Parrish Art Museum To Hold Free Open House Art, Community, And Collaboration Event

Come explore art, collaboration, and community at the Parrish Art Museum’s free Open House on Sunday, May 21. From 1 to 2 p.m. in Lichtenstein Theater, there will be a panel moderated by NYU Associate Arts and Public Policy Professor, Kathy Engel, as well as gallery tours, print making, music, and refreshments from 2 to 4 p.m.

Engel is also a Professor at Tisch School of the Arts and an advisor in NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study. Other panelists include artists Darlene Charneco and Jeremy Dennis, and Dr. Georgette Grier-Key who serves as director of the Eastville Community Historical Society. Dr. Grier-Key is also actively involved with East End cultural and arts organizations.

“With this event, the Museum’s Education Committee is seeking to explore the relevance of art in the current political climate,” said Museum Education Director, Cara Conklin-Wingfield. “They were particularly interested highlighting the value of immigrants and other under-recognized populations.”

The Parrish Art Museum hopes this panel will encourage conservation that addresses thought-provoking topics such as what shared experiences with art teach us about bias, history, ourselves, and one another, as well as how art and politics intersect, inform, overlap, and challenge each other. The panel will also focus on how artists deploy their work to stimulate constructive critical inquiry of social, economic, and political issues.

After the panel, visitors are invited to contribute to a Q&A with the panelists and join activities in the studio and galleries. There will also be interactive tours of specific art works and galleries in the Museum led by bilingual educator Grisel Baltazar. Studio and galleries activities will be bilingual.

The Parrish Art Museum invites the entire community to the panel. Be prepared to discuss questions like “What is your greatest challenge at this moment as an artist and a conscious, engaged person? What is the relationship between what you create, your community, and the world?”‘

Moderator, Kathy Engel, is a poet who has founded and directed social justice and human rights organizations, and worked in the nexus between art and social change internationally and domestically as a communications, strategic, creative consultant and producer for more than 35 years.

Artist Darlene Carneco was born in the Bronx and currently resides in Southampton. She spends her time creating layered mixed media models and tactile maps that explore ways of seeing human settlements, communication networks, and communities through a biological lens. Charneco has had solo exhibitions over the past two decades in galleries including Arlene Bujese in East Hampton, Avram Gallery in Southampton, SCOPE Miami, Christina Ray and Morgan Lehman Galleries in New York; as well as in group shows nationwide. 

Jeremy Dennis, a visual artist and member of The Shinnecock Indian Nation, works toward resolving issues of indigenous identity, assimilation, and tradition. Throughout his analysis of American history and post-colonialism thinking, Dennis questions and disrupts social norms, popular culture references, and historic narratives in relation to indigenous people.

Lastly, Georgette Grier-Key is an East End painter, arts administrator and cultural historian who is an adjunct professor of History and Political Science at Nassau Community College, Vice President of the Association of Suffolk County Historical Societies, Cultural Partner for Sylvester Manor of Shelter Island, New York, and guest curator at venues including the Sara Nightingale Gallery, Watermill, and the Suffolk County Historical Society of Riverhead. Dr. Grier-Key also serves as an advisor to the Long Island Indigenous People Museum and Research Institute and advocates for the preservation and celebration of Long Island history.

All events throughout the day are free to the public.

Parrish Art Museum is located at 279 Montauk Highway in Water Mill. For more information, call 631-283-2118 or visit www.parrishart.org.