The Parrish Turns 10

On November 10, 2022, the Parrish Art Museum celebrates the 10th anniversary of the opening of the now-iconic building nestled into 14 acres in Water Mill. Designed by the renowned architects Herzog & de Meuron, it is the perfect purpose-built museum, reflecting the elements that made the East End of Long Island a mecca and magnet for generations of artists, writers and creative makers in myriad disciplines.

It was the curatorial accomplishment of a lifetime for me, and I still think of the building as the most important object in the museum’s renowned collection.

The Parrish embodies the best of what I think of as the guiding principles of classic modernist architecture: truth to materials and revelation of the creative process. The minimal materials and muted color palette that shape the building reflect a shared vision for what the Parrish could and should be. From design through construction my goal was to usher in a place where artists and the public would come together to experience, understand and value the creative legacy of the many artists who made — and make — the Hamptons their home and to recognize the prominence of this legacy to the region, the nation and the world.

I assumed the position of director of the Parrish in April 2008 — a time of springtime optimism and excitement, full of anticipation and aspiration. But as we all remember, by September 2008 the global atmosphere had turned, and I don’t mean from summer to fall. The collapse of the world economy caused many to pivot from the certainty of previously established plans. The Parrish did so too, and I was grateful to have the opportunity to guide that pivot, to evoke Winston Churchill’s famous saying, “never let a good crisis go to waste,” by recognizing that crisis can birth creative opportunities. Conventional wisdom says that these kinds of undertakings are fraught with conflict, stress and compromises. Certainly, there was a share of that over the course of the 28 months from groundbreaking to opening day. But what stands out was the sense of camaraderie and purpose that guided the entire process.

With opportunity comes challenges, but the entire team of staff and trustees not only embraced this but did so with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. On the trustee side, the guardian angel and driving force was Norman Peck, a consummate gentleman and shrewd negotiator, broadly dedicated to culture, and laser focused on making sure that the Parrish met its potential as beacon for the arts for the East End of Long Island, the region and the world. Both personally and through his association with the Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, Norman was the cornerstone from which we recalibrated our approach to a much-needed new facility in response to both a new economic climate and an altogether different vision for what the museum should be. Our goal was to reformulate our thinking yet continue to look toward an audacious and ambitious project.

In March 2019, Norman, Anke Jackson, the museum’s deputy director, and I met with Ascan Merganthaler, the Herzog & de Meuron partner-in-charge of the previous iteration, and over hamburgers in a Midtown Manhattan bistro we discussed the possibility of continuing to work together while taking a new approach. Within of a couple of hours, a new vision emerged, and it remains remarkable how smoothly and in a tightly focused and linear process everything proceeded from the quick sketch that Ascan outlined to the fully realized building. I’ve spoken of this little sketch many times; Ascan hardly remembered it until I sent it to him. It shows how an astute listener who was already steeped in the history and geography of the area immediately understood how to go forward.

Armed with inspiring architectural renderings that showed how the building would allude to the many barns converted to artist studios that pepper the area, we set out to secure the finances needed to go forward. Along with Norman and a cadre of early founding partners that included the Caroll Petrie Foundation, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Mildred Brinn and the Robert Lehman Foundation, we enticed a new wave of dedicated supporters, such as The Century Arts Foundation, The Harriet and Estaban Vicente Foundation, Ronald and Jo Carole Lauder, Robin and Frederic Seegal, and Louis K. and Susan Pear Meisel. They and the many others whose names are permanently displayed on the lobby wall are a testament to how dedicated members of the community helped the Parrish realize its dream. That it was a dream first deferred and then realized in a completely new way says much about how collaboration can shape the very nature of creativity.

Ascan always spoke about working in a holistic fashion and this approach was conveyed from beginning to end. Early on, the inimitable general contractor Ben Krupinski organized the team — architects, landscape architects, engineers, contractors and sub-contractors, with Anke and I representing the museum — and came together for a five-day, intensive charette hosted at East Hampton Point where everything from various modes of concrete construction to window frames to geothermal wells was discussed in a group. It was akin to a masterclass seminar on design ingenuity and problem solving. A solid sense of collaboration extended to every element of the design and construction of the building — the natural lighting scheme conceived by Andy Sedwick from ARUP, the furniture envisioned by Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design, the 200-year-old heart pine that defines the reception area, the shop and café secured from a demolished textile mill in Virginia, the Reed Hildebrand landscaping, the signature typeface used for the donor boards and wayfinding, stationery and printed materials developed by LaPlaca Cohen. Working together, the team thoroughly vetted every detail, ensuring that all the parts unified into integral aspects of the whole.

The phrase “the devil is in the details,” variously attributed to the German poet and philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900) and the German-American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, was the byword and watchword of the Parrish design and construction. This guiding principle extended from scrutinizing the way the window mullions met the concrete, to how the interior walls met the floor, to the proportions of the interior doorways, even to the size of the wall texts and object labels, which mirror the height and width of those doors. The project managers Justin Fulweiler of BKB Builders and Philip Schmerbeck of Herzog & de Meuron oversaw the day-to-day operations and were always available for consultation. And consult we did! I remember one afternoon walking up and down the 614-foot-long spine with Ascan, discussing what treatment to choose for the ceiling. We had sampled many alternatives: white paint, gray paint, light stain. After a while, he suggested doing nothing; to leave the raw plywood like it was, as it would be in a barn converted to an artist studio. And that’s what we did.

Form follows function and there was never any question that the design of the building would be embracing of the artwork to be housed within. The spaces were inspiring to the curatorial team, who worked in tandem with the construction timeline to develop and execute the inaugural exhibition and to envision how best to organize the 12,000 square feet of pristine galleries to reveal the depths of the collection. We discovered the nuances of the diffused light from the skylight that activated viewing experiences: As clouds passed over the sun, the very color of the galleries would change; each hour of the day illuminated the art in subtly different ways. In fact, “Art. Illuminated” became our motto for just this reason.

In the 10 years that followed, this notion of illuminating art has been foundational to the museum’s exhibition program and development of the collection. Working with a cadre of talented guest curators, the museum presented Alice Aycock’s first major solo museum exhibition (organized by Jonathan Fineberg); significant surveys of work by Jennier Bartlett (organized by Klaus Ottmann), Keith Sonnier (organized by Jeffrey Grove) Thomas Joshua Cooper, John Torreano, and peter campus, which I organized; “Unfinished Business: Paintings from the 1970s and 1980s by Ross Bleckner, Eric Fischl, and David Salle” (organized by David Pagel); and the sprawling installation of Mel Kendrick’s sculpture (organized by Allison Kemmerer of the Addison Gallery of American Art), as well as important historical projects such as “Angels, Demons and Savages: Pollock, Ossorio, Dubuffet” (organized by Klaus Ottmann) and “William Glackens” (organized by Avis Berman). After presenting “From Lens to Eye to Hand: Photorealism from 1960 to Today,” Louis and Susan Meisel gifted nine major photorealist paintings, greatly enhancing the museum’s ability to fully explore the depth and breadth of American realism from the late 19th century to the present.

The “new Parrish” launched on an unseasonably warm November weekend after being so rudely postponed two weeks by Hurricane Sandy. It was both thrilling and overwhelming: Following months in the building arranging offices, installing galleries, creating programs and planning events, the doors opened and a tsunami of thousands of visitors poured in — 9,000 in the first three days. They fanned out into the galleries, the café, the theater, the terrace and the lawn, as if the museum had always been there. That is and will be the key to the museum’s success; that it remains both familiar and fresh for generations to come.