Southampton Arts Center Announces the Launching ofThe Storefront Art Project with Artist Alice Hope

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. 10/28/20 --- Southampton Arts Center is thrilled to announce phase two of their Public Art Project, launched this past summer. In these colder months, SAC will work with Southampton Village landlords and property managers with vacant shops to animate their windows with dynamic art installations featuring East End artists. Inspired by the new legislation by the Village of Southampton requiring window displays in vacant stores, SAC’s first Storefront Art Project, with the support of the Long Island Community Foundation and the help of Morley Property Management, will feature artist Alice Hope and her new project “Priceless”. The window installation will be on view starting in November for up to 6 months or when the shop is once again occupied, as per the requirements outlined by the Village.

Located in the former Chico’s at 8 Jobs Lane, ALICE HOPE: Priceless will be a multimedia art installation made with accordioned chromed coat hangers, paper price tags, and strung can tabs. Of the project, Artist Alice Hope says “While assembling this installation, my query has been: What’s priceless? I hope for this unanswered question to be the subject of this installation, my first in a store front. In our commodified world and in this commodified discipline, where value equates success, I’m aspiring to transform tens of thousands of blank price tags, a vast population of ephemera, into evanescence.”

The “Big Reveal” of the installation will take place on Thursday, November 5 at 11 AM at 8 Jobs Lane with Artist Alice Hope, Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren and Trustees, representatives from the Long Island Community Foundation, and SAC Artistic Director Amy Kirwin and Executive Director Tom Dunn.

“Alice’s dynamic work is incredibly eye-catching and beautiful. She is the perfect artist to collaborate with on this first window of the Storefront Art Project. Though we certainly would prefer to see the shops filled with tenants, we are very happy to participate in the beautification of Southampton Village with this and hopefully additional installations.” says SAC Artistic Director Amy Kirwin. “We are confident people will be drawn to the Village to stroll through and enjoy the windows, and at the same time do some shopping, dine in the restaurants, and of course our visit our galleries.”

About Alice Hope
Alice Hope was named New York’s 2018 “Woman to Watch” by the National Museum of Women in the Arts. She holds an M.F.A. from Yale University, and shows at Ricco Maresca Gallery in Manhattan and Tripoli Gallery in East Hampton, NY. Alice has created numerous public and residential commissions, among them a large-scale magnetic installation, “Under the Radar”, in 2012, at Camp Hero State Park in Montauk, NY for the Parrish Art Museum. She often incorporates binary code and repetition in her compositions.

In her 2013 Armory Show Project, Alice was commissioned by the Fair to create two public works; one panel innumerably repeated the binary code for the word “love”, and the other repeated the code for “blind”. In 2013, she inaugurated WNYC Greene Space’s new lobby, where she installed a dense site-specific work with thousands of neodymium magnets and pieces of ball chain.

She was an artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design from 2014-15, and then built a six-month site-specific installation outside the Queens Museum with more than a million used can tabs. This work was part of a wider project that reckoned the used can tab’s fluctuating value and meaning, in continually changing contexts. In 2018, she had a one person show at Guild Hall in East Hampton, NY, and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington DC had three of her installations on view. In 2018-19, she facilitated an all school / all year social practice piece that culminated in an interactive and public gallery show. In 2019, she was commissioned by Art in Embassies to build a permanent site-specific installation, with hundreds of thousands of used can tabs and marine netting, for the new U.S. Embassy lobby in Maputo, Mozambique. In 2020 she initiated Tripoli Gallery’s residency program and had the first person show in the gallery’s new space. Alice has shown her work previously at Southampton Arts Center as part of Radical Voice: 23 Women and the Public Art Project.

Alice is working on two public exhibitions and one gallery show for 2021, which continues her focus on the can tab, as her work’s subject, object, and material. About which she states: “The used can tab can be looked at from a multiplicity of perspectives - that its proportion is in the Golden Mean like the Parthenon; that it’s a tool - a lever; that it’s trash; that it’s an icon; that it’s an anti-phallus with its equal negative and positive space; that as a floor plan it emulates Renaissance cathedrals with its apse and nave; its ergonomics; its timed obsolescence; its demographically democratic use - but in my work I focus on the used tab as a relic of consumption and as a token for redemption.”

www.alicehope.com / alice@alicehope.com / @alice___hope 

About Southampton Arts Center

MISSION
Southampton Arts Center is committed to community building through the arts. We present and produce inspiring, inclusive, socially, and regionally relevant programs across all disciplines – welcoming, connecting, and collaborating with the diverse members of New York’s East End community and beyond. 

VISION
Influenced by the rich cultural tradition and artistic history of the region, Southampton Arts Center will drive cultural engagement and economic vitality. We will be distinguished as a destination for multigenerational audiences to have artistic, educational, and transformational experiences. Using the arts as a unifier we will provide a platform for the many voices who comprise our region creating mutual understanding and effecting positive change. 

VALUES
We are...
Inclusive: This is a place for everyone. All are welcome.
Mindful: We are invested in an equitable and sustainable future.
Advocates: We are a haven for artists – providing opportunities for dialogue, collaboration, and professional development.
Fun: Good energy emanates from 25 Jobs Lane.
Responsive: We don’t know everything, so we listen and allow ourselves the space to take action.
Ambitious: We are trailblazers. We push ourselves to experiment, elevate and overdeliver.
Passionate: We love what we do, and we’re honored to do it.

Southampton Arts Center is a not for profit 501(c)(3) organization.
631.283.0967, info@southamptoncenter.org, southamptonartscenter.org @southamptonartscenter #SouthamptonArtsCenter