Sanford Biggers: Drift

Sanford Biggers: Drift presents the acclaimed artist’s first major solo presentation on the East End of Long Island, featuring new commissions alongside signature sculptures and textile works. Fascinated by the ways that materials and symbols become charged with spiritual, cultural, and personal significance, Biggers (b. 1970, Los Angeles, CA) draws on a diverse range of influences, ranging from Buddhism and Los Angeles graffiti culture to Gee’s Bend quilts and his own collection of African sculpture. Working in 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 is taken 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.

The exhibition will also 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. For this exhibition, Biggers will create a new large-scale Codex piece that explores the rich and varied histories of African American communities on the East End of Long Island—from Black whalers in the nineteenth century, to an Eastville church that was a stop along the Underground Railroad, to the SANS (Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest & Ninevah Subdivisions) neighborhood where Biggers lives—a thriving Black community founded by middle-class families during the post-WWII and Jim Crow eras.

In an adjacent gallery, Biggers will create a new site-specific floor-based sand installation inspired by the form and function of prayer rugs, portable breakdance floors, and Japanese Buddhist mandalas. Beginning as a complex geometric pattern, the work’s ephemeral surface will be intentionally altered in a performance that will disrupt the design’s hard edges to painterly effect and create what Biggers refers to as a “blur.” Building on the exhibition’s exploration of movement and transformative forces, this blur will also be echoed in his new Codex work, in which the textile’s quilted pattern will appear rippled, as though disturbed by a current of air.

Sanford Biggers: Drift is part of the Museum’s USA250: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, a year-long program organized in response to the United States’ semiquincentennial in 2026. The USA250 exhibition series will reflect on the nation’s history and founding values, examine our present moment, and imagine new ways of moving forward, while recognizing the contributions of regional artists to the broader landscape of American art and culture. Responding to language in the Declaration of Independence that states “the pursuit of happiness” as one of the inalienable rights, the works presented in Sanford Biggers: Drift interweave underrecognized local histories and national ideals, offering symbols of hope and celebration of our varied histories and experiences. “As we look into the clouds, we often see very different things from one person to the next,” Biggers explains. “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 the nature and power of change.

Sanford Biggers: Drift is co-organized by Corinne Erni, The Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator of Art and Education, and Scout Hutchinson, The FLAG Art Foundation Associate Curator of Contemporary Art.

Exhibition Support
Sanford Biggers: Drift is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of the Robert Lehman Foundation.

The Parrish Art Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.