LongHouse Reserve Opens ‘A Summer Arrangement’

On May 27, LongHouse Reserve, the East Hampton home and sculpture garden of the late acclaimed textile designer and collector Jack Lenor Larsen (1927 - 2020), and Object & Thing, the art and design exhibition platform, opened a collaborative exhibition in LongHouse’s summer living room, gallery and guest level.

“A Summer Arrangement: Object & Thing at LongHouse,” features installation design by Colin King and is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays now through September 3. A percentage of sales from works sold at the exhibition will be donated to LongHouse Reserve.

“A Summer Arrangement” takes inspiration from Larsen’s nonhierarchical approach to objects and brings together contemporary works, including site-specific commissions, of both art and design. All of the works are made from materials akin to those that Larsen made and collected, such as ceramic, fiber, glass, metal and wood.

For the exhibition, LongHouse Director Carrie Rebora Barratt is bringing the public into the guest level of the house for the first time. The project is a unique collaboration between LongHouse and Object & Thing, with a project team that includes co-curators Glenn Adamson, LongHouse curator-at-large, and Abby Bangser, Object & Thing founder, alongside Colin King as installation designer.

Visitors encounter wall works by artists such as Megumi Shauna Arai, Liz Collins, Wyatt Kahn, Kiva Motnyk and Sam Moyer. Simone Bodmer-Turner will debut a new body of wall works that involve harvested reeds found near her studio in the Berkshires.

King’s design and arrangement of objects uses Larsen’s own collection of Wharton Esherick furniture, including a dining table that was displayed at the 1939 World’s Fair. Additional surfaces for objects were made by local artist Teague Costello under his design practice name, Teague’s Path.

Contemporary objects are juxtaposed with Larsen’s own collection, including works by anonymous as well as well-known craft artists and natural objects, such as straw hats, seed pods and stones. The contemporary works brought together by Object & Thing include ceramics by Julia Chiang, Laird Gough, Rashid Johnson, Jennifer Lee, Raina Lee, Johnny Ortiz-Concha and Frances Palmer — who knew Larsen and was a guest at LongHouse many times. A newly carved windchime by Luck Carpentry will greet visitors in the gallery. Larsen’s iconic Magnum fabric from 1970 will cover the guestroom bed and has inspired newly commissioned textile works in that room, including a wall work by Liz Collins and Kiva Motnyk.

“It is exhilarating to have such an illustrious group of international contemporary artists and designers think about Jack Lenor Larsen’s work and LongHouse as inspiration for their creative enterprise,” said Barratt. “Larsen liked to say that his work would never be done and meant for his arrangements to be carried on by artists who would be inspired by his collections and home.”

LongHouse Reserve is at 133 Hands Creek Road, East Hampton. Visitor information is available at longhouse.org. Admission is $20.