Every Picture Tells a Story

PARRISH ART MUSEUM 279 MONTAUK HIGHWAY, WATER MILL, NY 11976 T 631 283 2118 PARRISHART.ORG

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Susan Galardi 631-283-2118 x122 [email protected]

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY—THE PARRISH ART MUSEUM’S NEW PERMANENT COLLECTION EXHIBITION—EXPLORES THE WAYS IMAGES CARRY NARRATIVE MEANING, AND FEATURES OVER 40 NEW ACQUISITIONS

Opening November 11, 2018, the exhibition includes new acquisitions including iconic photographs by Fred McDarrah, paintings by David Salle and Photorealist artists; plus focused surveys of Fairfield Porter and Louisa Chase

Bertrand Meniel (French, born 1961), Breakfast at the Fairmont, 2009. Acrylic on linen, 38 1/2 x 71 ¼ in. Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, Gift of Louis K. and Susan P. Meisel

WATER MILL, NY UPDATE 11/14/18—The Parrish Art Museum opens Every Picture Tells a Story, a fresh look at the permanent collection through a series of focused exhibitions that explore—through a variety of creative approaches and artistic media—the many ways that images carry narrative meaning. On view from November 11, 2018 through October 3, 2019, Every Picture presents over 40 recent acquisitions in context, creates new experiences, and provides fresh opportunities to understand how art and artists respond to the world. By comparing distinct approaches by diverse artists, Every Picture offers many pathways to interpreting contemporary expression.

The multi-gallery installation of over 100 works features thematic exhibitions as well as galleries
dedicated to individual artists. Every Picture Tells a Story highlights 27 iconic photographs of artists dating from 1959–1979 by Fred W. McDarrah, juxtaposed with examples of works by the artists pictured; recently acquired, monumental paintings based on the Sistine Chapel by David Salle, shown for the first time in the U.S.; a gallery of Photorealist paintings including important new acquisitions; surveys of work by Louisa Chase and Fairfield Porter; paintings by William Merritt Chase and his students augmented by archival photographs; and the thematic gallery, A Fresh Look: The Collection in Conversation.

“Each year, on the anniversary of the opening of the new building in Water Mill, the Parrish has the distinct pleasure of unveiling special ‘mini-exhibitions’ drawn from the collection that introduce new acquisitions and offers new ways of seeing and experiencing artists’ visual voices,” noted Museum Director Terrie Sultan. “The Parrish holds in public trust such riches in works dating from the late nineteenth-century up to today, and it is thrilling to see how these paintings, works on paper, and sculpture can come together to really speak to visitors on so many levels about so many different topics.”

For more than 50 years, photographer Fred W. McDarrah (American, 1926–2007) told the story of artists and writers who made New York the center of post-war culture through his images published in the Village Voice. The mostly candid photographs show artists at storied New York gathering places, at exhibition openings, and in their studios as well as well as on the East End of Long Island, where McDarrah and many of his subjects lived and worked. Into the Artist’s World: The Photographs of Fred W. McDarrah presents 27 photographs recently acquired through a gift from the estate. Dating from 1959 to1979, the images depict artists who contributed to the rich creative legacy of the East End including Norman Bluhm, James Brooks, Elaine de Kooning, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Motherwell—all of whom are represented in the Parrish permanent collection. Works by the artists themselves bring their portraits alive: Motherwell’s lyrical 1966 ink drawing, Spontaneity No.3, points to the gestural sweeps in oil paintings seen behind him in McDarrah’s image. The photograph of Bluhm spraying arcs of paint across the canvas in his studio echoes his drawing from the same year.

David Salle’s paintings challenge traditional narrative with disparate images that reference art history, film, literature, and religion. The three monumental paintings commissioned for Museo Carlo Bilotti, Rome, and gifted to the Parrish by Margaret S. Bilotti, address a single subject: the Sistine Chapel through the conceptual approach for which Salle is well recognized. In After Michelangelo, The Creation; After Michelangelo, The Flood; and After Michelangelo, The Last Judgment (2005–2006), the artist upends the source material by juxtaposing figures depicted in Michelangelo’s paintings with myriad vignettes and illustrative images of objects from modern times and recent history. In The Flood, Salle updates the biblical story of the deluge in the book of Genesis with references to natural disasters including the 2004 tsunami in Asia and Hurricane Katrina. In The Last Judgement, figures from Michelangelo’s fresco on the Sistine Chapel altar wall are overtaken by images of doom and destruction: missiles, Satan, and a scythe-wielding personification of death.

An exhibition of Photorealism paintings, in which ready-made images are used in the service of often abstract narratives, provides a provocative context to the conversation about representation and imagery. New acquisitions by Tom Blackwell and Bertrand Meneil, for example, introduce a dialogue about the relationship of interior and exterior space that mirrors the Parrish’s architectural design, while paintings by Ron Kleemann, Yigal Ozeri, Charles Bell, and Audrey Flack balance composition complexity with suggested narratives. In Blackwell’s Morning Walk, Hampstead High Street, London, 2011, the viewer looks in a store window at two inanimate figures (a mannequin and a poster illustration), while at the same seeing reflections of people and cars on the street, thus creating a visual doubling that, while potentially dislocating, emphasizes a dialogue between inside and outside. Meniel’s inside/outside
composition Breakfast at the Fairmont, 2009, depicts grand urban architecture contrasted with archetypal images of the natural world—mountains and the sea. This concept is underscored in the Parrish architecture, where broad panes of glass, slit windows, and skylights encourage visitors to sense the connection of art to nature.

Louisa Chase: Below the Surface is a survey featuring 18 paintings and works on paper dating from 1972–2011 by the artist who provided a view into the diary of her inner life through the bold use of color in her abstract works. Organized in cooperation with the Louisa Chase Estate and guest curated by Andrew J. Saluti (Assistant Professor, Program Coordinator in the Graduate Program in Museum Studies at Syracuse University School of Design), Below the Surface includes Yellow Spooks, 1986; and Untitled, 1988, two paintings in the Parrish collection, in a compendium of works on paper and large-scale paintings that provides an in-depth look at the artist’s creative approach.

Fairfield Porter (American, 1907–1975), painted the world immediately surrounding him—family, friends, studio, and homes in Spruce Head Island, Maine, and Southampton, New York—bringing together authentic lived experiences and art in a visual autobiography. Fairfield Porter Raw: The Creative Process of an American Master includes both finished artwork and others in various stages of development, revealing his creative process and working method.

William Merritt Chase (1849–1916) painted the Shinnecock Hills on the East End of Long Island beginning in 1891 and founded the Shinnecock Hills Summer School of Art. William Merritt Chase: The Shinnecock Years features works by the artist and his students, augmented by archival photographs dating from 1890–1910 from the book Time and History by Shinnecock historian David Bunn Martine. The portraits of Shinnecock Indian Nation members who worked for the Chase family and the art school society—including the women who grew produce and functioned as laundresses, and the men who served as fishing and hunting guides—tell the revelatory story of the impact of Chase’s ties within the community.

Black and white provides for emphatic graphic abstraction, but also nuanced approaches to both representation and abstraction. The works in A Fresh Look: The Collection in Conversation provide an opportunity for visual and emotional conversations that are far more nuanced than black and white would infer, and provide comparisons and contrasts in both style and meaning in paintings and sculpture by Alice Aycock, Louise Nevelson, Donald Sultan, and others.

Four photographers explore the concepts of self-definition in Shaping Identity. Jeremy Dennis addresses indigenous identity, assimilation, and tradition; Lindsay Morris documents gender-nonconforming children; Dawoud Bey examines adolescent identity in formation; and Tim Gardner illustrates the American middle class world of masculinity.

In this sixth iteration of exhibitions drawn from the permanent collection, Every Picture Tells a Story offers viewers many different avenues for experiencing contemporary approaches to narrative and figuration. By contextualizing work and amplifying inherent themes by important artists, the exhibition provides a fresh look at the artists, their work, and their impact on the creative legacy of the region and the art world.

Every Picture Tells a Story, the 2018 Permanent Collection Exhibition, has been made possible, in part, by the generous support of Barbara Slifka, Ellen Cantrowitz, Garrett and Mary Moran, Charlotte Moss and Barry Friedberg, Jane and David Walentas, Deborah Buck Foundation, Marie Samuels, Per Skarstedt, and a donor who wishes to remain anonymous.

About the Parrish Art Museum Inspired by the natural setting and artistic life of Long Island’s East End, the Parrish Art Museum illuminates the creative process and how art and artists transform our experiences and understanding of the world and how we live in it. The Museum fosters connections among individuals, art, and artists through care and interpretation of the collection, presentation of exhibitions, publications, educational initiatives, programs, and artists-in--residence. The Parrish is a center for cultural engagement, an inspiration and destination for the region, the nation, and the world.