Parrish Art Museum Celebrates Women's History Month With 3 New Programs
By Samantha Bergson
The renowned Parrish Art Museum is honoring Women’s History Month with three programs focused on female artists. Film screenings, book signings and talks throughout March showcase a diverse generational and cultural array of women artists working in variety of disciplines.
The series begins on March 8 with an Artist to Artist discussion between abstract painter Mary Heilmann and sculptor Mel Kendrick about the life and work of fellow artist Louisa Chase. The museum currently is exhibiting the late artist’s works in Louisa Chase: Below the Surface, featuring 18 paintings and works on paper from 1972 to 2011, including the hauntingly passionate “Yellow Spooks, 1986” and “Untitled, 1988.”
Parrish is also hosting an afternoon screening on March 24 of The Artist’s Lens: Kusama—Infinity: The Life and Art of Yayoi Kusama as part of The Hamptons Arts Weekend, followed by a conversation with Parrish director Terrie Sultan and NYU Steinhardt Director of Studio Art MFA John Torreano. The film, directed by Heather Lenz, honors the works of top-selling Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama while capturing her struggle with racism, sexism and mental illness. An inspiration to Andy Warhol, Kusama’s signature dot and net motifs led to her iconic “Infinity Nets,” a hallucinatory painting representing the physical interpretation of time.
The Women’s History Month activities conclude on March 29 with book signing for German-born artist Bastienne Schmidt’s latest book, Grids and Threads. Bridgehampton-based multimedia artist Schmidt is an internationally-exhibited artist with works in the Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, International Center of Photography and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Schmidt will be in conversation with Parrish director Sultan about her artistic practice and minimalist meditation on the concept of white space.
“This is a terrific lineup of women artists who have a connection to the Parrish,” says Corinne Erni, senior curator of ArtsReach and special projects. “I much look forward to an illuminating discourse about what it means to work as a woman artist today.”