THE 26TH ANNUAL WATERMILL CENTER SUMMER BENEFIT & AUCTION

TABULA RASA
THE 26TH ANNUAL WATERMILL CENTER SUMMER BENEFIT & AUCTION
Saturday, July 27, 2019
6:00 PM – MIDNIGHT

The Watermill Center
39 Watermill Towd Road
Water Mill, NY 11976

View slideshow of art to be auctioned at the event, pre-bidding live now on Artsy. 

The Watermill Center’s 26th Annual Summer Benefit & Auction titled “TABULA RASA” will kick off on July 27th in Watermill, NY. The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities founded by avant-garde visionary and theater director Robert Wilson. Described as an “enchanted forest and performance art extravaganza”, the Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit unites the worlds of art, performance, music, theatre, design, architecture and fashion. All funds raised support The Center’s year-round Artist Residency and Education Programs that provide a unique environment for young and emerging artists to explore and develop new work. The Benefit will honor Katharine Rayner, philanthropist and long-time supporter of The Watermill Center, and Carrie Mae Weems, one of today’s most influential contemporary artists. The benefit is made possible by VAN CLEEF & ARPELS.

The night will start off with cocktails, art installations and performances – the silent auction will also take place during this time. A seated dinner will follow, with the live auction presented by Simon De Pury. An after-party with a DJ set and desserts will take place from 10pm-midnight.

Featuring over 25 art installations and performances, TABULA RASA, (this year’s benefit theme) will unite the worlds of performance, art and design for a uniquely Wilsonian experience.  The theme TABULA RASA derives from John Locke’s theory of the mind as a blank slate. It is rooted in the idea that knowledge is not innate but developed through individual experience and sensory perception of the outside world. The Annual Summer Benefit introduces challenging work to new audiences, and encourages them to explore unconventional ways of thinking inspired by the bold vision of artists.

“When thinking about TABULA RASA, we began with the material notion of the blank slate—like a wall for writing,” observe Benefit Curators Noah Khoshbin and Ivan Cheng. “The past implies a silencing of voices and ideas, and we wanted to think of TABULA RASA as an impossible structural counterpoint to that notion. We are looking at who has ‘written’ (in) the past, who is yet to write, and for whom is this writing relevant. For us, it is not about beginnings or ends but a criticality of the surface.”

This year, The Untitled Space gallery will be joining the 26th Annual Watermill Center Benefit and Auction as a gallery partner. Untitled Space artists participating in this year’s benefit include Indira Cesarine, Miss Meatface and Jeanette Hayes, as well as former Watermill Artists-in-Residence Gillian Walsh, LEIMAY, and the Daxophone Consort with Daniel Fishkin, Cleek Schrey and Ron Shalom. Other presenting artists include Tara Lewis, Leah Schrager, Reisha Perlmutter and more. Additional installations and performances will be developed by artists participating in the International Summer Program, working in collaboration with Robert Wilson.

“TABULA RASA marks a new direction for the Benefit auction. Previously, donating artists received complimentary tickets to the event. This year, however, The Foundation will offer the option to receive a twenty percent commission fee from the winning bid. “We wanted the auction to reflect our mission of supporting artists,” says Director of Visual Arts Programming, Micah Bozeman. “Now, the purchase of an artwork not only supports Watermill and its year-round programming but also the artists who make the auction possible.”

BENEFIT CHAIRS
. Calvin Klein . Alexandra Munroe & Robert Rosenkranz . Inga Maren Otto . Katharina Otto-Bernstein & Nathan Bernstein . May & Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc . Louisa Stude Sarofim . Elizabeth Segerstrom . Christine Wächter-Campbell & William I. Campbell

HONORARY CHAIRS
Marina Abramovic . Pedro Almodóvar .  Giorgio Armani . Mikhail Baryshnikov . Tony Bennett . Steve Buscemi .Willem Dafoe . Lady Gaga . Frank Gehry  . Jenny Holzer . Nina Hoss . Anjelica Huston . Jeff Koons . Annie Leibovitz . Edward Mapplethorpe . Richard Serra . Cindy Sherman . Sharon Stone . Tom Waits . Christoph Waltz

AUCTION COMMITTEE
Ariel Adkins . Erica Boginsky . Alexandra Fanning . Annie Fehrenbacher . Emily Hoerdemann . Erin Kim . Dmitry Komis . Owen Laub . Kara Meyer . Edoardo Monti . Tripoli Patterson . Jon Rider . Alaina Simone . Anastasiya Siro . Benjamin Tischer . Melinda Wang . Darryl Westly

GALLERY PARTNERS
The Untitled Space . Friedman Benda . Robert Grunenberg . David Lewis . Roman Fine Art . LatchKey Gallery. Tripoli Gallery

ABOUT THE WATERMILL CENTER
Founded by avant-garde visionary Robert Wilson in 1992, The Watermill Center is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts supporting young and emerging artists through its year-round Artist Residency Program and International Summer Program, as well as Education Programs, exhibitions and events open to the public. Throughout the year, The Watermill Center offers tours of the Center’s eight-and-a-half acres of grounds and sculpture gardens, and 20,000+ square-foot building, which houses a library and a significant collection of contemporary and ancient global art and artifacts.

To purchase tickets / learn more click here.

For sponsorship and table inquiries, please contact Erin Wainwright at erin.wainwright@watermillcenter.org.

More Info + Tickets here.

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