The Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation and Robert Wilson are thrilled to announce TABULA RASA: The 26th Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit & Auction, presented by high jewelry Maison Van Cleef & Arpels. Held on Saturday, July 27, 2019, the Benefit will honor Katharine Rayner, philanthropist and long-time supporter of The Watermill Center, and Carrie Mae Weems, one of today’s most influential contemporary artists.

Featuring over 25 art installations and performances, TABULA RASA will unite the worlds of performance, art and design for a uniquely Wilsonian experience. All funds raised support The Watermill Center’s Education and Artist Residency Programs, which provide the time and space for a global community of artists, thinkers and students to live and work throughout the year.

The theme TABULA RASA derives from John Locke’s theory of the mind as a blank slate. It is rooted in the idea that knowledge is not innate but developed through individual experience and sensory perception of the outside world. The Water Mill Center’s Annual Summer Benefit is a moment in which they introduce new audiences to challenging work and encourage them to explore unconventional ways of thinking inspired by the bold vision of artists.

When thinking about TABULA RASA, Benefit Curators Noah Khoshbin and Ivan Cheng began with the material notion of the blank slate—like a wall for writing. The past implies a silencing of voices and ideas, and they wanted to think of TABULA RASA as an impossible structural counterpoint to that notion. Noah and Ivan are looking at who has ‘written’ (in) the past, who is yet to write, and for whom is this writing relevant. For Noah and Ivan, it is not about beginnings or ends but a criticality of the surface.

Several artists participating in this year’s Benefit include former Watermill Artists-in-Residence Gillian Walsh, LEIMAY, and the Daxophone Consort with Daniel Fishkin, Cleek Schrey and Ron Shalom. Other presenting artists include Graciela Sacco, Lance de los Reyes, Billy Bultheel and Alexander Iezzi, Stina Fors, Özgür Kar, Jacky Connolly, Jay Tan, Naufus Ramirez Figueroa, and Megan May Daalder. Additional installations and performances will be developed by artists participating in the International Summer Program, working in collaboration with Robert Wilson.

TABULA RASA marks a new direction for the Benefit auction. Previously, donating artists received complimentary tickets to the event. This year, however, The Foundation will offer the option to receive a twenty percent commission fee from the winning bid. Director of Visual Arts Programming Micah Bozeman wanted the auction to reflect our mission of supporting artists. Micah believes the purchase of an artwork not only supports Watermill and its year-round programming but also the artists who make the auction possible.

For more information please visit: www.watermillcenter.org/tabularasa. Tickets now on sale.

ABOUT VAN CLEEF & ARPELS: Founded at Paris’ 22 Place Vendôme in 1906, Van Cleef & Arpels came into being following Estelle Arpels’ marriage to Alfred Van Cleef in 1895. Over the decades, the excellence of the High Jewelry Maison was established throughout the world. The Maison’s emblematic signatures – including the Alhambra® motif, the Zip necklace, or the Mystery SetTM, technique; the exceptional, emotion eliciting gems named Pierres de CaractèreTM; the savoir-faire of the Mains d’OrTM the virtuoso craftsmen of Van Cleef & Arpels’ workshops – have ushered forth jewelry and watchmaking collections redolent of dreams and enchantment. Today, the Maison remains faithful to this highly distinctive style characterized by poetry, refinement, creativity and artistic sensibility. Whether inspired by nature, couture, dance or the imagination, it offers the world a gateway to a timeless universe of beauty and harmony.