The Hamptons are known as a placid summer retreat, but a plethora of art events imbue the renowned beach communities with a feverish art-fair atmosphere. Here are a few calendar highlights:
July 10-13
Despite all the activity, “people are more relaxed in the Hamptons,” according to Rick Friedman, director of the seven-year-old ArtHamptons, the most established of the events. This year’s theme, Escape, equates mental states induced by visual art with the Hamptons landscape. The motif extends throughout the fair’s venue, the Sculpture Fields at Nova’s Ark, the 95-acre former Bridgehampton home and studio of artist Nova Mihai Popa, manifesting in exhibitor booths such as that of Tibor de Nagy Gallery, where Jane Freilicher’s romantic landscapes will be on view.
July 10-13
The edgier ArtMrkt Hamptons offers 35 exhibitors at the Bridgehampton Historical Society. “It’s definitely the most curated fair,” says East Hampton dealer Eric Firestone of the participating galleries. He is showing paintings by Bäst and photographs by Tseng Kwong Chi.
July 12
Amid exhibitions devoted to Jennifer Bartlett and Maya Lin, the Parrish Art Museum’s Midsummer Party honors philanthropist Inga Maren Otto and filmmaker Katharina Otto-Bernstein.
July 19
Cindy Sherman and Agnes Gund are the celebrated guests at the LongHouse Reserve’s midsummer gala.
July 24-28
Art Southampton has its third outing on the 18-acre estate behind the town’s Elks Lodge, adjacent to the Southampton Golf Club, with 75 galleries on board. Returnees include Hollis Taggart Gallery, showing paintings by the late American abstractionist Sam Francis; and Dillon Gallery, with works by Warhol muse Ultra Violet and Leah Yerpe’s monochromatic figurative drawings.
July 26
The nocturnally themed One Thousand Nights and One Night/Sleepless Nights of Sheherazade summer benefit for Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center promises installations, performances, an auction, and a creatively chic dress code.
August 8
The Guild Hall Summer Gala ends the season seriously with a celebration of Robert Motherwell’s East Hampton years.
A version of this article appears in the July/August 2014 issue of Art+Auction magazine.
