PHOTOS BY LINDSAY MORRIS
EXHIBITIONS
Exhibitions at The Watermill Center highlight the work of artists from across the globe, allowing each to present a body of work in a setting with no restrictions in creative freedom. Each exhibition offers the local, national and international community the opportunity to explore the latest in contemporary artistic practice. Recent exhibited artists have included Paul Thek, Christopher Knowles, Tomashi Jackson, Regina José Galindo, and Robert Nava. Exhibitions at The Watermill Center reflect the spirit of innovation and experimentation that is core to Watermill’s global mission and programming.
ON VIEW NOW THROUGH OCTOBER 12TH, 2024
GIDEON APPAH | WATERMILL VISUAL ARTS FELLOWSHIP IN PARTNERSHIP WITH PACE GALLERY AND MITCHELL – INNES & NASH
The Watermill Center is delighted to announce the exhibition of new works by painter Gideon Appah (b. 1987, Accra, Ghana), resulting from his participation in the inaugural Watermill Center Visual Arts Fellowship––a new residency supported by Pace Gallery and Mitchell-Innes & Nash. The exhibition opened at The Watermill’s Annual Summer Benefit, which took place on Saturday, July 27, 2024 on the organization’s 10 acre flagship Hamptons grounds. Appah was co-selected by all three institutions for this fellowship, which consists of a 6-week residency on-site at The Watermill Center that began in June. During his time at Watermill, Appah has created a series of new works that will be exhibited at the organization’s Annual Summer Benefit on Saturday, July 27 and remain on view through October 12, 2024. The longstanding collaboration between The Watermill Center and Pace Gallery has included Watermill’s awarding of an Inga Maren Otto Fellowship to artist Robert Nava in 2022 and Pace’s role as the global representative of the estate of Paul Thek, whose work is held in The Watermill Center Collection.
Participants in Watermill’s other residency programs have the freedom to focus on their creative process without the requirement of a completed body of work. The residencies focus on providing artists with the opportunity to grow and experiment during their time on Watermill’s lush grounds. Coinciding with the International Summer Program, which brings together a cohort of international artists who will present experimental works-in-progress during the benefit, this exhibition of Appah’s residency works offers a unique chance to see fruits of Appah’s time at Watermill and how the opportunity to immerse himself in a new environment informs his practice. Deeply rooted in technique, Appah draws on childhood memories, dreams, as well as West African landscapes, mythologies and popular culture to create his vibrant paintings. Appah’s singular implementation of mythological imagery and fauvist color makes his work utterly original, reflecting The Watermill Center’s commitment to innovation, imagination, and a global perspective.
GIDEON APPAH | ARTIST BIO
Gideon Appah (b. 1987, Accra, Ghana) draws on childhood memories and dreams, as well as West African landscapes and popular culture for his dazzling, bold, and jewel-toned paintings. As a child, Appah’s first medium was charcoal, which his grandmother used to cook meals at home. His early works are an ode to his hometown of Accra, the capital of Ghana, and incorporate images associated with daily life such as lottery numbers and other symbols present in the social and economic fabric of the city. Appah’s work investigates his childhood as well as local mythologies, ethereal landscapes, rivers, domestic interiors, and reoccurring figures both imagined and known, such as his grandmother and brother. The artist often paints in tones of royal blue, crimson, dark orange, and white over found and collaged posters, prints, photographs, and film stills, many of these centering on occupations his family members have held within their community such as barber and tailor shops. Mixing photographic images with paint, Appah employs a process of priming the canvas and sketching the composition before transferring prints from paper onto the canvas using a mixture of glue and water. After the canvas dries, he carves out the images, making them visible before applying paint. Most recently, the artist has utilized oil paint, working in a more flattened perspective and using a rich palette to condense impasto brushstrokes. Appah creates dream-like worlds through a fauvist lens, examining personal and homeland histories such as Ghanaian post-colonial cinema, leisure culture, and nightlife, using newspaper clippings from the 1950s through the 80s as source material. He is influenced by portraiture artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Barkley L. Hendricks, Charles White, as well as American painters Bob Thompson and Joseph Yoakum.
Gideon Appah received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana in 2012. After graduating with a BFA in Painting, Appah held his first exhibition in Ghana, including his first solo exhibition at the Goethe Institute in Accra in 2013. Other important exhibitions of his work include Gideon Appah: Forgotten, Nudes, Landscapes, Institute for Contemporary Art at University of Commonwealth Virginia, Richmond (2022); Blue Boys Blues, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (2020); Orderly Disorderly, Ghana Science Museum, Accra (2017); Clay Objects (Past and Present Aesthetics), Nubuke Foundation, Accra (2013); and End of Year Exhibition, K.N.U.S.T Museum, Kumasi, Ghana (2012). In 2015, he was chosen as one of the top ten finalists for the Kuenyehia Art Prize for Contemporary Ghanaian Arts. That same year he became the first international artist to win the 1st Merit Prize Award at the Barclays L’Atelier Art Competition, which was held in Johannesburg. This awarded him a three-month artist residency at the Bag Factory Studios (2016) and a solo show at the Absa Gallery (2017), both in Johannesburg, South Africa. His work is held in public collections worldwide including Absa Museum, Johannesburg; Musée d’Art Contemporain Africain Al Maaden, Marrakesh, Morocco; and Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, Canada.
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PHOTO BY MARIA BARANOVA
ON VIEW NOW THROUGH OCTOBER 12TH, 2024
LIZ MAGIC LASER
Exorcise 1 through 8, 2023, 8-channel video installation, 26:30 min, monitors, two-way mirrored glass, wood and paint. Commissioned by Pioneer Works with Curator Gabriel Florenz and Associate Curator Vivian Chui.
In Exorcise 1 through 8 the reflections of visitors become superimposed onto the pulsating bodies of somatic practitioners, including Wendy Osserman – Laser’s mother, choreographer and Authentic Movement practitioner, as well as multidimensional medicine woman and physical therapist Eia Buenconsejo, birth doula Bonu deCaires, somatic acting technique professor Erica Fae, personal trainer and wellness coach Erik Potempa, dancer and massage therapist Cori Kresge, GYROTONIC® Master Trainer Naoko Moriyama Robbins, and Kundalini yogi and competitive krumper Reuel Crunk Rogers. By placing the mirrors across from one another, Laser creates an infinity effect, encouraging the visitor to playfully engage with the instructors.
Cinematography by Michelle Yoon; additional camerawork by Isaac Goes, Liz Magic Laser, and Grace Poppe; sound design by Jared Arnold; musical recordings by GOBBY; video editing by Isaac Goes and Michelle Yoon; choreographic consulting by Cori Kresge; and costume design and casting consulting by Felicia Garcia-Rivera.
The work was commissioned by Pioneer Works as part of the exhibition Convulsive States, which was made possible with funding from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation.
LIZ MAGIC LASER | ARTIST BIO
Liz Magic Laser is a multimedia video and performance-based artist from New York City. Her recent work explores the efficacy of new age techniques and psychological methods active in both corporate culture and political movements. Laser’s work has been shown at venues such as The Smithsonian American Art Museum (2023); Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2023); ICA Boston (2023); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2022); Guggenheim Museum, New York (2021); MUDAM The Contemporary Art Museum of Luxembourg (2021) andCentre Pompidou, Paris (2018). Her work has been critically acclaimed.
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PHOTO BY LINDSAY MORRIS
ON VIEW NOW THROUGH OCTOBER 12TH, 2024
LUCINDA CHILDS: ON PAPER/ON STAGE
An intimate tribute exhibition highlighting the legendary dancer / choreographer’s diagrammatic drawings, as well as photographic documentation of the artist performing in some of her most historic productions. Many works in this exhibition are being shown publicly for the first time.Exorcise 1 through 8, 2023, 8-channel video installation, 26:30 min, monitors, two-way mirrored glass, wood and paint. Commissioned by Pioneer Works with Curator Gabriel Florenz and Associate Curator Vivian Chui.
LUCINDA CHILDS | ARTIST BIO
Lucinda Childs began her career as choreographer in the early 1960s as a member of the foundational Judson Dance Theater. She formed her own company in 1973. She has created scores of works for them and for ballet companies and other contemporary dance groups.
In 1976, Childs was featured in Philip Glass and Robert Wilson’s Einstein on the Beach, for which she won an Obie Award. The following year, she and Wilson co-directed and performed in I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating. In 1979, Childs choreographed one of her most enduring works, Dance, with music by Philip Glass and film decor by Sol LeWitt. Dance was added to the repertory of the Lyon Opera Ballet in 2015.
In 1992, she choreographed Salome for Luc Bondy. She directed Glück’s Orfeo ed Euridice for the Los Angeles Opera in 1995 and has directed many operas since then, including a production of John Adams’s Dr. Atomic at the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg. In 2022, she directed and choreographed Philip Glass’s Akhnaten for l’Opéra de Nice Côte d’Azur. She will direct and choreograph a new production of Glass’s Satyagraha next year.
In a 2016 exhibition in Paris titled Nothing Personal, Childs’s choreographic scores were shown at the Thaddeus Ropac Gallery in collaboration with the Centre Nationale de la Danse. I was sitting on my patio this guy appeared I thought I was hallucinating was revived for the Festival d’Automne in Paris in 2021. Childs and Wilson also created an evening length work for the festival titled Bach 6 Solo with the violinist Jennifer Koh.
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PUBLIC TOURS
The Watermill Center invites guests to walk through history, exploring our carefully curated art collection, expansive library, manicured gardens, and historic building. Tours of The Watermill Center offer a unique chance to see how our 10+ acre campus acts as a source of inspiration for our year-round Artists-in-Residence as they push the boundaries of creative practice.
The Center’s Sensory-Friendly Tours increase access to The Center through accommodations made for neurodiverse visitors. Natural lighting is used when possible, ambient sound is kept to a minimum, and materials will be made available prior to guest arrival to give attendees time to review and plan their visit. The Watermill Center’s sensory-friendly tours are open to all.
The Watermill Center grounds and gardens are open from dawn to dusk for the community to freely explore throughout the year, outside of scheduled events and public programming. Please note that The Watermill Center’s building is closed to the public, including use of our restrooms. When visiting, we ask that you abide by the following guidelines:
- Please do not touch or climb the sculptures.
- Please do not pick the flowers or other vegetation.
- No smoking in the buildings or on the grounds.
- Children must be accompanied by an adult and within reach at all times.
- Photography is permitted for personal use only. Drone photography is not permitted.
- All pets must be on a leash, and cleaned up after
- No overnight parking.