Guild Hall Opens 2025 Season With Artist-Made Furniture And Site-Specific Installations

Guild Hall in East Hampton, N.Y., will launch its 2025 exhibition season on Sunday, May 4, with two new exhibitions exploring the intersection of art, design, and community engagement: Functional Relationships: Artist-Made Furniture and Almond Zigmund: Wading Room.

Functional Relationships highlights East End artists who have expanded their creative practices into furniture-making, offering a multidisciplinary view of artistic production. The exhibition features works by notable artists including John Chamberlain, Liz Collins, Donald Judd, Julian Schnabel, Robert Wilson, and Almond Zigmund, among others. Each piece in the show reflects how artists integrate functionality into their artmaking, designing furniture as a form of problem-solving, personal expression, or social engagement.

In conjunction with the main exhibition, photographer Lindsay Morris documents how artists shape their personal living spaces with furniture, while Zigmund’s Wading Room transforms the Marks Family South Gallery into an interactive environment. Visitors are invited to sit, gather, and engage with the space, which features artist-made objects including lighting, chairs, rugs, and sculptures by a range of contributors such as Sabra Moon Elliot, Kurt Gumaer, and Saskia Friedrich.

Almond Zigmund, known for her geometric and colorful installations, collaborated with Justin Allen (Shepard Co Design) to design functional seating for Wading Room. A series of public programs — including talks, workshops, and participatory events — will accompany the exhibitions, aiming to foster conversation and community involvement.

“We are thrilled to begin our 2025 season with this multi-generational group exhibition to highlight a fascinating practice which exemplifies the truly interdisciplinary nature of artists,” said Melanie Crader, Guild Halls museum director and curator of visual arts.

Guild Hall, one of the nation’s earliest institutions to combine a museum, theater, and education space, continues its tradition of offering free admission and welcoming visitors of all backgrounds to experience and participate in the arts.

The exhibitions will run through July 13, alongside related public programs including Zigmunds Show and Tell Session on May 24 from 12–2 p.m.; CHAIRS: A Conversation with Bob Wilson and Adrian Madlener on May 29 at 7 p.m.; In Conversation: Lisa Perry and Almond Zigmund June 1 at 2 p.m.; and Living with Chamberlain: A Conversation with Alexandra Fairweather on June 22 at 2 p.m.