Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1094656
74 O ne Friday evening in late October, I arrive in East Hampton and step out of a car in a leafy driveway at the terminus of a winding country road. I strode into a home that felt familiar, no doubt due to its appearance on numerous art blogs: the Elaine de Kooning House. The weekend that unfolded was memorable, inspiring, and unexpectedly chill. The host was Chris Byrne, whom I've known for more than a decade through his work with the Dallas Art Fair, as well as his curatorial endeavors for talents such as Peter Saul and outsider artists Susan Te Kahurangi King and Jerry "The Marble Faun" Torre. An impromptu supper followed in the sprawling kitchen that opened to the living room and an enclosed sun porch, where Mike Goodlett's disarming concrete and Hydro-Stone biomorphic sculptures were installed. Everywhere through the expansive but unadorned house were vistas of either art or, as became apparent the next morning, nature. The official artist RISES CATHERINE D. ANSPON TRAVELS TO EAST HAMPTON TO CHECK IN. PHOTOGRAPHY KATHERINE McMAHON. An unprepossessing saltbox in the Hamptons was painter Elaine de Kooning's final house and studio, followed by a succession of other artist-owners including sculptor John Chamberlain, whose cane and car-part materials still remain. Now the home has been reborn as an artist residency. But there's no formal application process. The connected Dallas Art Fair co-founder Chris Byrne — now a full-time independent curator — issues all invitations. Since he acquired the property in 2011, two dozen creatives have pilgrimaged to make art here, thus adding to the lineage of the artists who have called the saltbox home. Byrne has also mounted a group of organically organized exhibitions. Here is our insider look at the loosest, most intriguing, residency in America. DALLAS ART FAIR CO-FOUNDER CHRIS BYRNE REIMAGINES THE ELAINE DE KOONING HOUSE. A RESIDENCY Elaine de Kooning House, East Hampton, New York