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(Editors note: The “Big Reveal” scheduled for Thursday, November 5, at 11 a.m. has been cancelled, but the artwork will go on view as scheduled that day).
By Annette Hinkle
Even without a pandemic, off-season months on the East End can sometimes feel like a dry-run for the zombie apocalypse. A dearth of pedestrians and silent village streets are the norm and have traditionally pointed to a citizenry hunkered down for a long winter’s nap.
But in the winter, perhaps most telling are those shop windows covered with brown paper by tenants who only operate their stores in the summer, or worse yet, empty cavernous storefronts that host no tenants whatsoever.
It’s certainly been an issue of concern in recent years and now, we’re heading back into the coldest months when the number of vacant storefronts tends to rise — and of course, this time around, we’re also dealing with COVID-19, which is also on the rise.
But fortunately, Southampton Village is tackling the issue of empty storefronts head-on and has come up with a novel solution that is both pragmatic and artistic.
On Thursday, November 5, at 11 a.m., Southampton Arts Center will unveil the first installation in its Storefront Art Project, an initiative designed to animate Southampton Village’s vacant shop windows with works created by East End artists. Thursday’s “Big Reveal” will debut “Priceless,” a new art project by East Hampton artist Alice Hope, which will occupy the vacant storefront at 8 Jobs Lane (formerly Chico’s) in the months ahead.
“In the colder months there were a lot of flat-out empty shops with nothing but a ‘for rent’ sign in the window. It was desolate and sad,” explained Southampton Arts Center Artistic Director Amy Kirwin. “Though the shops are still for rent and empty, we wanted to animate the windows to make the village more beautiful.”
Southampton Arts Center is spearheading the initiative with support from the Long Island Community Foundation and Morley Property Management, which represents a number of Main Street landlords. Also involved in the project is the Village of Southampton itself, which recently passed an ordinance requiring owners of unoccupied storefronts to dress up their windows or face a fine. In addition to Kirwin and Hope, on hand for Thursday’s unveiling will be Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren and trustees, representatives from the Long Island Community Foundation, and Southampton Arts Center Executive Director Tom Dunn.
Though it seems like an ideal project to undertake during a pandemic — window shopping is very safe because it’s outdoors and allows for social distancing — Kirwin explains that the idea for this storefront art venture has been around for nearly a year.
“We were hoping to do it as part of ‘Takeover,’” said Kirwin, referring to the Southampton Arts Center artists-in-residence exhibition that opened February 1 and invited a selection of East End artists to set up working studios inside the arts center’s galleries. “We had been pitching it to some landlords back in the winter and hoped a different artist could each have a window.
“The idea was to expand the reach of the exhibition beyond our four walls and make it an art walk to draw you back to the exhibition,” she said. “But it didn’t pan out at the time.”
The total COVID-19 shutdown that came in mid-March put a sudden end to any art happenings for Southampton Arts Center and all other cultural institutions on the East End. But then a few months ago, the village officially passed its new law prohibiting empty storefront windows and suddenly, the project not only made sense, it also had a willing partner.
Kirwin said that going forward the hope is to have multiple artists showing in multiple storefronts. And while the artwork will take center stage in the windows, the project is also meant to invite potential new business owners to take a look at the spaces and consider them as a future home for their own ventures.
“This is a way to animate the windows, but also allow people to see inside the shop if they’re interested in renting it. It’s not meant to discourage people from window shopping for a storefront,” she explained. “I think in my mind, it’s doing something dynamic with your windows and even when you’re trying to rent it, will draw more interest in it.”
Because Morley has a working relationship with many of the landlords who own the spaces, Kirwin said it made sense to work with the company in finding the ideal empty storefront properties for the art.
“Our hope is that it helps these landlords to rent their buildings,” Kirwin said. “This space was available and the owner was open to this happening. Hopefully, this will allow other landlords to see what we’ve done and work with other artists.”
[caption id="attachment_103280" align="alignnone" width="8256"] Artist Alice Hope working on the installation of her art piece "Priceless" in the window of number 8 Jobs Lane on Monday, November 2. PHoto by Dana Shaw.[/caption]
Alice Hope’s inaugural storefront work, “Priceless,” is a multimedia sculptural art piece composed of tens of thousands of paper price tags, chromed coat hangers and strung can tabs. Hope is accustomed to creating sculptural pieces using thousands of small, consumer-based objects — especially can tabs. From 2014 to 2015, she was artist-in-residence at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and shortly thereafter, built a site-specific artwork that contained more than a million used can tabs and was installed outside the Queens Museum for six months. Then in 2019, Hope was commissioned by Art in Embassies to build a permanent site-specific installation for the new U.S. Embassy lobby in Maputo, Mozambique. That piece, which Hope worked on locally at Tripoli Gallery in Wainscott this past spring, is composed of hundreds of thousands of can tabs and marine netting.
“This is the first storefront I’ve ever done,” admitted Hope. “But I feel its timely in that people are too uncomfortable to go inside. It’s a great way to show.”
While coat hangers and price tags are ideal materials for a sculptural piece designed to grace a retail space, it turns out that Hope had already been working with both even before the storefront project came along.
“I had another project in progress and was specifically using price tags as a material, and another using coat hangers — both conceptually worked,” she said. “I pushed both forward 100 percent for this project. Amy and I went and looked and took measurements. My work is malleable to the space in which it fits and I always want to work site specific. There is also the symmetry of this space where there are two windows — I’ve been thinking a lot about it.”
“Priceless” was installed in the space on Monday and Tuesday of this week, and the sheer volume of price tags included in Hope’s piece is truly impressive — numbering somewhere in the tens of thousands. But like many consumer goods in these days of pandemic-induced shortages, finding them in the numbers she needed posed something of a challenge in recent months.
“The blank price tag I landed on is a Staples brand and it’s of a specific color and tone and size,” she said. “I got so far into using this one that if I switched, it would interrupt the tone. I wasn’t able to buy this brand online so I cleaned out all the Staples in the area — on 86th Street in New York, Riverhead, Bridgehampton — and on Long Island I would pop into different stores in fit and starts.”
In the end, Hope amassed the tags she needed and has created a sculptural piece of artwork that not only fits the space, but is perfectly suited to it as well given its substance. She adds that she likes to create motion in her work, and notes the price tags are light enough that they will quake like aspen leaves when hit by a breeze. To that end, a fan will be placed in the space to ensure the tags move as she wants them to.
“In this community where there are often empty storefronts during the off season, I think in the arts community it’s always been seen like real estate that could be activated to bring life to a community,” Hope said. “There’s not enough life on the streets in the wintertime. Even before the pandemic it seemed like a good thing to do — like the storefronts in the city at Christmastime, it was a destination for people to visit.
“I think it gives a way of participating and doing and seeing art while also bringing life to the community center instead,” she added. “Even taking consumerism out, there’s an experience, almost transcending consumer culture and providing an opportunity. I hope arts’ goal is it provide a way to transcend that.
“It sanctifies a space. It’s really showing care for the community center.”
Alice Hope’s “Priceless” will be revealed on Thursday, November 5, at 11 a.m. at 8 Jobs Lane, Southampton. The piece is part of Southampton Arts Center’s Storefront Art Project and will remain on view for up to six months or when the shop is once again occupied, as per the requirements outlined by Southampton Village. For more information, visit southamptonartscenter.org.
ahinkleoptonline-net on Nov 4, 2020