In these busy times for the art world, it sometimes seems as though every museum in the country is either looking for a new director or engaged in a major building project. The Parrish Art Museum in Southampton is doing both. Its director of 26 years, Trudy Kramer, will retire at the end of the year, just as the museum breaks ground on a new 45,000-square-foot facility designed by the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron.
That might seem like a lot for an institution to take on. But a visit to the current exhibition, “Studio as Muse,” suggests a future for the Parrish as bright and expansive as the famous East End sky. The exhibition consists of three parts: the architects’ models for the new museum, which occupy a long table in one gallery; a group of two dozen portraits and landscapes by Fairfield Porter, depicting views either from or toward his studio, which was in a hay loft behind his house at 49 S. Main St.; and an exhibit of whimsical pieces by the artist Joe Fig. Mr. Fig has created detailed models of other artists’ studios, including the East End studios of Jackson Pollock, Chuck Close, Ross Bleckner, and the couple Eric Fischl and April Gornik, and his pieces include taped interviews he conducted with each of the artists (excepting, naturally, Pollock).
