Amy Sillman: Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32)

Dia Art Foundation is pleased to present Amy Sillman: Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32), a yearlong exhibition at Dia Bridgehampton. This multifaceted installation features a newly commissioned, site-specific work painted and screenprinted directly onto the gallery walls, superimposed with a unique series of framed screenprints created during Sillman’s 2024–25 residency at Two Palms, a New York print studio. Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32) demonstrates Sillman’s ability to toggle back and forth between media as well as between improvisational and systematic approaches, abstraction and legibility. Through this hybrid process, she layers, distributes, and excavates to produce uncanny perspectival shifts among flatness, volume, color, and shape.

At Dia Bridgehampton, Sillman treats the architecture of the ground-floor gallery as a print in and of itself, reflecting her long-standing interest in the medium as both a method and a methodology. The complementary suite of monotypes, printed on surplus handmade paper from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, employ a restricted lexicon of forms similar to those used in the wall painting; each print balances repetition and variation, structure and chance, producing what Sillman has called “a language of form.” Together, these works question traditional notions of seriality and reproducibility, emphasizing the singular and embodied aspects of printmaking.

The presentation also draws inspiration from the chromatic light of Dan Flavin’s permanent installation in the upstairs gallery, as well as the stained-glass window found at its back, with Sillman’s careful attention to the natural light animating the space and her engagement with the ground-floor gallery’s windows. Viewers’ perception of the installation alters over the course of the day and throughout the seasons, rendering the exhibition as a whole “unfixed,” an infinite series of permutations.

“Sillman has described drawing as offering the kind of clarity found in the filament of a light bulb, the marks immediate, exposed, and luminous. It is a fitting metaphor for Dia Bridgehampton, which hosts a permanent installation of Dan Flavin’s fluorescent-light sculptures and has long fostered unexpected connections across media. Flavin originally envisioned the space including a print studio—a press still sits in its back rooms—and Dia has presented here exhibitions by artists not traditionally associated with the institution, including Keith Haring and Alice Neel. Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32) builds on this legacy, extending Dia’s ongoing engagement with groundbreaking painters that refuse the constraints of the medium, in keeping with the experimental spirit of Minimal and Conceptual art,” said Jordan Carter, curator and co–department head.

Dia’s permanent installation of Flavin’s nine sculptures in fluorescent light (1963–81) is also on view on the second floor. Amy Sillman: Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32) is curated by Jordan Carter, curator and co–department head, with Emily Markert, curatorial associate. The artist wishes to thank Evelyn and David Lasry, Erik Hougen, Gabriella Grill, and Jeremy Ruiz from Two Palms for their collaboration.

Learn more at Dia.