If you're heading to Long Island's South Fork this weekend, and want to add an international art event to your calendar, consider the second annual installment of The Big Show, at Silas Marder Gallery.

For the season opener, Silas Marder distributed custom-made 8 x 10" blank canvases to more than 50 painters. Half are from the Hamptons, known for its high concentration of star artists, going back to Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning in the 1950s. The rest are from all over the United States, Mexico, Europe, Japan, and the Pacific Rim.

Marder opened his gallery three years ago in the family-owned Marder's Bridgehampton Nursery, itself a local landmark. In an interview published in The East Hampton Star, he talked about how his parents had many friends who were artists. He grew up looking at their work and going to art openings at nearby Ashawagh Hall.

After he finished college in Vermont, he commuted back and forth to work at the nursery. When a large barn became available to him, Marder opened the gallery. To launch the season last year, he decided to invite artists from far and wide to participate.

The artists liked the challenge of the invitational and Marder loved the results. "It's fun to see these pieces that had nothing to do with each other -- abstract, figurative, landscape, the whole thing," he said. With three paintings from each artist, all the same size, the show itself becomes a form of installation art.

Last year's edition of The Big Show helped to establish the new gallery's point of view. "It was for big collectors, small collectors, and those who have never collected before," Marder said. The pieces went for as little as $200 or $300 and as much as $1,200. He includes work by established artists, such as Mary Heilmann, and younger, often cutting edge artists, such as his brother Mica. In an email exchange this week, Marc Burkhardt, an artist in Austin, TX said, "The list of people involved here is impressive; the diversity of styles and approaches is one of the things I find most exciting about being in the show." Below: The Suite: Marie, Messenger, Tundere, 2007, by Marc Burkhardt.

The opening on Saturday, May 19, goes from 4:00 to 8:00 pm, spilling out of the gallery onto the nursery's grounds, which are intriguingly landscaped with sculpture and large boulders. Please check the gallery website for details and directions.