| TED KRUCKEL 07.28.09 12:49 PM |
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Wacky Watermill Center Still Draws Dress-to-Impressers
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 | The Watermill Center has all sorts of education and community programs, many involving children.
Photo: Alice and Chris for BizBash |
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The gardens and grounds surrounding the Watermill Center were positively crawling with photographers, camera crews, and commentators during the cocktails preceding the annual summer benefit held on Saturday. But unlike most other Hamptons gangbangs, they weren't all packed together, clamoring for Kelly Ripa’s attention. In fact, while I asked Rufus Wainwright about his second annual concert here ("Last Song of Summer" with Norah Jones on August 29), I sensed photogs whizzing behind me, unawares.
That’s because there were tons of crazy and (mostly) interesting art performances and installations to shoot. This year’s theme, “Inferno,” was especially fruitful, yielding:
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Watermill Center, James Beard Foundation |
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| TREND SPOTTED 08.04.08 12:56 PM |
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Events Get Tagged With Graffiti
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 | A muralist at Angeleno magazine's summer release party.
Photo: BizBash |
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Whether it’s as entertainment, decor, an activity, or an art installation, graffiti has added an edgy vibe to several recent events.
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Angeleno Magazine, The Dark Knight, Warner Brothers, Kidrobot, Mini Cooper, Nickelodeon, Watermill Center, Sundance Institute, Art Gallery of Ontario |
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| TED KRUCKEL 07.30.08 3:06 PM |
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Watermill Benefit Has Become Rote, But the Installations Are Still Fun
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 | The installation at the Watermill Center's main entrance
Photo: aliceandchris.com for BizBash |
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The Watermill Center, created and supervised by Robert Wilson, has thrown the East End’s most wild and unusual benefits for years now. Each summer, they have an artist (or a few) in residence. Then the artist, with the help of students and other art groups, takes over the multi-acre site that includes a large arts center, a sunken pine garden, and an enormous outdoor Japanese-style rock garden, all with various trails and benches for an outdoor evening of installations and performance art.
Over the years, the presentations, which once seemed so new and invigorating, have taken on a slight air of staleness. This is not to say that this year’s (or any year’s) performances lacked creativity and originality—actually the opposite is the case. One year there were little wood nymphs running around and whispering to each other. Another year there were “scarecrows,” which were actually just people with really long sleeves who seemed to beckon you upon arrival.
Instead, what seemed so clever about using the gardens and hidden walkways (all meticulously landscaped and bug free, FYI) now seems a tad rote. But still, the installations are fun, if not meaningful (to all).
This Saturday at the building’s main entrance, two girls wearing stilts and really long dresses giggled suggestively while pulling long yellow nylon cords attached to two shirtless (and shapeless) Asian males who danced slowly—not necessarily suggestively, but not wholesomely either. Perhaps the idea was about rich and poor, or sexual slavery or something. (The girls on stilts were colorfully dressed, while the males were half-naked.) But the movement between the puppeteers and puppets weren’t coordinated in any way, so the whole thing struck me as a tad silly. Still, the idea was clever, and myself and others stood and watched for a minute, trying to make sense of it while blocking the narrow entrance.
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Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation, Watermill Center |
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| EVENT REPORT 08.01.07 6:14 PM |
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Watermill Benefit Introduces New Take on the Step-and-Repeat
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 | Watermill's living step-and-repeat.
Photo: Patrick McMullan |
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Leave it to Robert Wilson to introduce an innovative alternative to the step-and-repeats that clutter so many red carpets with logos. The Watermill Center, Wilson's artistic laboratory in the Hamptons, is known for incorporating unusual elements into its annual benefits, and this year the night began with a live-action take on the logo-filled photo backdrop, which had actors in frog costumes holding signs with sponsors' names.
"We've never had a step-and-repeat before, and we thought that if we had that, it had to be our own version," said Watermill Center public relations and special events manager Natascha Theis. Artist Andrey Bartenev designed the installation.
The night's theme was "VOOM Zoo," inspired by Wilson's latest work of giant video portraits, featuring famous faces such as Brad Pitt and Robert Downey Jr. as well as animals including a black panther, a horned frog, and a snow owl. The panther was displayed on a 103-inch Panasonic screen in the woods, along with a variety of installations from the center's artists in residence. The center also flew in drummers from the Youth Theater of Taipei, who performed during the cocktail hour for the 900 guests, who included a mix of names including Julia Stiles, Bill Paxton, and Lisa de Kooning.
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Watermill Center, Step-and-Repeats |
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