The Watermill Center has announced details for this year’s iteration of its summer benefit, titled “the BODY: The Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit.” The benefit is slated to take place on Saturday, July 29th, 2023. Presented by Van Cleef & Arpels, “the BODY” will honor American artist Simone Forti and the late philanthropist Baroness Nina von Maltzahn. The event will coincide with the opening of “The Body,” an exhibition of works by Guatemalan artist and poet Regina José Galindo.
The Watermill Center, located in Water Mill, New York, is an interdisciplinary laboratory for the arts and humanities. The Annual Summer Benefit celebrates art and experimentation in support of The Watermill Center’s year-round programming, inviting guests to immerse themselves in a curated series of installations and performances across the Center. Additional support for this year’s benefit will be provided by PFRANKMD by Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, Prada, and Aperol and Campari America.
Featuring dynamic works by “a roster of groundbreaking international artists,” the 2023 Annual Summer Benefit stems from The Watermill Center’s three-decade association with performance, centering on the body’s role in art making. “the BODY” will take a broad approach to its concept and will present time-based performance, painting, sculpture, and video works engendered by diverse cultures and mediums.
“Most of the works shown during the event will be developed on-site by the artists in the weeks leading up to the benefit. The artistic process is rarely discussed in favor of the final product, but as an artist residency program, it is integral to daily life at the Watermill Center. It is a pleasure to allow our audience to see the product of our artists’ time with us.” – Elise Herget, Managing Director at The Watermill Center
The evening will mark the opening of “The Body,” an exhibition of video works by Guatemalan artist and poet Regina José Galindo, and will additionally feature a new exhibition of works by Italian artist Alessandro Di Pietro entitled “Ghostwriting Paul Thek: Time Capsules and Reliquaries.” Curated by Noah Khoshbin, “The Body” traces Galindo’s 20-year career and includes pieces that have received the Venice Biennale Lion for Promising Young Artist. “Ghostwriting Paul Thek,” which opened on June 24th and is curated by Peter Benson Miller and Cornelia Mattiacci, posthumously continues the late Paul Thek’s artistic practice by exploring an imagined history in which he did not die prematurely. The benefit will close with a workshop restaging of Robert Wilson’s “Ubu,” inspired by Alfred Jarry’s 1896 classic, “Ubu Roi,” a critique of war and totalitarianism.
Curated by Noah Khoshbin, “the BODY” will include projects and presentations by The Watermill Center’s summer artists-in-residence, including Thomas Anderson, Yunseo Choi, Afra Al Dhaheri, Evelyn Dugan, Xuetong Cecilia Feng, Casilda Madrazo, Katimari Niskala, Sorin Prodea, Johan O.R. Sterner, Ismael Reyes Romero, Anthony Roques, Dovydas Strimaitis, Lyuba Todorova, and Agathe Vidal. Additional performances will be mounted by Ola Maciejewska who was a 2022 Performing Arts Fellow at The Watermill Center, and a large-scale performance by Regina José Galindo across The Center’s west terrace.
