaring,” an exhibition, publication, and program initiative that will include art, vessels, models, film and video, off-site commissions, and boat trips around East End waterways. The exhibition is the brainchild of Andrea Grover, the museum’s Curator of Special Projects, and it features 25 artists whose work highlights a new direction in creative practice — artist-initiated waterborne projects such as designs for communities at sea, field work, and performance.

“As director of this institution, I strive to give my curators the opportunity to realize their dreams,” says Ms. Sultan. “I asked Andrea if she could do her dream project what would it be. For 20 years she’s been thinking about artists who make work on the water.”

“It has a lot to do with conceptual art,” explains Ms. Sultan in describing “Radical Seafaring.” “Some of it is in the museum, but a lot of artists will be off-site doing projects. It’s a little like the Parrish Road Show and can be inside and outside the museum.”

In late July, the Parrish will open “Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle.” Organized by the Parrish’s West Coast adjunct curator David Pagel, the show will highlight the work of three artists who established their reputations in the 1980s at a time when the relevance of painting was being questioned in light of new media. Besides being internationally recognized artists, Bleckner, Fischl and Salle are also friends of long standing, something that Ms. Sultan has found to be the case for many East End artists throughout history — from Chase, Homer and Hassam, to Pollock, Ossorio and Dubuffet.

“It started me thinking about creative friendships and cross influences,” explains Ms. Sultan. “Ross, Eric and David have been friends for 40 years. They went to school together at Cal Arts, knew each other there, all ended up in New York in the ‘80s, and all started coming out here more or less at the same time to establish studios.”

[caption id="attachment_46875" align="alignright" width="400"] Hans Hofmann “Image in Green” 1950.[/caption]

“They still see each other and talk to each other,” she adds. “Does that mean there’s a lot of influence between their works? They’re still part of that same creative legacy that has made this place the most important artist colony in the U.S. and maybe anywhere.”

In October 2016, seven guest jurors (including Cindy Sherman) will each select two artists from the East End community to highlight in the annual “Artists Choose Artists” show at the Parrish. The show is designed to initiate introductions and fellowship among today’s multi-generational network of artists, and for Ms. Sultan, is just another example of how the vibrant East End scene allows the Parrish to function, not just as a community museum, but as a world class museum as well, as evidenced by the fact that more than 50,000 people come through its doors each year.

“Every year we hope to accomplish our major goal and core value which is to further and enhance the creative legacy of our area and how it reverberates throughout the world,” explains Ms. Sultan. “We have exhibitions that we create here and my goal is to have people all over the world say, ‘I have to make sure I don't miss that show at the Parrish because I know I won’t have that experience anywhere else.’”

In addition to the specific exhibits mentioned above, the Parrish Art Museum (279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill) will offer a whole slate of art exhibits, live performances, and music events throughout 2016. To learn more about what’s ahead, visit the website at parrishart.org or call (631) 283-2118.