‘Swept Away: Love Letter To A Surrogate(s)’

As part of Guild Hall: Offsite summer series of events, Guild Hall is offering “Swept Away: Love Letter To A Surrogate(s),” the second and final exhibition of 2022, which will begin on Saturday, September 10, and run for four consecutive Saturdays through October 1, from 7 to 10 p.m. at East Hampton’s Main Beach.

The project was conceptualized by Warren Neidich who created the successful Drive by Art event on the East End during the pandemic in 2020. It is co-curated and co-coordinated by Christina Mossaides Strassfield, Guild Hall’s museum director and chief curator, Anuradha Vikram, a Los Angeles based independent curator, and Los Angeles based conceptual artist Renee Petropoulos.

“With Guild Hall being under renovation we felt this was a wonderful way to bring accessible art to our community and have everyone feel welcome and enjoy themselves,” Strassfield explained. “We are delighted to have the chance to expand the museum’s reach through our collaboration with our West Coast partners.”

“‘Swept Away: Love Letter to a Surrogate(s)’ is a community-oriented artistic project that aims to create a transcontinental heartbeat across America,” said Neidich.

The project involves 65 artists from Los Angeles writing sets of instructions, in the form of love letters, to an equal number of artists from the East End who will then perform them in an open and improvisational way at the waters’ edge in front of the pavilion at Main Beach in East Hampton. In the spring the reverse will occur; with East End artists writing love letters to LA artists to be executed at Will Rogers State Beach, Santa Monica in conjunction with the 18th Street Arts Center.

Regarding the Los Angeles happenings, Anuradha Vikram and Renee Petropoulos said, “Over two consecutive days, West Coast artists will respond to prompts submitted by their East Coast counterparts that address themes of deep ecology and the interdependence of humans with other living beings and ecological networks. Each artist will be limited to using only what they and their collaborators can carry to the shoreline and retrieve at the close of their action.”

These “Art Happenings,” borrowing a term of Allan Kaprow, who’s famous “Happening #3” was performed in East Hampton in August,1966, will likewise create ephemeral performative gestures and time-based works. They might take the form of building a sandcastle, singing a song, reciting poetry, dancing, surfing, making a sculpture that interacts with the tide, interventions with shells, doing a light projection, picking up garbage on the beach, etc.

The general community is invited to enjoy the performances amid the pounding of the surf which will act, on one hand, as an acoustical backdrop and, on the other, as a reminder of the importance of the sea in the prevention of ecological degradation brought on by climate change.

“It is hoped that through these combined experimental gestures and performances, a sense of solidarity between local and national artists and their respective diverse communities will emerge, and through them, new innovative social tools and structures with which to confront the ecological catastrophe,” Neidich said.

Neidich is an American post-conceptual artist, writer, and theorist, who splits his time between Los Angeles, Berlin, and East Hampton. Neidich has been exploring scientific and philosophical ideas in his art for the past 30 years. He was a professor at Kunsthochschule Weißensee School of Art, Berlin and visiting scholar at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. Neidich is the founding director of the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art.

“Swept Away” runs four consecutive Saturdays, September 10, 17, 24, and October 1, from 7 to 10 p.m. Main Beach is at 101 Ocean Avenue in East Hampton. Visit guildhall.org/sweptaway for more information. A schedule of happenings will be posted as the event dates approach.

“Swept Away: Love Letter To A Surrogate(s)” participating East End artists are: Pamella Allen, Suzanne Anker, Elena Bajo, Lillian Ball, Monica Banks, Dianne Blell, Scott Bluedorn, Sanford Biggers, Megan Chaskey, Scott Chaskey, Philippe Cheng, Andrea Cote, Ivana Dama, Peter Dayton, Katrina Del Mar, Jeremy Dennis, Sabra Moon Elliot, Carol Edwards, Eva Faye, Saskia Friedrich, Margaret Garrett, Veronica Gonzales, Kimberly Goff, Jeremy Grosvenor, Jerelyn Hanrahan, Candace Hill, Virva Hinnemo, Alice Hope, Erica-Lynn Huberty, Terri Hyland, Ruby Jackson, Ilya and Emelia Kabakov, Carlos Lama, Laurie Lambrecht, Joseph Liatela, Donald Lipski, Sutton Lynch, Josephine Meckseper, Paul Miller, Tanya Minhas, Richard Mothes, Michelle Murphy, Jill Musnicki, Eileen O’Kane Kornreich, Dalton Portello, Jaanika Peerna, Toni Ross, David Rothenberg, Will Ryan, Sara Salaway, Matthew Satz, Bastienne Schmidt, Barry Schwabsky, Christine Sciulli, Arlene Slavin, Janice Stanton, Christina Sun, Carol Szymanski, Sara Vandeerbeek, Ryan Wallace, Ross Watts, Allan Wexler, Nina Yankowitz, Darius Yektai and Almond Zigmund.