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Most visitors to the East End, from vacationers and weekenders to year-rounders who have made the decision to embrace the beauty and slower pace, would agree that the East End provides an excellent escape.
Lauren Cornell is no exception. The executive director of Rhizome and adjunct curator at the New Museum in Manhattan—and guest curator for the “Escape: Video Art” exhibit at Guild Hall in East Hampton—says that this is the perfect place for a show about finding a place to retreat.
“The exhibition plays off the idea of Long Island as a beachy getaway,” she said in a recent release for the show. “It explores the subject of escape from multiple angles: as leisure, as consumer frenzy, as a force of gentrification, and as a source of transcendence and transformation.”
Though the name of the exhibit might be lofty, the talent represented is anything but. Laurie Anderson, Burt Barr, Lynda Benglis, Jonathan Horowitz, Joan Jonas, Tony Oursler, Constance DeJong, Keith Sonnier, Andy Warhol and William Wegman all have pieces in the show. All 10 of the artists have lived and or worked on Long Island, and all are considered to be pioneers in video art.
“Escape” is the first exhibition on the East End to focus purely on video art, according to information provided by Guild Hall. The guest curators, Ms. Cornell and Hanne Mugaas, specialize in the art form.
“The subject of video, of media, itself, as an escape—be it political, perceptual or recreational—will also be taken up by works on view,” said Ms. Mugaas in a release issued about the exhibit.
The idea for a video art exhibit came from Guild Hall Executive Director Ruth Appelhof. She said that the impetus for the show came from her own escape: her many travels.
“I personally thought it was a great idea after traveling and seeing so many video art exhibitions in Berlin, London and Venice,” she said during a recent telephone interview. “These exhibitions all had very strong components in the video area, and it seemed time to bring that art field to our community.”
On the homefront, Ms. Appelhof gave particular credit to Museum Director and Chief Curator Christina Strassfield, and Board of Trustee member Donald Mullen for getting the exhibit off the ground.
“It was with a lot of help from a lot of people, including Christina and Donald, who really led the project and helped to make it happen,” she said.
Mr. Sonnier, one of the first artists to make use of materials not commonly associated with art, will be included in the show. For the exhibit, he will re-create his piece “Channel Mix,” which was originally created in 1972 and features four off-signal televisions projected onto two screens. Each screen will display an image: one positive and the other negative.
Even though he is known for his avant garde video art, Mr. Sonnier said that he can still appreciate the natural beauty and quiet serenity here on the East End.
“Its good for Guild Hall to be attempting this. The Hamptons, in general are a great place to come because of its proximity to the city,” he said. “And I love being in nature, it’s a different attitude and it’s important that the bar remains high out here.”
But the artist said that though the East End might be seen as a respite, it shouldn’t be mistaken as a place for an artist to escape. In fact, he said that his role as an artist is to step up and make a statement, to comment on the increase of media and its overwhelming and sometimes immersive effect. And remaining relevant and having a point of view worth sharing means that he needs to know what’s happening around him.
“I want to be with the world, not escaping from it,” he explained.
This is just the beginning for video art exhibitions in the Hamptons, according to Ms. Appelhof.
“We are all interested in video, and we are all learning that the Hamptons were something of an artist’s colony of video artists, even back in the '70s,” she said. “People may not be as up to date on the avant garde. The mission of the exhibition is really to unveil video art as a mainstream art form.”
“Escape: Video Art” will be on view at the Guild Hall in East Hampton from Saturday, June 30, through July 29. A panel discussion will be held on Saturday from 2:30 to 4 p.m., followed by an opening reception from 4 to 6 p.m.324-0806 | guildhall.org.
on Jun 26, 2012