Two New Shows For Fall at Guild Hall

On October 26, Guild Hall opens two new exhibitions — “Abstract Expressionism Revisited” and “Joyce Kubat, My People.”

In “Abstract Expressionism: Selections from the Permanent Collection,” on view in the Moran and Woodhouse Galleries, guest curator Joan Marter, Ph.D. has selected paintings, works on paper, and sculpture celebrating Abstract Expressionist art from the Guild Hall Permanent Collection. The show features works that have not been exhibited in recent years combined with several notable loans.

Abstract Expressionism was an avant-garde movement of the 1950s that was a result, in part, of the dynamic interplay of artists working on the East End. Among the participants in the “artist colony” of the Hamptons were residents and summer visitors including Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, Willem and Elaine de Kooning, James Brooks, Charlotte Park, Robert Motherwell, and Grace Hartigan, among others.

A catalogue with color illustrations of works in the Guild Hall Collection, and an essay that illuminates the importance of East End artists to the emergence of Abstract Expressionism, will be published in conjunction with this exhibition.

Joan Marter is an American academic, art critic and author, with a Ph.D. from The University of Delaware, 1974. Marter is a “Distinguished Professor of Art History” at Rutgers University, the co-editor of the Woman’s Art Journal, the editor of The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, the author of Women of Abstract Expressionism and co-organizer of the exhibition in 2016 (Denver Art Museum).

The show opens with a members reception on Sunday, October 27, from 2 to 4 p.m. A gallery talk precedes the opening from 1 to 2 p.m.

Joyce Kubat was the top honors recipient of the 79th Artist Members Exhibition at Guild Hall in 2017, selected by guest awards juror Ruba Katrib, who was curator at the Sculpture Center and now curator at MoMA PS1.

In “Joyce Kubat: My People,” the artist assembles her “people,” a body of work which she has been developing since 2002. Kubat lets process lead the way in her deeply psychological figurative works, from pastels applied to damp paper creating a liquid soft skin with deep velvet pigments, to fluid pink inks that have the extraordinary transparency of flesh, Kubat is able to convey an emotionally raw narrative of human anatomy.

"The figure has always been my focus, and over the years it’s become a psychological focus, a not-always-easy-to-view focus,” Kubat said in a statement. “Art with only surface excitement seems empty. For me it has to have a serious and profound underpinning, always poignant, often humorous, relating in some way to the universal humanity common to all of us."

Kubat holds a BS in Psychology from Michigan State University, and continued her studies in New York City at both Brooklyn College and The Art Students League. She lives and works in Huntington, and has exhibited throughout Long Island, New York City, Italy, and elsewhere.

Curated by Casey Dalene, curatorial assistant, the show runs through December 30 in the Spiga Gallery and opens with a members reception on October 27 from 2 to 4 p.m. Kubat will take part in a gallery talk on Saturday, November 16, at 2 p.m.

Guild Hall is at 158 Main Street, East Hampton. Visit guildhall.org for more information.