Editors’ Picks: Upstate Art Weekend

Founded in 2020 by Helen Toomer, Upstate Art Weekend (UPAW) was created to celebrate the vital art scene in Upstate New York. This year, UPAW will feature over 145 participants and 100 exhibitions—an exponential increase from the previous two years. Here are the events you don’t want to miss:

Inaugural Celebration on Friday, July 22

Las Hermanas Iglesias, Commiserates. Upstate Art Weekend. UPAW. Stoneleaf Retreat. — Las Hermanas Iglesias, *Commiserates II, (Beachball),* Digital Print, 2019.

STONELEAF RETREAT x Upstate Art Weekend
Celebratory event on July 22, 3 – 6 PM; open hours July 23 & July 24 11 AM – 4PM
838 Ashokan Rd, Eddyville, NY 12401

Founded by Helen Toomer and Eric Romano in 2017, STONELEAF RETREAT is an artist residency in the Catskills Mountains for women and families. Helen Toomer is also the founder of Upstate Art Weekend. On Friday, STONELEAF RETREAT will host an inaugural ticketed event and celebration, featuring work by Brooklyn-based multimedia artist Liz Collins and refreshments from Hudson North Cider, Ritual, and others. During Upstate Art Weekend, Las Hermanas Iglesias, previous attendees of STONELEAF RETREAT, will display work from Commiserates—a project exploring grief, motherhood, and family—alongside other STONELEAF alumnae. Events on Saturday and Sunday are free with RSVP.

Extended hours at Dia Beacon

Larry Bell. Bill Jacobson studio. Upstate Art Weekend. UPAW. — *Larry Bell,* installation view. Photo courtesy of Bill Jacobson studio.

Dia Beacon
July 22, 10AM – 5PM; July 23, 10AM – 8:00PM; July 24, 10AM – 5 PM
3 Beekman St, Beacon, NY 12508

Dia Beacon, one of eight permanent Dia Art Foundation sites throughout the US and Germany, has helped turn the Hudson Valley into a vital arts destination. Dia Beacon hosts numerous long-standing exhibitions—which include works by Larry Bell (pictured above), Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, John Chamberlain, and Dan Flavin. On Saturday, the museum will be open until 8PM and offer special wine and food selections in their cafe. In its collaboration with Upstate Art Weekend, Dia Beacon will also offer discounts on memberships renewed or purchased this weekend.

Artist Party Saturday, June 23

Foreland Catskills. Upstate Art Weekend. UPAW. — Photograph courtesy of Foreland Catskills.

Four Exhibitions and a Party with Foreland, Catskills
Exhibitions June 22 – June 24 from 11 AM – 6 PM; artist Party on June 23 from 9:30 PM – late
111 Water St, Catskill, NY 12414

Recently founded by Stef Halmos, Foreland is an 85,000 square-foot campus along Catskill Creek. Initially a vacated mill built in the 1800s, the buildings were vacant for 86 years before Halmos transformed the space into a destination for artists, gallerists and dealers. During the day, visitors can view exhibitions from four contemporary galleries: Document, SITUATIONS, New Discretions, and JAG Projects. For the ticketed artist party, Foreland invites attendees to join them for a “booze-fueled late-night dance party,” including experiential installations, performances, artistic cocktails and “nipple pinching”—foreshadowed in a photograph of Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses sœurs (pictured above) in their invite.

New Installations at Storm King Art Center

Wangechi Mutu. Two Canoe. Upstate Art Weekend. UPAW. — Wangechi Mutu. *In Two Canoe,* 2022. 15 ft. 4 in. x 66 in. x 70 in. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery. Photo by David Regen.

Storm King Art Center
June 22 and June 23 from 10 AM – 7:30 PM; June 24 from 10 AM – 5:30 PM
1 Museum Rd, New Windsor, NY 12553

Located in Hudson Valley, Storm King Art Center features large-scale, site-specific, outdoor installations. Founded in 1960, the gallery soon became a home for work from renowned artists like Alexander Cadler, Alice Aycock, and Mark di Suvero. In a new exhibition, Kenyan-American artist Wangechi Mutu creates visceral scenes with large bronze sculptures. In Two Canoe, a sculpture featuring two mangrove-inspired women rowing a boat through the grass, creates a scene of both longing and fixity. “Mangroves are migratory,” Mutu says in an interview. “This plant has moved everywhere, has made journeys like those who were kidnapped from Africa and taken to the Americas. The water seals this unified story we’ve created for ourselves. We are all connected on this sphere of earth and the water is how we go and find each other.”

Sentient Rocks at Headstone Gallery

Eliza Williams. Blushing Cactus. Upstate Art Weekend. UPAW. — Eliza Williams. *Blushing Cactus,* 2022. Oil on paper. Photograph courtesy of the gallery.

Urgent Beings, Group Pop Up Show, and Open Studio at Headstone Gallery
June 22 – June 24 from 12 PM – 6 PM
24 Hurley Avenue Kingston, NY 12401

In Ashley Eliza William’s eleventh solo exhibition, she transforms natural objects into fantastical living beings caught in motion; a cactus with tentacular spines, a fluffy pollinator plant with a wound-like pistil, a feathered moth with wings enveloped in leaves. “In our current global environmental crisis, Urgent Beings calls attention to messages and warning signs from quiet organisms being interrupted by human noise and industrial sound pollution,” Headstone writes about the exhibition. “Williams is concerned we may miss ‘opportunities for repair and begin to lose quieter transmissions: desire expressed by mating fruit bats, the grief of a bereaved elephant, or expressions of interspecies’ mutualism and care.’”