Amy Sillman at Dia Bridgehampton: An Innovative Take on Site-Specific Art

Amy Sillman's Alternate Side (Permutations #1–32) at Dia Bridgehampton is the kind of exhibition that makes you rethink what art can do in a space. Instead of simply hanging paintings on walls, Sillman has painted and screenprinted directly onto the gallery walls themselves. Sillman creates an environment where you're not just looking at art, you're inside it.

This yearlong exhibition, running through 2026, combines two approaches: the wall paintings that cover the gallery's architecture and a series of framed screenprints made during her residency at Two Palms print studio. The result is layered and complex, changing as you move around the room and as different light hits the walls throughout the day.

What's most impressive about this show is how completely it transforms the gallery. Sillman treats the entire room as her canvas, covering the walls with forms that shift between recognizable shapes and pure abstraction. Her approach feels fresh because it doesn't follow the usual rules of how art gets displayed. Instead of art placed in a space, the space becomes art.

During the opening, Sillman explained her process of "silk screening freestyle". She uses printmaking techniques in a completely improvisational way. While printmaking usually means making multiple copies of the same image, Sillman uses her screens more like painting tools, ensuring each mark is unique. She describes this work as "ground on ground," where the surface itself becomes the subject of exploration.

The exhibition works so well because it connects directly to the building's history. Dan Flavin, who established this space in the late 1970s, originally wanted to include a print workshop here. Sillman's focus on printmaking feels like she's completing something Flavin started, bringing his vision full circle. Her choice to print on antique handmade paper from the 19th and early 20th centuries adds another historical layer. These aren't just pretty materials, they create a real connection between past and present, showing how contemporary art can build on older traditions without being stuck in them.

One of the most unique aspects of the installation is how it responds to light. Sillman has carefully considered how natural light moves through the space, creating an exhibition that literally changes throughout the day and across seasons. Morning light reveals different aspects of the work than afternoon light, and the installation will look completely different in winter versus summer.

This attention to changing light creates a conversation with Dan Flavin's permanent installation upstairs. While Flavin uses artificial fluorescent light, Sillman works with natural light, but both artists understand how light can transform space and perception.

Speaking of Flavin's work, the permanent installation on the second floor is absolutely stunning. The nine fluorescent light sculptures (1963-81) feel particularly powerful in this intimate setting. Even having seen his major installations at Dia Beacon and Mana Contemporary, there's something special about experiencing his work in this smaller, more personal space. The way his colored light interacts with the building's stained-glass window creates an almost magical environment.

Sillman's approach to printmaking is both traditional and radical. She understands the medium's history but isn't limited by it. Her prints use what she calls "a restricted lexicon of forms", a limited vocabulary of shapes that she combines in different ways. Each print balances repetition with variation, showing how working within constraints can actually create more possibilities.

The combination of her wall paintings and framed prints creates what she calls "a language of form." You can see relationships between the works, but each piece maintains its own character. It's a sophisticated way of thinking about how individual artworks can work together to create something larger.

Her decision to treat the gallery "in the same way I would view a surface" represents a significant conceptual leap. By thinking of the entire room as a printmaking surface, she's expanded what printmaking can be and where it can happen.

This exhibition succeeds because it doesn't try to impose art on a space, it grows out of the space. Sillman has clearly spent time understanding this building, its history, and its relationship to light and time. The work also benefits from Dia's commitment to supporting artists who push boundaries. This installation is about reimagining what art can do when it's given room to breathe and develop over time.