“Art As Ecosystem” To Explore Building Community Through Artist-Led Transformative Space

Guild Hall’s Art as Ecosystem returns on Sunday, January 24. The Zoom Conversation will feature Eric Fischl of The Church, Stephen Petronio of The Petronio Residency Center and Emily Simoness of SPACE on Ryder Farm. Mary Jane Marcasiano will moderate.

“This is the second season, but third year of Art as Ecosystem,” Elise Trucks, Assistant to the Executive Director, shared. “We’re so happy to find a virtual outlet for these much needed discussions as Guild Hall embarks on its 90th year and we head out of a pandemic and into a new era.”

Guild Hall’s Academy of the Arts spearheads Art as Ecosystem. “Founded in 1985, the Academy hadn’t produced programming before. Our Academy members see Guild Hall as their arts laboratory and use our facilities and staff in the most wonderful ways,” she relayed. “But this series in 2019 provided the first occasion in the 35-year history of the Academy of the Arts for the Academy to produce programming. The Academy is an honor society of no more than 250 artists and art professionals whose mission is the foster and inspire the artistic spirit of the East End and recognize the diversity and ingenuity of human expression.”

2021 will bring a duo of conversations, starting with Building Community through Artist-led Transformative Spaces.

“Eric Fischl, Academy President, dreamed up Art as Ecosystem to do this—to speak to a full world of art,” Trucks explained. “The challenges were this: where can we find the balance? How can we shift the focus off the sensationalism of the high finance of the blue chip art market and nourish the root of art?”

The series has already welcomed some impressive guest speakers, including FLAG Art Foundation’s Glenn Fuhrman, Roy Lichtenstein Foundation President Dorothy Lichtenstein, Christine and Andy Hall of the Hall Art Foundation, President of New York Academy of Art, David Kratz, business strategist and PaceX CEO, Christy MacLear, and more. “We were so proud to have MacArthur Genius Rick Lowe among our first panelists in the series because we feel his work embodies what we want to focus on with the series. And Mary Jane Marcasiano, acting as producer this year, brings excellent focus and scholarship in this topic to moderate our Sunday night panel,” she noted. “This year, Eric Fischl—once the moderator—will become panelist, and the brilliant choreographer Stephen Petronio and Ryder Farm’s clairvoyant Emily Simoness will round out what promises to be a great discussion on how artists can build community.”

Building Community through Artist-led Transformative Spaces will delve into topics like what drew the artists to explore social issues and community, the biggest obstacles they faced while conceptualizing and constructing their physical outpost, what does defining community in regards to a project mean to them, and more.

Art as Ecosystem will take place from 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. There is no fee to “attend,” but a donation to support Guild Hall is welcome.

“This is timely conversation that you won’t want to miss,” Trucks concluded. “And please join Sara Cochran and Eric Fischl for the after party via a special Zoom link to be provided at the end of the panel.”

Art as Ecosystem is presented by the Guild Hall Academy of the Arts in association with the Church, produced by Mary Jane Marcasiano and co-produced by Elise Trucks.

For more information, visit www.guildhall.org.