The Parrish Art Museum in Watermill, New York, has hired Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh deputy director Chris Siefert as its new deputy director.
As the museum’s newest employee, Siefert fills a vacancy left by Scott Howe, who departed in February after three-and-a-half years on the job to serve as executive director of the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons.
“The Parrish is an institution I know from my childhood, frequently visiting the Museum at its previous location in Southampton with my family,” said Siefert of his appointment in a statement. “I remember it as an intimate and welcoming place that fed our imaginations and allowed us to freely explore.”
Siefert joins an institution that has been experiencing a period of growth, with ambitious plans for the future. “The goal is for the Parrish to really function as a center for cultural engagement for the whole East End,” director Terrie Sultan told the New York Times in 2012, after the museum moved from Southampton to Water Mill, NY.
Now, the museum is gearing up for its annual Midsummer Party on July 9, which is one of the art world’s hotly-anticipated art events. Honoring museum trustee Barbara J. Slifka, an art collector and philanthropist, the evening will include cocktails and dinner of the Parrish terrace before a late-night dance party.
Installation view of “Radical Seafaring” at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, May 8–July 24, 2016. Courtesy of photographer Gary Mamay.
The festivities are timed to the opening of “Platform: Jonah Bokaer” (July 9–October 16, 2016), this year’s edition of the annual Platform exhibition, in which an artist is invited to spend a year creating a site-specific work at the museum.
Jonah Bokaer, with his embrace of dance, film, sound, and visual art, is the first choreographer chosen for the program. The show will include 122 choreographic drawings on mylar, inspired by the 1977 opera Neither, by Morton Feldman and Samuel Beckett, hung from the wooden beams supporting the ceiling of the Parrish’s long central corridor.
Jonah Bokaer, Neither (2016). Video Still of performance and choreography for camera. Performers: Jonah Bokaer, Samir Bitar, James Koroni, Faris Al-Shathir; cinematography & director of documentation: Marisela La Grave. Courtesy of the Parrish Art Museum.
Bokaer has also shot a new two-channel video work, also titled Neither, which prominently features the museum and the bucolic fields that surround it. Next month, the museum will open “Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle,” which runs from July 31–October 16, 2016.
In the meantime, “Radical Seafaring” is on view through July 24. The exhibition, a survey of water-based site-specific projects, features work from 25 artists, including Chris Burden, Duke Riley, Robert Smithson, and Swoon.