The Church Revs Up To Welcome The Public With 'Road Rage'

The Church, the new artistic space on Madison Street in Sag Harbor founded by husband and wife artists Eric Fischl and April Gornik, officially opened its doors in May, and in recent months, has been ramping up with in-person exhibitions, events and artist residencies. Housed in the former Methodist Church, the process of renovating the hulking, historic 19th century building was a massive undertaking — made even more complicated by coinciding, as it did, with the COVID-19 pandemic.

While much of the past year was somewhat fuzzy and a moving target in terms of how The Church would function and the programming it could offer, now, in the midst of its inaugural summer, it’s clear that whatever the future holds, the community is going to play a big part in all of it.

During a recent mid-week visit, the place was abuzz with activity. On the lower level, a group of masked children were exploring the concept of creativity as part of an art camp, while on the main floor and upper mezzanine levels, members of the public were circulating throughout the space, studying the various works that make up “Road Rage,” a car-themed exhibition featuring sculpture, photography and painting by a range of renown artists, all of whom bring America’s love for the automobile to life in their work.

The show opened June 25, and from Justin Favela’s full-sized low-rider piñata (a ’64 Chevy Impala) and Sylvie Fleury’s “Ford Cosworth” (a bronze and chrome V-8 engine) to Kristen Morgin’s full size model of James Dean’s wrecked 1955 Porsche 5500 Spyder — in unfired clay, no less — and Cindy Sherman’s “Untitled” film still of a girl hitchhiking, this show offers a range of artistic takes on the theme of the car, which, as Fischl notes, everyone can relate to.

“The genesis of the idea for this show came five or six years ago from a Matisse painting I saw that was painted from the interior of a car looking down a French road,” Fischl explained.

That painting, “The Windshield” dates to 1917 and when he saw it, it occurred to Fischl that the view from the inside of a car represented an entirely new vista that, at the time, the world had never before seen.

“This is the first new interior space in painting. Before, his views would be looking out cathedral doors or out the windows of a home,” said Fischl. “This new invention was the car and an artist saw it as a new space.”

That revelation led Fischl to begin looking for other examples of cars in art and he realized fairly quickly that the car began to capture the imagination of all sorts of artists almost immediately after its invention.

“We were seeing speed as a new element in our lives,” he said. “I saw, not only a broad genre that continues today, but it embodied so much of what we’ve been about for the last 100 to 150 years. It’s the curiosity of this industrial thing when we went from a real horse to a mechanical horse. It changed commerce and identity and male masculine power. Sexiness became part of the identity of the car, a symbol of the future and the space age.”

There were also the inevitable car crashes and that’s well represented in this show as well, not only in Morgin’s James Dean piece, but another by the late John Chamberlain who’s expressive 1985 sculpture “Tomago” is made from crushed car steel made to resemble a giant gun.

Also depicted in “Road Rage” are works that speak to women’s relationships to cars, the comparison of “beautiful bodies,” what can go wrong when they get in the wrong car and the ambiguities and vulnerabilities of being a woman alone on the open road.

Fischl co-curated “Road Rage” with The Church’s executive director, Sara Cochran, and on August 8, he led a discussion on the exhibition for a live (mostly masked) audience, the first in the Insight Sunday series at The Church. It’s one of many events scheduled around the exhibition that focus on car culture. In addition to talks about art, “Road Rage” has given The Church an opportunity to offer a number of related happenings, including car-themed films that screened recently down the street at Sag Harbor Cinema, a Spotify playlist of songs about cars that the artists themselves have assembled (find that on The Church’s website), and two car themed music events. The first involved guitarist G.E. Smith who performed “Dear Dad,” a Chuck Berry song, on steel guitar at The Church with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith offering percussion on various car parts throughout the exhibit. Filmed by Nick Whelan, the performance is now available on the website. The second happening, scheduled for Saturday, September 18, the day “Road Rage” closes, will feature Laurie Anderson conducting a car horn concert on Havens Beach. Called “Road Rave,” Fischl explains the event is a reprise of a similar “concert” Anderson created in a Vermont town square back in the 1970s.

Other themed events included car club rallies in the parking lot of The Church on August 14 and 15, and a talk with noted art critic and writer Alastair Gordon, who interviewed art collector and car-racing enthusiast Robert Rubin.

With such a wide range of programming, Fischl notes the ultimate goal of The Church is to encourage people to discover that creativity is very much a part of their daily lives by connecting them to art and opening up the experience in a way that makes it more accessible. “Road Rage” is an exhibition that does exactly that by focusing on a theme that is literally understood by anyone who enters The Church’s galleries, regardless of age or experience.

“The common ground here is cars,” Fischl said. “Everyone has had one or had an experience in one. No one walking through the front door doesn’t have an opinion on cars.”

“It’s about building trust,” added Cochran, “and to bring in an audience that doesn’t always feel comfortable with contemporary art. If we can build their trust with this exhibition, it may not be something they know, but it’s interesting and not deliberately obscure.”

While all this summer, “Road Rage” is front and center, the overarching model for The Church will be a combination of exhibitions, artist residencies and creativity for the community. At the rear of the building are living quarters where artists can be housed during their stay, and the plan is to offer eight residencies per year, each lasting four weeks, available to artists of various disciplines. Those residencies would run from fall through spring, with summer given over to art camps for kids and other community offerings.

The program kicked off early in the year with members of the Martha Graham Dance Company who were the first of The Church’s resident artists, followed in spring by visual artists Jim Gingerich, and then Claude Lawrence and Dr. Leslee Stradford, all of whom used their time in residence to create new works.

While initially, The Church offered all its programs remotely via Zoom or streaming, ramping up to in-person events has been done slowly and with great consideration and deliberation in terms of how the space might function and how the public will use it.

“The pandemic slowed us down, but it also allowed us to think a bit more about what we were doing,” explained Cochran. “There’s been some programming, such as ‘In Dialogue,’ where we had a discussion on just two works of art. It was very conscious on our part, we were aware of creating a public life for a public building. It was great fun to have a conversation about only two works of art. We might not have thought about that kind of programming before. It made it a larger conversation.”

“It’s a model of what we want to do. Once the conversation begins and people begin joining in, I show the audience I’m as stupid as they are,” Fischl added with a laugh.

Along the way, The Church has hosted other events, like student art shows, discussions related to social justice and a talk with CNN anchor Don Lemon on his book “This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism,” which was co-hosted by Temple Adas Israel. And last August, before The Church opened to the public, it served as the location for the filming of “McCartney 3, 2, 1,” a documentary featuring Sir Paul McCartney revisiting classic Beatles songs with producer Rick Rubin. The 6-part series was released in mid-July on Hulu.

“We’re a three-legged stool,” Cochran said. “We’re very much an artist residency, but we’re also an exhibition space and creativity center with lots of programming.”

Now that The Church has officially launched, how it ultimately evolves as a place for community in the heart of Sag Harbor, well, that will be up to the residents themselves.

“Road Rage” remains on view through September 18. The Church, located at 48 Madison Street, Sag Harbor, is open to the public Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, from noon to 5 p.m., Friday noon to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, visit sagharborchurch.org.

Coming up at the Church:

Friday, August 27 at 6 p.m. – Photographer and performance artist Liz Cohen discusses “Steering,” her 2006 piece which is on view in “Road Rage.” Free.

Thursday, August 19 at 6 p.m. — Yacouba Sissoko and Jay Ghandi Duo perform as part of the Hamptons Jazz Fest. Free.

Thursday, August 26 at 7 p.m. — Goodwin Louis Haitian Jazz Project performs as part of the Hamptons Jazz Fest. Free.

Saturday, September 18 at 6 p.m. — “Road Rave,” musician and artist Laurie Anderson conducts a car horn orchestra on Havens Beach in Sag Harbor. Free,