(Re)collecting an Artist’s Dream
Saturday, March 20, 2021
Images from Top to bottom:
Madeline Goodfriend Schonberger, “Bird” 1951 Plaster, 11” x 7” x 7”
2. Deborah Willis, “I Made a Space for a Good Man” 1976 - 2011 Lithograph Artists Proof on Cotton Rag, 15” x 29 1/2”
3. Madeline Goodfriend (Schonberger), “Untitled” circa 1928, Single Red Flower with Books, Watercolor on paper, 14” x 18 1/2”
4. Hope Sandrow, “Observational Findings placeholder: untitled (Reflective)” 2020 Colonial Curio Cabinet owned by Samuel L. Parrish, H Oak, Glass, Mirrored Shelves 23.75 " W x 69" L x 35"
(Re)collecting an Artist’s Dream is the inaugural exhibition (Spring Equinox, Note 1) inside and out “The Cottage” and on the road of open air studio Shinnecock Hills. Organized by Sandrow, to be composed of works by Artist Colleagues who participated in her projects…or she in theirs.
The exhibition’s context evolves from Goodfriend’s “Bird” (pictured top, left) by American artist, Madeline Goodfriend Schonberger whose summer studio/home “The Cottage” it had been from 1948 until her death, in 1993. “Bird” was created in plaster, realized in bronze, and exhibited in a Metropolitan Museum of Art group show the same year (1951) as Sandrow’s (and Skogsbergh’s) birth.
One might think of Sandrow’s chance encounter with a white cockerel (2006) at The Cottage, as a response to Goodfriend’s sculpture, Bird, illustrating Duchamp’s theory of the role of chance. Or, are they destined happenings?
At the time that Sandrow named her project, open air studio spacetime in homage to Chase’s art practice: (2020) she was informed that “the structure moved to the current location,1891, may have been the carriage house to William Merritt Chase.” The pink floral wallpaper, on a second-floor room which Sandrow titled Women’s Study(room) produced (United Wallpaper Inc.,1948) same year (as Madeline purchased the Cottage) as the birth of Deborah Willis (Note 2) whose self-portrait, I Made a Space for a Good Man, while pregnant with her son, artist Hank Willis Thomas, is exhibited. Goodfriend Schonberger’s Untitled (Single Red Flower with Books) was painted while a student at Pratt Institute (circa 1928) was showing in another room where a similar flower is the wallpaper’s (United Wallpaper Inc.,1948) motif. Nearby Sandrow’s Placeholder: Untitled (Reflective).
The exhibit will unfold to include works by Artist Colleagues.
Collaborative projects are central to Sandrow’s art-making: one informing the other. Her social practice includes: Artist and Homeless Collaborative (aka A&HC, 1990 -1996 NYC) that she founded and directed with a NEA Special Projects Artist Grant sponsored by NYFA. On view (December 3, 2021 - April 3, 2022) at the New-York Historical Society is the exhibit “Art for Change: The Artist & Homeless Collaborative” (postponed since June 2020 due to Covid19) includes A&HC works led by the Guerrilla Girls, Vince Gargiullo, Sandrow, Kiki Smith, Judith Shea, Robin Tewes, Visual Aids. Other projects that the exhibiting artists participated in, include from last century: Flag for the Nineties commissioned by Vera List (1992); The Other Side of the Rainbow: Sexual Abuse with colleague Robin Tewes (1992); SECCA Artist in the Community Fragments Self History (1995); Creative Time’s Art at the Anchorage, Material Matters (1995). This century: (Re)collecting an American’s Dream (2006); Platform: Genius Loci Parrish Art Museum. On site open air studio: En Plein Air (2008); Headstand with Geoff Hendricks (2008); Free Advice with Sur Rodney Sur (2008); Enigma of a Litmus Test - coop d’etat with Caterina Verde (2008) Sketches of Local History Shinnecock Canal Canoe Place(2015). Town of Southampton Arts and Culture Committee (2017).
Note 1: By Appointment only. Opening delayed (from June 2020) in compliance with Covid-19 precautions requiring masks and gloves at all times. Practicing social distancing, no more than two unrelated people inside at a time. The Fujitsu central heat/air condition system is fitted with a UV HEPA filter.
Note 2: Classmates and friends, both born in Philly, with mothers named Ruth. They met as they studied photography and film at Philadelphia College of Art. Photographer, Ray Metzker was their mentor and teacher, who made his best effort to protect them from the sexual harassment, discriminatory and abusive conduct of his male colleagues; photography, and film teachers. View three untitled photographs from Sandrow’s first photographic study, for Ray’s class, “Minton Home 1973.” Willis’s exhibit “Out [o] Fashion Photography: Embracing Beauty” (Henry Art Gallery, 2013) that she curated and included Sandrow’s “Untitled at the Met” (1984). The exhibit “Summer of Love” (Artsites, 2013) Sandrow organized included Willis photographs 1, 2, and 3 from her series “Mother Wit; Waiting 1 and Washboard Stomach from her series, Body Builder.