“Our relationship to cars is massively complex,” says Sarah Cochran, executive director and chief curator of The Church, a Sag Harbor arts institution housed in a deconsecrated 19th-century Methodist house of worship. “Over the years, they’ve been lionized and fetishized due to their design, performance, and engineering. They’ve also been vilified and disparaged as a factor in climate change and as symbols of homeless and the decline of manufacturing in this country.” 

The automobile serves as chief inspiration for this can’t-miss group exhibition, which features paintings, photographs, sculptures, drawings, and animated films by 24 artists riffing on the car. Through the works on display, which include Kristen Morgan’s exquisite model of James Dean’s wrecked 1955 Porsche 5500 Spyder in unfired clay and Henry Taylor’s haunting painting of the gaze of a stranger from a passing car, one gets a crystal-clear picture of the trajectory of a long and vibrant affair with this symbol of speed and power, with all its ups and downs.

Hydraulic Muscles, Pneumatic Smiles (2014) by Ed Ruscha. Collection of Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman, Courtesy of the FLAG Foundation