The Parrish Readies an Expansion

In these busy times for the art world, it sometimes seems as though every museum in the country is either looking for a new director or engaged in a major building project. The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton is doing both. Its director of 26 years, Trudy Kramer, will retire at the end of the year, just as the museum breaks ground on a new 45,000-square-foot facility designed by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron.That might seem like a lot for an institution to take on. But a visit to the current exhibition, “Studio as Muse,” suggests a future for the Parrish as bright and expansive as the famous East End sky. The exhibition consists of three parts: the architects’ models for the new museum, which occupy a long table in one gallery; a group of two dozen portraits and landscapes by Fairfield Porter, depicting views either from or toward his studio, which was in a hay loft behind his house at 49 S. Main St.; and an exhibit of whimsical pieces by the artist Joe Fig. Mr. Fig has created detailed models of other artists’ studios, including the East End studios of Jackson Pollock, Chuck Close, Ross Bleckner, and the couple Eric Fischl and April Gornik, and his pieces include taped interviews he conducted with each of the artists (excepting, naturally, Pollock).The architectural exhibit and Mr. Fig’s models give a sense of the local environment and history from which the architects drew inspiration, while the Porters suggest the richness of the permanent collection that the new facility will finally allow the museum to display.Although it was a blow, Ms. Kramer said, when the town of Southampton rejected the museum’s plans to expand at its current site, she now considers it a blessing in disguise, since the new location will allow it to serve a broader community.“As communities grow, they need institutions to service them,” she said, noting several institutions in the area that are being revitalized, including the Southampton campus of Long Island University, which has been purchased by the State University of NewYork, to be operated by SUNY Stony Brook. A new children’s museum, the Children’s Museum of the East End, opened in Bridgehampton in 2005, and Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center formally opened last summer. All the cultural institutions in the area — including the Parrish, Guild Hall in East Hampton, and Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor — will have to strengthen themselves, Ms. Kramer said, because the area’s new residents are a sophisticated audience.The Herzog & de Meuron design, while spacious, is intentionally un-monumental: a cluster of low-lying buildings on a 14-acre lot situated between state Route 27 and the Long Island Rail Road tracks, about two miles from the museum’s current location in downtown Southampton. The architects wanted to imitate the traditional farmhouses and barns of the East End while also preserving views of the landscape. For example, because there is a 9-foot rise from one end of the lot to the other, the parking lot will be cut into the ground, so that it disappears when one looks from the museum toward the railroad tracks. After experimenting with different materials for the surface, the architects decided on sand-cast concrete, which will incorporate a little of the beach in the museum.The program for the galleries will offer a narrative of the area’s art history. Four “anchor” galleries will be devoted, at least in the beginning, to the painters William Merritt Chase, Porter, Willem de Kooning, and Roy Lichtenstein. The architects visited these artists’ studios and found that they represented different configurations, whose proportions and natural light conditions they emulated for the anchor galleries.Additional galleries, connecting these, will fill in other art historical chapters: One will be devoted to landscape painters, another to the relationships between painters and poets in the mid-20th century, another to so-called “process” artists, and another to painters who in recent decades have returned to figuration. There will also be galleries for temporary exhibitions and a project space equipped for new-media installations, as well as education facilities, an auditorium, and a café. A long-term master plan for the site calls for an additional 35,000 square feet, including a second auditorium with a raked stage, more classrooms, and more administrative space.Under Ms. Kramer’s leadership, the museum dramatically refocused its collection, de-accessioning hundreds of objects — what Ms. Kramer described as unexceptional decorative-art pieces and fake European paintings — and acquiring around 1,300 new works. The museum already had a substantial collection of Chase and Porter, and Ms. Kramer built onto that by acquiring works of other artists who lived in the area, from the abstract expressionists on. Through an endowment fund, the museum pays graduate students to compile a database of artists who have lived and worked on the East End: It currently contains more than 600 names.Having built up this strength in local art history, it may be time under a new director, Ms. Kramer said, for the Parrish to branch out: to look at artists from other parts of the world, or put on major exhibitions that might otherwise show in the city. “It’s a great opportunity for someone to give birth to something, where the [institution’s] history isn’t an impediment, it’s a foundation,” she said.In support of this vision, the Parrish’s annual gala on Saturday evening raised almost $1 million. Altogether, the board chairman, Alvin Chereskin, said, the museum has raised $35 million so far toward its $60 million goal, which includes both the budget for construction and funds for an endowment.As for hiring a new director, Mr. Chereskin said he wants someone who understands what is happening in new media and new technology.“The whole world of museums and how we present ourselves to the public is changing,” he said. Today a director has to “function on so many different levels: You have to be a scholar, you have to have knowledge and passion for art; on the other hand, you have to be realistic, you have to think about how you get an audience, how you keep a museum growing.”The new director doesn’t need to be from the area, he added. “I would like somebody who understands us, but doesn’t necessarily have to be one of us,” he explained. “I’d like somebody to say: ‘You’ve done a great job, now why don’t you open up?'”

The Parrish Readies an Expansion

The Parrish Readies an Expansion

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