The Parrish Art Museum presents “Sanford Biggers: Drift,” marking the acclaimed artist’s first major solo presentation on the East End of Long Island, a place of deep importance to Biggers. The exhibition will feature new work and site-responsive installations alongside signature sculptures and textile works.
“Sanford Biggers: Drift” is part of the museum’s exhibition series recognizing America’s semi-quincentennial in 2026, “PARRISH USA250: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness,” a yearlong presentation of exhibitions and programs exploring the core ideals of the Declaration of Independence through the East End of Long Island’s enduring role in shaping American creativity and identity. The series reflects on the nation’s founding values, examines our present moment, and imagines new paths forward, while recognizing the significant contributions of Long Island artists to American art and culture. Through this exhibition, Sanford Biggers explores the PARRISH USA250 theme of “Pursuit of Happiness.”
“’Sanford Biggers: Drift’ invites all of us to reflect on the enduring promise, and the complexity, of the pursuit of happiness as we mark the 250th anniversary of the United States. We are proud to present this dynamic exhibition as part of the ‘PARRISH USA250’ series and to welcome the community to explore and experience Sanford Biggers’ first museum exhibition on the East End during this important milestone in our nation,” said Dr. Mónica Ramírez-Montagut, Executive Director of the Parrish Art Museum.
“I am delighted to work with Sanford Biggers to create an ambitious exhibition at the Parrish this summer. The different yet complementary elements of Drift — highlighting both the unique materiality of his textile, painting, and sculpture work as well as the ephemeral and almost performative aspect of his room installations — will transform the museum galleries into something well beyond a viewing space and invite visitors to come together for contemplation and reverie,” said Corinne Erni, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator of Art and Education.
Fascinated by the way that materials and symbols become charged with spiritual, cultural, and personal significance, Sanford Biggers (b. 1970, Los Angeles, CA) draws on a diverse range of influences, from Buddhism and Los Angeles graffiti culture to Gee’s Bend quilts and his own collection of African sculpture, as well as his connection to Sag Harbor. Working across painting, installation, sculpture, video, and performance, Biggers describes his practice as emerging from an aggregate process of “transposing, combining, and juxtaposing ideas, forms, and genres that challenge traditional historiography.”
“Sanford Biggers: Drift” traces the multidisciplinary nature of Biggers’ work through the motif of the cloud, a symbol that has engaged the artist for decades. Controlled by the unseen energy of the wind, these nebulous forms are shaped and re-shaped by air currents as they move across the sky. Themes of fluctuation and adaptability run throughout the exhibition, beginning with the artist’s recent monumental installation “Unsui (Cloud Forest)” (2025), a series of illuminated cloud sculptures that draw on Japanese, European, and American art traditions and will be suspended from the largest gallery’s arched ceiling. Inspired by his time spent in Japan in the early 1990s, the work’s title derives from a Japanese term that likens the drifting nature of clouds to the Zen Buddhist philosophy of moving through the world without attachment or resistance to change.
“As we look into the clouds, we often see very different things from one person to the next,” Biggers explained. “I think that is similar to the way people perceive America. The ideals and values might be different from one person to the next — sometimes clearly visible, sometimes a little hazy or hard to find—but always worth looking for and striving for.” “Sanford Biggers: Drift” reminds us that contemplating the clouds is not a frivolous activity, but an invitation to reflect on nature and the power of change.
“Cultural symbols and their coded meanings are at the heart of Biggers’ work. Playing with the cloud’s myriad spiritual, emotional, artistic, and poetic interpretations, Biggers adds further undertones with his materials choices, rendering the symbol in everything from raw cotton and dripping paint to tessellated metallic surfaces that flicker in light and wind,” said Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Parrish. “In ‘Drift,’ Biggers presents us with an ever-shifting, ambiguous form that blurs distinct edges — the selfsame qualities that define his work.”
The exhibition will feature examples from Biggers’ ongoing Codex series — sculptures and paintings made from repurposed antique quilts — that feature spray-painted cumulus cloud forms, a nod to Biggers’ teenage years as a graffiti artist. The Codex works reference the legend of “quilt codes,” said to have guided freedom seekers along the Underground Railroad; though historians have debated this narrative, it remains a potent metaphor for perseverance and liberation.
In an adjacent gallery, Biggers will create a new site-specific sand installation inspired by prayer rugs, portable breakdance floors, and Japanese Buddhist mandalas. Initially laid out in a precise geometric design, the sand is unfixed and can be disrupted by its environment over the course of the exhibition, softening its edges into a painterly “blur.” This gesture of movement and transformation appears in his Codex works, where the quilted pattern will appear rippled, as if stirred by air.
Installed in the Parrish’s South Meadow, Biggers’ 24-foot-wide-by-16-foot-tall outdoor sculpture “Of many waters…” (2022) will greet visitors and passersby on Montauk Highway. A continuation of his Chimera, Shimmer, and Codex series, the hybridized figure combines an archetype of a European reclining male figure with a 19th-Century Baule double-face mask assembled from metal sequins.
On Saturday, May 16, from 5 to 7 PM, there will be a members’ opening reception. An artist talk, open to the public, will be held at 5:30 PM. The exhibit will run through September 13.