Monday, February 6, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Gallery Exhibit: Abisay Puentes, Imposibilitatos
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Ann Felton Multicultural Center and Gallery
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Artist Statement:

In the imagination of all artists lay all transcendent questions that humankind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man's evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is "IMPOSIBILITATO" (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man).

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation.

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer.

Contain/Constrain: Works by Sam Horowitz
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

In today's virtual era, when we can communicate at light speed, inhabit cyber realities, and continually discard the "old" in search for "upgrades", one might expect that technology innovation makes us less burdened, less constrained by time and space. By the same token, so many of us are living rushed unthinking lives, desensitized and isolated from anything real. Are we constrained by our own innovations? We work, live and play inside frames, according to Horowitz, and those frames are mobile or immobile, physical, mental or metaphorical.

In this exhibition, the intrusion of familiar objects with uncharacteristic contents invites the viewer to reconsider the forms, functions and limitations of recognizable, re-purposed relics, and pokes fun at our decreasing flexibility, our increasing demands, and the collective loss of craft, localized-innovation and repair. "The trunks, once utilitarian objects used to carry clothing and other personal items, are now filled for the sake of filling. The cardboard, created initially to contain other entities, functions as contents. Though each framing device no longer holds the contents they were created to contain, they contain nonetheless; it is the humor and irony of this relationship that I strive to illustrate thorough my work."

To create this installation, Horowitz began by collecting trunks, cases and boxes. Though most bore a patina of age, use and neglect, he cleaned, fixed, and saved each piece. Horowitz is able to manipulate cardboard to create the designs and patterns he finds within the lines and corrugation so readily offered. "I have drawn each piece through the gauntlet intentionally, irrationally or purely by necessity," states Horowitz. "Thinking over my work, and planning new directions strays into theory, but in practice, I work, live, and act in this moment."

Salon: Strictly Local
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

The exhibit will feature works by over 50 local artists.

The Power and The Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibit, curated by History Professor Chris Kyle with Senior Director of Special Collections Sean Quimby, showcases the library's collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed works, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings.

FOR_PLAY
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring James and Hayes Slade

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Gallery
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

An exhibition of projects by Slade Architecture of New York City designed for or including an element of play.

Westcott Community Gallery Group Show
Westcott Community Art Gallery

Price: Free
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

Works by Molly Susman, Steve Susman, and Jessica Breedlove.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

Born in Guatemala, award-winning photographer Efren Lopez is a student in the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. He is also an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse's Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona.

The exhibit features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. "My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966," Lopez writes. "It's a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America."

Lopez has documented real-world situations and the military around the globe and has captured stunning images in Arizona and Guatemala. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book Arizona 24/7, and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition, and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

Gallery Exhibit: Abisay Puentes, Imposibilitatos
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Ann Felton Multicultural Center and Gallery
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Artist Statement:

In the imagination of all artists lay all transcendent questions that humankind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man's evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is "IMPOSIBILITATO" (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man).

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation.

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer.

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

"Everything is Illustrated III" and "Talking Wallpaper"
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium
2 Clinton Square, Syracuse

Gallery A: Everything is Illustrated III, featuring work by Holly DePue, Beth Mand, and Kristen Tryon
Gallery B: Talking Wallpaper, featuring recent work by Miles George and Aaron Lee

Salon: Strictly Local
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

The exhibit will feature works by over 50 local artists.

The Power and The Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibit, curated by History Professor Chris Kyle with Senior Director of Special Collections Sean Quimby, showcases the library's collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed works, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings.

FOR_PLAY
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring James and Hayes Slade

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Gallery
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

An exhibition of projects by Slade Architecture of New York City designed for or including an element of play.

Westcott Community Gallery Group Show
Westcott Community Art Gallery

Price: Free
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

Works by Molly Susman, Steve Susman, and Jessica Breedlove.

CNY Visions
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Unique views of the Central New York area through the lenses of Herm Card, Richard Emory, Larry Hoyt, and Bill Sullivan. Also showcasing the artglass of Phil Austin and jewelry of Esperanza Tielbaard.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

Emilio Sanchez: No Way Home--Images of the Caribbean and New York City
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"No Way Home" features a selection of 24 paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints drawn from the recently acquired collection of work by Cuban-American artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999). Best known for his brightly colored, strongly shadowed images of Caribbean and New York City architecture, this exhibition reveals the artist's ongoing interest in repetitive patterns. The show highlights a recent gift to the University Art Collection from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation of over 250 paintings, drawings and prints.

Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions" chronicles the recent decade of artwork published by one of the most renowned American printmaking workshops. The exhibition of 60 works illustrates the impact that artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler and Kiki Smith have had on contemporary art, evident through the work of artists Jason Middelbrook, Amy Cutler and Jane Hammond. The show also illustrates how emerging artists recently selected to work with ULAE has influenced the current trend, in both process and concept.

Weekend and evening visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces are not available, the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

American Art from the Permanent Collection
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $5 suggested donation
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht is the featured artist for the Urban Video Project in January and February. In conjunction with the exhibition of "Deluge and Anima" on the Everson's north façade, a series of Knecht's animations, called "Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel," will be on view inside the museum. The Fragments, individual animations displayed on monitors, provide a glimpse into the artist's brilliant imagination, where fantasy collides with vivid colors and quirky sounds.

The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

Born in Guatemala, award-winning photographer Efren Lopez is a student in the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. He is also an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse's Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona.

The exhibit features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. "My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966," Lopez writes. "It's a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America."

Lopez has documented real-world situations and the military around the globe and has captured stunning images in Arizona and Guatemala. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book Arizona 24/7, and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition, and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.

Contain/Constrain: Works by Sam Horowitz
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

In today's virtual era, when we can communicate at light speed, inhabit cyber realities, and continually discard the "old" in search for "upgrades", one might expect that technology innovation makes us less burdened, less constrained by time and space. By the same token, so many of us are living rushed unthinking lives, desensitized and isolated from anything real. Are we constrained by our own innovations? We work, live and play inside frames, according to Horowitz, and those frames are mobile or immobile, physical, mental or metaphorical.

In this exhibition, the intrusion of familiar objects with uncharacteristic contents invites the viewer to reconsider the forms, functions and limitations of recognizable, re-purposed relics, and pokes fun at our decreasing flexibility, our increasing demands, and the collective loss of craft, localized-innovation and repair. "The trunks, once utilitarian objects used to carry clothing and other personal items, are now filled for the sake of filling. The cardboard, created initially to contain other entities, functions as contents. Though each framing device no longer holds the contents they were created to contain, they contain nonetheless; it is the humor and irony of this relationship that I strive to illustrate thorough my work."

To create this installation, Horowitz began by collecting trunks, cases and boxes. Though most bore a patina of age, use and neglect, he cleaned, fixed, and saved each piece. Horowitz is able to manipulate cardboard to create the designs and patterns he finds within the lines and corrugation so readily offered. "I have drawn each piece through the gauntlet intentionally, irrationally or purely by necessity," states Horowitz. "Thinking over my work, and planning new directions strays into theory, but in practice, I work, live, and act in this moment."

Deng Guo Yuan
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

This exhibit will highlight ink brush paintings by Tianjin-based Chinese artist Deng Guo Yuan. His work reveals the tradition of Chinese landscape painting and a profound knowledge of modern and international contemporary aesthetics. The film "Deng Guo Yuan" (2010) by French filmmaker Pierre Creton, presented in the Gallery's vault, meticulously documents the creation of one of Deng Guo Yuan's ink paintings in his Tianjin studio. Widely exhibited in China and Europe, this will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The show originated at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum (Tianjin, China), and then traveled in modified form to the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA), to the Provenance Center (New London, CT), and to its last venue, the Warehouse Gallery, for which Deng Guo Yuan will create additional site-specific works.

Six Make One
Echo

745 N. Salina St. (formerly Craft Chemistry)
Syracuse

Installation by six artists: Brendan Rose, Briana Kohlbrenner, Damian Vallelonga, Jeff Walter, Mark Povinelli and Stasya Erickson. From design to construction in under two weeks. The concept of this installation was influenced by an previous installation called "New Formula."

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Sites Unseen
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring Shimon Attie

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Auditorium
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Shimon Attie is an internationally renowned visual artist whose practice includes creating large and small-scale site-specific installations in public places, photographs, new media works, and, more recently, immersive multiple channel HD video installations for museums and galleries.

Lindsay Adler, fashion photographer
SU Career Services and the Office of Alumni Relations

Price: Free
Watson Theater, Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave. (Syracuse University), Syracuse

For the past 10 years, even while a student at SU, Lindsay Adler has owned and operated a portrait, fashion and wedding studio distinguished by its 'fashion flair' approach to imagery. As a New York-based fashion photographer, her editorials have appeared in dozens of publications internationally. She regularly contributes to a variety of major photo publications, including Professional Photographer, Rangefinder Magazine, Popular Photography and more.

In May 2010, Adler published her first book, "A Linked Photographers' Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media" (Course Technology PTR). In February 2011, she published her second book, "Fashion Flair for Portrait and Wedding Photography" (Course Technology PTR).

Adler is sponsored by a variety of major photography companies and can be found as a platform speaker at events like WPPI, Photo Plus, NECCC, PSA, and many more. She teaches thousands of photographers annually on topics ranging from retouching, to fashion techniques, to studio lighting.

Though only in her mid-20's, her career and photography have received much acclaim and she has already become a respected name in the business.

Aeroplane
Westcott Theater

Westcott Theater
524 Westcott St., Syracuse

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

Price Check
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A research-based curatorial examination by Roslyn Esperon and Courtney Rile, featuring the art of Michael Barletta, Caol Flaitz, Carla Goldberg, Novado Cappuccilli, Jason Varone, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, and Leah Wolff

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Gallery Exhibit: Abisay Puentes, Imposibilitatos
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Ann Felton Multicultural Center and Gallery
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Artist Statement:

In the imagination of all artists lay all transcendent questions that humankind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man's evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is "IMPOSIBILITATO" (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man).

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation.

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer.

Contain/Constrain: Works by Sam Horowitz
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

In today's virtual era, when we can communicate at light speed, inhabit cyber realities, and continually discard the "old" in search for "upgrades", one might expect that technology innovation makes us less burdened, less constrained by time and space. By the same token, so many of us are living rushed unthinking lives, desensitized and isolated from anything real. Are we constrained by our own innovations? We work, live and play inside frames, according to Horowitz, and those frames are mobile or immobile, physical, mental or metaphorical.

In this exhibition, the intrusion of familiar objects with uncharacteristic contents invites the viewer to reconsider the forms, functions and limitations of recognizable, re-purposed relics, and pokes fun at our decreasing flexibility, our increasing demands, and the collective loss of craft, localized-innovation and repair. "The trunks, once utilitarian objects used to carry clothing and other personal items, are now filled for the sake of filling. The cardboard, created initially to contain other entities, functions as contents. Though each framing device no longer holds the contents they were created to contain, they contain nonetheless; it is the humor and irony of this relationship that I strive to illustrate thorough my work."

To create this installation, Horowitz began by collecting trunks, cases and boxes. Though most bore a patina of age, use and neglect, he cleaned, fixed, and saved each piece. Horowitz is able to manipulate cardboard to create the designs and patterns he finds within the lines and corrugation so readily offered. "I have drawn each piece through the gauntlet intentionally, irrationally or purely by necessity," states Horowitz. "Thinking over my work, and planning new directions strays into theory, but in practice, I work, live, and act in this moment."

"Everything is Illustrated III" and "Talking Wallpaper"
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium
2 Clinton Square, Syracuse

Gallery A: Everything is Illustrated III, featuring work by Holly DePue, Beth Mand, and Kristen Tryon
Gallery B: Talking Wallpaper, featuring recent work by Miles George and Aaron Lee

Salon: Strictly Local
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

The exhibit will feature works by over 50 local artists.

The Power and The Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibit, curated by History Professor Chris Kyle with Senior Director of Special Collections Sean Quimby, showcases the library's collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed works, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings.

FOR_PLAY
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring James and Hayes Slade

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Gallery
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

An exhibition of projects by Slade Architecture of New York City designed for or including an element of play.

Westcott Community Gallery Group Show
Westcott Community Art Gallery

Price: Free
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

Works by Molly Susman, Steve Susman, and Jessica Breedlove.

CNY Visions
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Unique views of the Central New York area through the lenses of Herm Card, Richard Emory, Larry Hoyt, and Bill Sullivan. Also showcasing the artglass of Phil Austin and jewelry of Esperanza Tielbaard.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

Envisionary
Szozda Gallery

Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Well established artist Phil Parsons and relatively new talent Emily Elizabeth display their painterly visions of atmospheric and landscape horizons surrounding Central New York. "Envisionary," the show's title, was coined perhaps to sharpen the concept of changing environs, elements commonplace every day that some artists foresee in greater depths than what most people perceive. In Elizabeth's case, it's her fascination with the universe that compels her to paint beyond shape and form to focus on color and atmosphere, while Parsons chooses to capture memorable landscapes that he himself alters with color and invented skies, reflecting his own feelings.

Read a review!

Emilio Sanchez: No Way Home--Images of the Caribbean and New York City
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"No Way Home" features a selection of 24 paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints drawn from the recently acquired collection of work by Cuban-American artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999). Best known for his brightly colored, strongly shadowed images of Caribbean and New York City architecture, this exhibition reveals the artist's ongoing interest in repetitive patterns. The show highlights a recent gift to the University Art Collection from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation of over 250 paintings, drawings and prints.

Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions" chronicles the recent decade of artwork published by one of the most renowned American printmaking workshops. The exhibition of 60 works illustrates the impact that artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler and Kiki Smith have had on contemporary art, evident through the work of artists Jason Middelbrook, Amy Cutler and Jane Hammond. The show also illustrates how emerging artists recently selected to work with ULAE has influenced the current trend, in both process and concept.

Weekend and evening visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces are not available, the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $5 suggested donation
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht is the featured artist for the Urban Video Project in January and February. In conjunction with the exhibition of "Deluge and Anima" on the Everson's north façade, a series of Knecht's animations, called "Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel," will be on view inside the museum. The Fragments, individual animations displayed on monitors, provide a glimpse into the artist's brilliant imagination, where fantasy collides with vivid colors and quirky sounds.

American Art from the Permanent Collection
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

Born in Guatemala, award-winning photographer Efren Lopez is a student in the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. He is also an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse's Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona.

The exhibit features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. "My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966," Lopez writes. "It's a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America."

Lopez has documented real-world situations and the military around the globe and has captured stunning images in Arizona and Guatemala. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book Arizona 24/7, and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition, and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.

Deng Guo Yuan
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

This exhibit will highlight ink brush paintings by Tianjin-based Chinese artist Deng Guo Yuan. His work reveals the tradition of Chinese landscape painting and a profound knowledge of modern and international contemporary aesthetics. The film "Deng Guo Yuan" (2010) by French filmmaker Pierre Creton, presented in the Gallery's vault, meticulously documents the creation of one of Deng Guo Yuan's ink paintings in his Tianjin studio. Widely exhibited in China and Europe, this will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The show originated at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum (Tianjin, China), and then traveled in modified form to the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA), to the Provenance Center (New London, CT), and to its last venue, the Warehouse Gallery, for which Deng Guo Yuan will create additional site-specific works.

VPA Faculty Show Part I
XL Projects

Price: Free
XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

Part one of an exhibition of work by faculty in S.U.'s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

For more information, phone 315-442-2542 during gallery hours or e-mail Andrew Havenhand at ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Six Make One
Echo

745 N. Salina St. (formerly Craft Chemistry)
Syracuse

Installation by six artists: Brendan Rose, Briana Kohlbrenner, Damian Vallelonga, Jeff Walter, Mark Povinelli and Stasya Erickson. From design to construction in under two weeks. The concept of this installation was influenced by an previous installation called "New Formula."

Men Only: Vernacular Photographs of Male Affection
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit of works from the collection of William Knodel looks at masculinity, gender and sexuality in our society. William Knodel was a college student in the 1970s in New York City when he purchased his first second-hand snapshot, a group of young men in assorted swimming attire whose style dated them back to the turn of the century, posing before a camp tent marked with a sign, "Men Only." Since then, he's collected vernacular images of male affection -- tintypes, daguerreotypes and photos -- during his travels to the West Coast, Canada, and Europe, scouring second-hand shops, old photo sales and used book stores. His collection now runs into the hundreds, dating from the mid-19th century and featuring couples and socializing groups from every race and social class. "Men Only" is a gift that incarnates the "gay spirit" that his good friend Harry Hay warned us must be kept alive and a history too often dismissed.

Read a review!

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Wednesday Film Series: Black Narcissus
Syracuse University School of Architecture

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Auditorium
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, 1947, 100 minutes

Julie McKinstry, soprano; Tom McKay, clarinet; Ian Gallacher, viola; Sabine Krantz, piano
Civic Morning Musicals

Price: Free
Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Schubert Shepherd On the Rock, Mozart Clarinet Trio, K. 498, Spohr songs.

Parking available in the OnCenter Garage: maximum $2.50 with CMM stamped ticket.

An Evening With Martin & Langston
Onondaga Community College
Featuring Danny Glover and Felix Justice

Price: Free, but tickets required
SRC Arena and Events Center
Onondaga Community College campus, Syracuse

Felix Justice portrays civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Danny Glover plays African-American poet and writer Langston Hughes. Both call upon the speeches and writings of King and Hughes in re-creating these major figures in history.

Tickets are required for the event and are limited to two per person. They can be obtained on campus at the event center's box office, 8:00-5:00 weekdays or at the Gordon Student Center Room G104, 8:00-4:30 weekdays. Tickets are also available at Sound Garden, 310 W. Jefferson St., Syracuse. For more information, call 315-498-7210.

Glover has appeared on screen, TV and stage. He has acted in everything from the "Lethal Weapon" film franchise, to the movie versions of "The Color Purple" and "Dreamgirls" and on TV's "Brothers & Sisters." Justice has toured with his one-man show on Martin Luther King Jr., "Prophecy in America," since it premiered in 1981 in San Francisco.

After "An Evening With Martin & Langston," the actors will remain onstage for a question-and-answer session with the audience.

Concerto Concert
Fayetteville-Manlius High School Wind Ensemble

Price: Free
Fayetteville-Manlius High School
8201 E. Seneca Tpke., Manlius

For more information, phone 315-692-1832.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

Price Check
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A research-based curatorial examination by Roslyn Esperon and Courtney Rile, featuring the art of Michael Barletta, Caol Flaitz, Carla Goldberg, Novado Cappuccilli, Jason Varone, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, and Leah Wolff

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Gallery Exhibit: Abisay Puentes, Imposibilitatos
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Ann Felton Multicultural Center and Gallery
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Artist Statement:

In the imagination of all artists lay all transcendent questions that humankind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man's evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is "IMPOSIBILITATO" (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man).

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation.

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer.

"Everything is Illustrated III" and "Talking Wallpaper"
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium
2 Clinton Square, Syracuse

Gallery A: Everything is Illustrated III, featuring work by Holly DePue, Beth Mand, and Kristen Tryon
Gallery B: Talking Wallpaper, featuring recent work by Miles George and Aaron Lee

Salon: Strictly Local
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

The exhibit will feature works by over 50 local artists.

The Power and The Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibit, curated by History Professor Chris Kyle with Senior Director of Special Collections Sean Quimby, showcases the library's collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed works, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings.

FOR_PLAY
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring James and Hayes Slade

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Gallery
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

An exhibition of projects by Slade Architecture of New York City designed for or including an element of play.

Westcott Community Gallery Group Show
Westcott Community Art Gallery

Price: Free
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

Works by Molly Susman, Steve Susman, and Jessica Breedlove.

CNY Visions
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Unique views of the Central New York area through the lenses of Herm Card, Richard Emory, Larry Hoyt, and Bill Sullivan. Also showcasing the artglass of Phil Austin and jewelry of Esperanza Tielbaard.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

Envisionary
Szozda Gallery

Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Well established artist Phil Parsons and relatively new talent Emily Elizabeth display their painterly visions of atmospheric and landscape horizons surrounding Central New York. "Envisionary," the show's title, was coined perhaps to sharpen the concept of changing environs, elements commonplace every day that some artists foresee in greater depths than what most people perceive. In Elizabeth's case, it's her fascination with the universe that compels her to paint beyond shape and form to focus on color and atmosphere, while Parsons chooses to capture memorable landscapes that he himself alters with color and invented skies, reflecting his own feelings.

Read a review!

Emilio Sanchez: No Way Home--Images of the Caribbean and New York City
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"No Way Home" features a selection of 24 paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints drawn from the recently acquired collection of work by Cuban-American artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999). Best known for his brightly colored, strongly shadowed images of Caribbean and New York City architecture, this exhibition reveals the artist's ongoing interest in repetitive patterns. The show highlights a recent gift to the University Art Collection from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation of over 250 paintings, drawings and prints.

Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions" chronicles the recent decade of artwork published by one of the most renowned American printmaking workshops. The exhibition of 60 works illustrates the impact that artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler and Kiki Smith have had on contemporary art, evident through the work of artists Jason Middelbrook, Amy Cutler and Jane Hammond. The show also illustrates how emerging artists recently selected to work with ULAE has influenced the current trend, in both process and concept.

Weekend and evening visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces are not available, the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

American Art from the Permanent Collection
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $5 suggested donation
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht is the featured artist for the Urban Video Project in January and February. In conjunction with the exhibition of "Deluge and Anima" on the Everson's north façade, a series of Knecht's animations, called "Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel," will be on view inside the museum. The Fragments, individual animations displayed on monitors, provide a glimpse into the artist's brilliant imagination, where fantasy collides with vivid colors and quirky sounds.

The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

Born in Guatemala, award-winning photographer Efren Lopez is a student in the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. He is also an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse's Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona.

The exhibit features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. "My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966," Lopez writes. "It's a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America."

Lopez has documented real-world situations and the military around the globe and has captured stunning images in Arizona and Guatemala. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book Arizona 24/7, and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition, and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.

Contain/Constrain: Works by Sam Horowitz
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

In today's virtual era, when we can communicate at light speed, inhabit cyber realities, and continually discard the "old" in search for "upgrades", one might expect that technology innovation makes us less burdened, less constrained by time and space. By the same token, so many of us are living rushed unthinking lives, desensitized and isolated from anything real. Are we constrained by our own innovations? We work, live and play inside frames, according to Horowitz, and those frames are mobile or immobile, physical, mental or metaphorical.

In this exhibition, the intrusion of familiar objects with uncharacteristic contents invites the viewer to reconsider the forms, functions and limitations of recognizable, re-purposed relics, and pokes fun at our decreasing flexibility, our increasing demands, and the collective loss of craft, localized-innovation and repair. "The trunks, once utilitarian objects used to carry clothing and other personal items, are now filled for the sake of filling. The cardboard, created initially to contain other entities, functions as contents. Though each framing device no longer holds the contents they were created to contain, they contain nonetheless; it is the humor and irony of this relationship that I strive to illustrate thorough my work."

To create this installation, Horowitz began by collecting trunks, cases and boxes. Though most bore a patina of age, use and neglect, he cleaned, fixed, and saved each piece. Horowitz is able to manipulate cardboard to create the designs and patterns he finds within the lines and corrugation so readily offered. "I have drawn each piece through the gauntlet intentionally, irrationally or purely by necessity," states Horowitz. "Thinking over my work, and planning new directions strays into theory, but in practice, I work, live, and act in this moment."

Deng Guo Yuan
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

This exhibit will highlight ink brush paintings by Tianjin-based Chinese artist Deng Guo Yuan. His work reveals the tradition of Chinese landscape painting and a profound knowledge of modern and international contemporary aesthetics. The film "Deng Guo Yuan" (2010) by French filmmaker Pierre Creton, presented in the Gallery's vault, meticulously documents the creation of one of Deng Guo Yuan's ink paintings in his Tianjin studio. Widely exhibited in China and Europe, this will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The show originated at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum (Tianjin, China), and then traveled in modified form to the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA), to the Provenance Center (New London, CT), and to its last venue, the Warehouse Gallery, for which Deng Guo Yuan will create additional site-specific works.

VPA Faculty Show Part I
XL Projects

Price: Free
XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

There will be a reception this evening 6:00-8:00 pm.

Part one of an exhibition of work by faculty in S.U.'s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

For more information, phone 315-442-2542 during gallery hours or e-mail Andrew Havenhand at ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Six Make One
Echo

745 N. Salina St. (formerly Craft Chemistry)
Syracuse

Installation by six artists: Brendan Rose, Briana Kohlbrenner, Damian Vallelonga, Jeff Walter, Mark Povinelli and Stasya Erickson. From design to construction in under two weeks. The concept of this installation was influenced by an previous installation called "New Formula."

Men Only: Vernacular Photographs of Male Affection
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit of works from the collection of William Knodel looks at masculinity, gender and sexuality in our society. William Knodel was a college student in the 1970s in New York City when he purchased his first second-hand snapshot, a group of young men in assorted swimming attire whose style dated them back to the turn of the century, posing before a camp tent marked with a sign, "Men Only." Since then, he's collected vernacular images of male affection -- tintypes, daguerreotypes and photos -- during his travels to the West Coast, Canada, and Europe, scouring second-hand shops, old photo sales and used book stores. His collection now runs into the hundreds, dating from the mid-19th century and featuring couples and socializing groups from every race and social class. "Men Only" is a gift that incarnates the "gay spirit" that his good friend Harry Hay warned us must be kept alive and a history too often dismissed.

Read a review!

John Knecht: Deluge and Anima
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Deluge (2010) hand-drawn looping animation
Anima (2011) hand-drawn looping animation

Artist Statement:
Things have been falling in my videos for decades. It was at first formal. Falling things filled the frame and made a complicated cinematic space. The things falling -- wishbones, test tubes, martini glasses, plastic strawberries that looked like a human heart, cement blocks and infected molars -- increasingly became an atmosphere, functioning both as a formal device and a metaphorical space.

There is a drawing in the collection of the Queen, hanging in Buckingham Palace, by Leonardo daVinci which depicts a deluge of raining everyday objects: rakes, funnels, lamps and general debris. The title of the drawing is "A Cloudburst of Material Things." It is graphite on paper and credited to daVinci. It is dated 1500. The drawing is torn in half so only a part of the drawing remains. I have struggled to find out more about the piece and there is virtually nothing written about it, but I am haunted by it. "Deluge" is directly informed by the overwhelmed totality of daVinci's image. What was he thinking?

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Caribbean Cinematic Festival: Caribbean Diaspora in the U.K.
Community Folk Art Center

Price: $5 regular, $3 student
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

6:00-7:40 pm: The Story of Lover's Rock
This film sheds light on a forgotten period of British musical, social and political history that allowed young people to experience intimacy and healing through dancing to Lovers Rock (romantic reggae), a uniquely black, British sound that developed in the late '70s and '80s against a backdrop of riots and racial tension. Directed by Menelik Shabazz, 96 minutes, UK, music documentary, 2011.

7:45 pm: Discusssion with Asomgyee Pamoja, plus music by DJ Jah Roots

Memory and Commemoration, as Fact or Fiction
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts
Featuring James Young

Price: Free
Watson Theater, Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave. (Syracuse University), Syracuse

"Memory and Commemoration, as Fact or Fiction" is a new cross-disciplinary speaker series on art, memory, community and commemoration.

James Young, distinguished university professor and director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will speak about the complexities and challenges of public commemoration, as well as his experiences as a juror for the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition.

Parking for the public is available for $4 in Booth Garage.

Highland Winds
Temple Society of Concord

Temple Society of Concord
910 Madison St., Syracuse

The clarinet quartet Highland Winds, comprised of John Flaver, Tom Soccoccio, Ed O'Rourke and Tom McKay, has been entertaining Central New York audiences for years with a wide-ranging and eclectic repertoire.

Florence of Moravia
Acme Mystery Company

Price: $32.50 (includes meal, show, tax and gratuities)
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

It's 1927 and local radio personality Nevelle Haspin invites you to the broadcast of a gala reception for silent film diva Lorraine Bowes who is making a film portraying notorious WWI spy Florence Goode a.k.a. Hata Mahma. Joining Lorraine will be her leading man, if he's sober, Roland DeHay and Lorraine's agent, Harold "Hawk" Toohey. Arriving without an invitation is nationally syndicated gossip columninst Helena Handbasquet. Be careful. These celebrities autograph with poisoned pens.

Caroline, or Change
Syracuse Stage
Marcela Lorca, director

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The acclaimed musical event blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek: The Musical).

An eight-year-old boy named Noah Gellman struggles with the loss of his mother and the arrival of a new stepmother. One constant in his life are the small daily rituals he shares with Caroline, the family's African-American maid. The year is 1963—civil rights and Kennedy—and in the Gellman household in Lake Charles, Louisiana, change is coming for everyone, in big ways and small. Two powerhouses of the American theatre, playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori, join forces on a musical of startling creativity and refreshing originality (don't be surprised when the washing machine starts to sing). Acclaimed on Broadway and winner of London's prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Musical, with a score ranging from blues to gospel to traditional Jewish melodies, Caroline, or Change proves playwright Kushner's point that "music is a blessing that enters the soul through the ear."

Read a Review!

Red Light Series: Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion
Redhouse

Price: $20 regular, $15 members
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Featured as part of GAYFEST NYC, Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion is a truly hilarious investigation of one man's obsession with the classic screen sirens of the 1940s and '50s and their role in shaping his outlook and identity. The autobiographical work was written by and stars Syracuse native Steve Hayes, and Steve Hayes is all we need onstage for a fast-paced, continuously funny experience.

Steve is a nine-time nominee and three-time winner of the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs MAC Award for Outstanding Comedian and Characterization. He is also the recipient of the Backstage Bistro Award for Comedy Performer of the Year and is a six-time recipient of the ASCAP Popular Music Award. He is known for this film roles in Trick and The Big Gay Musical, as well as his weekly YouTube video blog, "Tired Old Queen at the Movies."

Read a review!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

Price Check
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A research-based curatorial examination by Roslyn Esperon and Courtney Rile, featuring the art of Michael Barletta, Caol Flaitz, Carla Goldberg, Novado Cappuccilli, Jason Varone, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, and Leah Wolff

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Gallery Exhibit: Abisay Puentes, Imposibilitatos
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Ann Felton Multicultural Center and Gallery
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Artist Statement:

In the imagination of all artists lay all transcendent questions that humankind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man's evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is "IMPOSIBILITATO" (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man).

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation.

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer.

Contain/Constrain: Works by Sam Horowitz
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

In today's virtual era, when we can communicate at light speed, inhabit cyber realities, and continually discard the "old" in search for "upgrades", one might expect that technology innovation makes us less burdened, less constrained by time and space. By the same token, so many of us are living rushed unthinking lives, desensitized and isolated from anything real. Are we constrained by our own innovations? We work, live and play inside frames, according to Horowitz, and those frames are mobile or immobile, physical, mental or metaphorical.

In this exhibition, the intrusion of familiar objects with uncharacteristic contents invites the viewer to reconsider the forms, functions and limitations of recognizable, re-purposed relics, and pokes fun at our decreasing flexibility, our increasing demands, and the collective loss of craft, localized-innovation and repair. "The trunks, once utilitarian objects used to carry clothing and other personal items, are now filled for the sake of filling. The cardboard, created initially to contain other entities, functions as contents. Though each framing device no longer holds the contents they were created to contain, they contain nonetheless; it is the humor and irony of this relationship that I strive to illustrate thorough my work."

To create this installation, Horowitz began by collecting trunks, cases and boxes. Though most bore a patina of age, use and neglect, he cleaned, fixed, and saved each piece. Horowitz is able to manipulate cardboard to create the designs and patterns he finds within the lines and corrugation so readily offered. "I have drawn each piece through the gauntlet intentionally, irrationally or purely by necessity," states Horowitz. "Thinking over my work, and planning new directions strays into theory, but in practice, I work, live, and act in this moment."

"Everything is Illustrated III" and "Talking Wallpaper"
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium
2 Clinton Square, Syracuse

Gallery A: Everything is Illustrated III, featuring work by Holly DePue, Beth Mand, and Kristen Tryon
Gallery B: Talking Wallpaper, featuring recent work by Miles George and Aaron Lee

Salon: Strictly Local
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

The exhibit will feature works by over 50 local artists.

The Power and The Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibit, curated by History Professor Chris Kyle with Senior Director of Special Collections Sean Quimby, showcases the library's collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed works, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings.

FOR_PLAY
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring James and Hayes Slade

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Gallery
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

An exhibition of projects by Slade Architecture of New York City designed for or including an element of play.

Westcott Community Gallery Group Show
Westcott Community Art Gallery

Price: Free
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

Works by Molly Susman, Steve Susman, and Jessica Breedlove.

CNY Visions
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Unique views of the Central New York area through the lenses of Herm Card, Richard Emory, Larry Hoyt, and Bill Sullivan. Also showcasing the artglass of Phil Austin and jewelry of Esperanza Tielbaard.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

Envisionary
Szozda Gallery

Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

There will be an opening reception this evening 5:00-8:00 pm.

Well established artist Phil Parsons and relatively new talent Emily Elizabeth display their painterly visions of atmospheric and landscape horizons surrounding Central New York. "Envisionary," the show's title, was coined perhaps to sharpen the concept of changing environs, elements commonplace every day that some artists foresee in greater depths than what most people perceive. In Elizabeth's case, it's her fascination with the universe that compels her to paint beyond shape and form to focus on color and atmosphere, while Parsons chooses to capture memorable landscapes that he himself alters with color and invented skies, reflecting his own feelings.

Read a review!

Emilio Sanchez: No Way Home--Images of the Caribbean and New York City
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"No Way Home" features a selection of 24 paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints drawn from the recently acquired collection of work by Cuban-American artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999). Best known for his brightly colored, strongly shadowed images of Caribbean and New York City architecture, this exhibition reveals the artist's ongoing interest in repetitive patterns. The show highlights a recent gift to the University Art Collection from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation of over 250 paintings, drawings and prints.

Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions" chronicles the recent decade of artwork published by one of the most renowned American printmaking workshops. The exhibition of 60 works illustrates the impact that artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler and Kiki Smith have had on contemporary art, evident through the work of artists Jason Middelbrook, Amy Cutler and Jane Hammond. The show also illustrates how emerging artists recently selected to work with ULAE has influenced the current trend, in both process and concept.

Weekend and evening visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces are not available, the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $5 suggested donation
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht is the featured artist for the Urban Video Project in January and February. In conjunction with the exhibition of "Deluge and Anima" on the Everson's north façade, a series of Knecht's animations, called "Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel," will be on view inside the museum. The Fragments, individual animations displayed on monitors, provide a glimpse into the artist's brilliant imagination, where fantasy collides with vivid colors and quirky sounds.

American Art from the Permanent Collection
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

Born in Guatemala, award-winning photographer Efren Lopez is a student in the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. He is also an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse's Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona.

The exhibit features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. "My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966," Lopez writes. "It's a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America."

Lopez has documented real-world situations and the military around the globe and has captured stunning images in Arizona and Guatemala. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book Arizona 24/7, and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition, and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.

Deng Guo Yuan
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

This exhibit will highlight ink brush paintings by Tianjin-based Chinese artist Deng Guo Yuan. His work reveals the tradition of Chinese landscape painting and a profound knowledge of modern and international contemporary aesthetics. The film "Deng Guo Yuan" (2010) by French filmmaker Pierre Creton, presented in the Gallery's vault, meticulously documents the creation of one of Deng Guo Yuan's ink paintings in his Tianjin studio. Widely exhibited in China and Europe, this will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The show originated at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum (Tianjin, China), and then traveled in modified form to the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA), to the Provenance Center (New London, CT), and to its last venue, the Warehouse Gallery, for which Deng Guo Yuan will create additional site-specific works.

VPA Faculty Show Part I
XL Projects

Price: Free
XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

Part one of an exhibition of work by faculty in S.U.'s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

For more information, phone 315-442-2542 during gallery hours or e-mail Andrew Havenhand at ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Six Make One
Echo

745 N. Salina St. (formerly Craft Chemistry)
Syracuse

Installation by six artists: Brendan Rose, Briana Kohlbrenner, Damian Vallelonga, Jeff Walter, Mark Povinelli and Stasya Erickson. From design to construction in under two weeks. The concept of this installation was influenced by an previous installation called "New Formula."

Men Only: Vernacular Photographs of Male Affection
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit of works from the collection of William Knodel looks at masculinity, gender and sexuality in our society. William Knodel was a college student in the 1970s in New York City when he purchased his first second-hand snapshot, a group of young men in assorted swimming attire whose style dated them back to the turn of the century, posing before a camp tent marked with a sign, "Men Only." Since then, he's collected vernacular images of male affection -- tintypes, daguerreotypes and photos -- during his travels to the West Coast, Canada, and Europe, scouring second-hand shops, old photo sales and used book stores. His collection now runs into the hundreds, dating from the mid-19th century and featuring couples and socializing groups from every race and social class. "Men Only" is a gift that incarnates the "gay spirit" that his good friend Harry Hay warned us must be kept alive and a history too often dismissed.

Read a review!

John Knecht: Deluge and Anima
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Deluge (2010) hand-drawn looping animation
Anima (2011) hand-drawn looping animation

Artist Statement:
Things have been falling in my videos for decades. It was at first formal. Falling things filled the frame and made a complicated cinematic space. The things falling -- wishbones, test tubes, martini glasses, plastic strawberries that looked like a human heart, cement blocks and infected molars -- increasingly became an atmosphere, functioning both as a formal device and a metaphorical space.

There is a drawing in the collection of the Queen, hanging in Buckingham Palace, by Leonardo daVinci which depicts a deluge of raining everyday objects: rakes, funnels, lamps and general debris. The title of the drawing is "A Cloudburst of Material Things." It is graphite on paper and credited to daVinci. It is dated 1500. The drawing is torn in half so only a part of the drawing remains. I have struggled to find out more about the piece and there is virtually nothing written about it, but I am haunted by it. "Deluge" is directly informed by the overwhelmed totality of daVinci's image. What was he thinking?

Opening Night Reception From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free for Everson members, $10 non-members
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Celebrate the arrival of this exhibition and "John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel." Enjoy musical entertainment by Joe Davoli and Bob Halligan, Jr., light hors d'oeuvres, and a cash bar before previewing the exhibitions.

"From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland" is the first exhibition to examine the American artist's work focused on the Irish landscape and people, particularly children, created between the time of his first trip to Ireland in 1913 and his last trip there in 1928. Long celebrated as an iconic American artist due to his important early work as a teacher and as the leader of The Eight, Henri's paintings have received less attention on their own. Most projects explored his career as it related to his role as a member of The Eight or in a broadly retrospective manner. Few projects focused on his landscapes, drawings, or foreign portraits.

Henri's Irish portraits constitute his largest focused body of work, and often depict the same sitters year after year. These paintings offer a unique and fascinating window onto the genre about which Henri felt most strongly--portraiture--and also chart his experiments with paint handling and color theories over time. He wrote that the time spent in Ireland was extremely valuable to him (it was the only other place besides New York where he purchased a residence), for only there was he able to focus on his painting without the distractions of life in New York. It is not surprising, then, that the periods Henri spent in Ireland were among his most prolific, and the paintings produced there among his most accomplished. Just before his death, Henri composed a list of his most important paintings; many of the works on this list were his Irish subjects. Forty-one paintings of Irish people and landscapes will be on view in the upcoming exhibition.

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Caribbean Cinematic Festival: Current/Social Issues about Sexuality
Community Folk Art Center

Price: $5 regular, $3 student per film; $7 day pass
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

6:00-7:33 pm: Children of God
Bahamian Kareem Mortimer's debut narrative feature tells the stories of three very different individuals: Lena, the conservative, deeply religious wife of a secretly gay firebrand pastor; Romeo, a handsome young black man hiding his sexuality from his close-knit and loving family; and Jonny, the conflicted and creatively-blocked white artist in search of himself. Directed by Kareem Mortimer, 93 minutes, USA, drama, 2010.

7:30-8:30 pm: Discussion led by Professor Linda Carty

8:30-8:50 pm: The Almighty Penis
This documentary centers its attention on men's sexuality and masculinity from a Trinidadian perspective. Directed by Jimmel Daniel, 25 minutes, Trinidad & Tobago, documentary, 2009.

8:50-9:10 pm: The Power of Vagina
Trinidadian Jimmel Daniel's The Power of the Vagina explores the issue of women's sexuality and sexual politics, examining opinions and assumptions about the various ways in which women use their sexuality and the ways men respond. Directed by Jimmel Daniel, 25 minutes, Trinidad & Tobago, documentary, 2010.

9:30 pm: Discussion led by Professor Cecilia Green

The Photographer as Child: A Conversation with the Artist
La Casita Cultural Center
Featuring Efren Lopez

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

The event is part of a series of events related to the exhibition, "The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala."Efren Lopez will discuss his photography, memoir, and life experiences with journalist Simon Perez, assistant professor of broadcast and digital journalism in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication.

An Evening With Soprano Janet Brown
LeMoyne College

Price: $15 general public, $10 seniors, free for LeMoyne students, faculty, staff
Panasci Family Chapel
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Soprano Janet Brown and pianist Ida Trebicka will present a sacred concert featuring the works of Bach, Handel, Massenet, Debussy, and more.

Music Education Class of 2012 Concert
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music

Price: Free (donations accepted)
Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Music education seniors in the Setnor School of Music will present a concert that will include vocal and instrumental works ranging from solo to large ensemble pieces. Donations will be accepted to support scholarships for SU students and music teachers in the Syracuse area. The concert is sponsored by SU's chapter of the National Association for Music Education.

Free parking is available in the Irving Garage; patrons should mention that they are attending the concert.

Carmina Burana
Syracuse Opera

Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Carmina Burana is Carl Orff's masterpiece of total theater presented fully staged as the composer intended, with stage action, dance, choreography, lighting and dramatic visual design. Orff's dynamic score celebrates life through all four seasons. A favorite musical choice of filmmakers, the score includes a compelling blend of pagan rhythm and sublime melodies. Sung in Latin and Middle High German with projected English titles.

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Poets Bruce Bennett and Gary Leising
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Bruce Bennett is the author of more than 30 books and chapbooks of poetry, including Subway Figure (Orchises Press, 2009), Something Like Karma (Clandestine Press, 2009) and A Girl Like You (Finishing Line Press, 2011). His New and Selected Poems, Navigating The Distances, was cited by Booklist as "One of the Top Ten Poetry Books of 1999." He is Professor and Chair of English and Director of Creative Writing at Wells College.

Gary Leising is the author of Fastened to a Dying Animal, published by Pudding House Publications in 2010; his prose poem "Toenails Diary" was chosen by Russell Edson for the 2008 1/2K Prize from Indiana Review. His work has appeared in journals such as The Cincinnati Review, River Styx and Pleiades. He is associate professor of English at Utica College.

I Love You Because
CNY Playhouse
Meghan Pearson, director

Price: Dinner theater: $35 single; $65 couple. Show only: $25 (limited availability)
Fire and Ice Banquet Hall, The Locker Room
528 Hiawatha Blvd., Syracuse

Dinner at 6:45 pm, followed by show at 8:00 pm.

A modern day musical love story.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, NATC presents a modern twist on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, set in New York City. A young, uptight greeting card writer's life is changed when he meets a flighty photographer. Along with their eccentric friends and siblings, they learn to love each other not in spite of their faults, but because of them. This wonderful event will be great for Valentine's dates or as a night out for singles looking to laugh at love.

Music by Joshua Salzman, book and lyrics by Ryan Cunningham, orchestrations by Larry Hochman, music direction by Ceara Windhausen

Read a Review!

Othello
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Price: $12 regular; $10 student/senior; $5 SU students, faculty, staff and alumni
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

This play is one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. Othello focuses on the themes of love, jealousy and ambition. Set in modern times, the show will resonate with audience members who see our cultural mores in the 21st century played out in Shakespeare's beautiful language. Starring Tony Brown in the title role, SSF's 5th annual Shakespeare Under A Roof kickoff features the considerable acting talents of Rick Signorelli as Iago, Sara Caliva as Desdemona, and Nora O'Dea as Emilia. Don't miss this classic of The Bard.

Read a Review!

Red Light Series: Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion
Redhouse

Price: $20 regular, $15 members
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Featured as part of GAYFEST NYC, Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion is a truly hilarious investigation of one man's obsession with the classic screen sirens of the 1940s and '50s and their role in shaping his outlook and identity. The autobiographical work was written by and stars Syracuse native Steve Hayes, and Steve Hayes is all we need onstage for a fast-paced, continuously funny experience.

Steve is a nine-time nominee and three-time winner of the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs MAC Award for Outstanding Comedian and Characterization. He is also the recipient of the Backstage Bistro Award for Comedy Performer of the Year and is a six-time recipient of the ASCAP Popular Music Award. He is known for this film roles in Trick and The Big Gay Musical, as well as his weekly YouTube video blog, "Tired Old Queen at the Movies."

Read a review!

Caroline, or Change
Syracuse Stage
Marcela Lorca, director

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The acclaimed musical event blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek: The Musical).

An eight-year-old boy named Noah Gellman struggles with the loss of his mother and the arrival of a new stepmother. One constant in his life are the small daily rituals he shares with Caroline, the family's African-American maid. The year is 1963—civil rights and Kennedy—and in the Gellman household in Lake Charles, Louisiana, change is coming for everyone, in big ways and small. Two powerhouses of the American theatre, playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori, join forces on a musical of startling creativity and refreshing originality (don't be surprised when the washing machine starts to sing). Acclaimed on Broadway and winner of London's prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Musical, with a score ranging from blues to gospel to traditional Jewish melodies, Caroline, or Change proves playwright Kushner's point that "music is a blessing that enters the soul through the ear."

Read a Review!

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

Price Check
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A research-based curatorial examination by Roslyn Esperon and Courtney Rile, featuring the art of Michael Barletta, Caol Flaitz, Carla Goldberg, Novado Cappuccilli, Jason Varone, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, and Leah Wolff

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

CNY Visions
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Unique views of the Central New York area through the lenses of Herm Card, Richard Emory, Larry Hoyt, and Bill Sullivan. Also showcasing the artglass of Phil Austin and jewelry of Esperanza Tielbaard.

From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $10 adults, $8 students/seniors, $30 family pack (2 adults, 4 children))
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland" is the first exhibition to examine the American artist's work focused on the Irish landscape and people, particularly children, created between the time of his first trip to Ireland in 1913 and his last trip there in 1928. Long celebrated as an iconic American artist due to his important early work as a teacher and as the leader of The Eight, Henri's paintings have received less attention on their own. Most projects explored his career as it related to his role as a member of The Eight or in a broadly retrospective manner. Few projects focused on his landscapes, drawings, or foreign portraits.

Henri's Irish portraits constitute his largest focused body of work, and often depict the same sitters year after year. These paintings offer a unique and fascinating window onto the genre about which Henri felt most strongly--portraiture--and also chart his experiments with paint handling and color theories over time. He wrote that the time spent in Ireland was extremely valuable to him (it was the only other place besides New York where he purchased a residence), for only there was he able to focus on his painting without the distractions of life in New York. It is not surprising, then, that the periods Henri spent in Ireland were among his most prolific, and the paintings produced there among his most accomplished. Just before his death, Henri composed a list of his most important paintings; many of the works on this list were his Irish subjects. Forty-one paintings of Irish people and landscapes will be on view in the upcoming exhibition.

John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $5 suggested donation
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht is the featured artist for the Urban Video Project in January and February. In conjunction with the exhibition of "Deluge and Anima" on the Everson's north façade, a series of Knecht's animations, called "Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel," will be on view inside the museum. The Fragments, individual animations displayed on monitors, provide a glimpse into the artist's brilliant imagination, where fantasy collides with vivid colors and quirky sounds.

Envisionary
Szozda Gallery

Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Well established artist Phil Parsons and relatively new talent Emily Elizabeth display their painterly visions of atmospheric and landscape horizons surrounding Central New York. "Envisionary," the show's title, was coined perhaps to sharpen the concept of changing environs, elements commonplace every day that some artists foresee in greater depths than what most people perceive. In Elizabeth's case, it's her fascination with the universe that compels her to paint beyond shape and form to focus on color and atmosphere, while Parsons chooses to capture memorable landscapes that he himself alters with color and invented skies, reflecting his own feelings.

Read a review!

Six Make One
Echo

745 N. Salina St. (formerly Craft Chemistry)
Syracuse

Installation by six artists: Brendan Rose, Briana Kohlbrenner, Damian Vallelonga, Jeff Walter, Mark Povinelli and Stasya Erickson. From design to construction in under two weeks. The concept of this installation was influenced by an previous installation called "New Formula."

Emilio Sanchez: No Way Home--Images of the Caribbean and New York City
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"No Way Home" features a selection of 24 paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints drawn from the recently acquired collection of work by Cuban-American artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999). Best known for his brightly colored, strongly shadowed images of Caribbean and New York City architecture, this exhibition reveals the artist's ongoing interest in repetitive patterns. The show highlights a recent gift to the University Art Collection from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation of over 250 paintings, drawings and prints.

Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions" chronicles the recent decade of artwork published by one of the most renowned American printmaking workshops. The exhibition of 60 works illustrates the impact that artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler and Kiki Smith have had on contemporary art, evident through the work of artists Jason Middelbrook, Amy Cutler and Jane Hammond. The show also illustrates how emerging artists recently selected to work with ULAE has influenced the current trend, in both process and concept.

Weekend and evening visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces are not available, the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Men Only: Vernacular Photographs of Male Affection
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit of works from the collection of William Knodel looks at masculinity, gender and sexuality in our society. William Knodel was a college student in the 1970s in New York City when he purchased his first second-hand snapshot, a group of young men in assorted swimming attire whose style dated them back to the turn of the century, posing before a camp tent marked with a sign, "Men Only." Since then, he's collected vernacular images of male affection -- tintypes, daguerreotypes and photos -- during his travels to the West Coast, Canada, and Europe, scouring second-hand shops, old photo sales and used book stores. His collection now runs into the hundreds, dating from the mid-19th century and featuring couples and socializing groups from every race and social class. "Men Only" is a gift that incarnates the "gay spirit" that his good friend Harry Hay warned us must be kept alive and a history too often dismissed.

Read a review!

Deng Guo Yuan
The Warehouse Gallery

Price: Free
The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

This exhibit will highlight ink brush paintings by Tianjin-based Chinese artist Deng Guo Yuan. His work reveals the tradition of Chinese landscape painting and a profound knowledge of modern and international contemporary aesthetics. The film "Deng Guo Yuan" (2010) by French filmmaker Pierre Creton, presented in the Gallery's vault, meticulously documents the creation of one of Deng Guo Yuan's ink paintings in his Tianjin studio. Widely exhibited in China and Europe, this will be the artist's first solo museum exhibition in the United States. The show originated at the Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum (Tianjin, China), and then traveled in modified form to the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, PA), to the Provenance Center (New London, CT), and to its last venue, the Warehouse Gallery, for which Deng Guo Yuan will create additional site-specific works.

VPA Faculty Show Part I
XL Projects

Price: Free
XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

Part one of an exhibition of work by faculty in S.U.'s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

For more information, phone 315-442-2542 during gallery hours or e-mail Andrew Havenhand at ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

John Knecht: Deluge and Anima
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Deluge (2010) hand-drawn looping animation
Anima (2011) hand-drawn looping animation

Artist Statement:
Things have been falling in my videos for decades. It was at first formal. Falling things filled the frame and made a complicated cinematic space. The things falling -- wishbones, test tubes, martini glasses, plastic strawberries that looked like a human heart, cement blocks and infected molars -- increasingly became an atmosphere, functioning both as a formal device and a metaphorical space.

There is a drawing in the collection of the Queen, hanging in Buckingham Palace, by Leonardo daVinci which depicts a deluge of raining everyday objects: rakes, funnels, lamps and general debris. The title of the drawing is "A Cloudburst of Material Things." It is graphite on paper and credited to daVinci. It is dated 1500. The drawing is torn in half so only a part of the drawing remains. I have struggled to find out more about the piece and there is virtually nothing written about it, but I am haunted by it. "Deluge" is directly informed by the overwhelmed totality of daVinci's image. What was he thinking?

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Opening Reception: Men Only: Vernacular Photographs of Male Affection
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

There will be an artists' reception this evening 7:00-9:00 pm. Meet the collector and curator, and enjoy food, drink, and live music with Jeff Unaitis.

This exhibit of works from the collection of William Knodel looks at masculinity, gender and sexuality in our society. William Knodel was a college student in the 1970s in New York City when he purchased his first second-hand snapshot, a group of young men in assorted swimming attire whose style dated them back to the turn of the century, posing before a camp tent marked with a sign, "Men Only." Since then, he's collected vernacular images of male affection -- tintypes, daguerreotypes and photos -- during his travels to the West Coast, Canada, and Europe, scouring second-hand shops, old photo sales and used book stores. His collection now runs into the hundreds, dating from the mid-19th century and featuring couples and socializing groups from every race and social class. "Men Only" is a gift that incarnates the "gay spirit" that his good friend Harry Hay warned us must be kept alive and a history too often dismissed.

Read a review!

Presidents...and the Women Who Loved Them
Salt City Improv Theater

Price: $5
Salt City Improv Theatre
Shoppingtown Mall, Sears Wing, Dewitt

The thrill of the major holidays is behind us. In February, we're left with B-list celebrations, like Valentine's Day (downright depressing, if you're single) and Presidents' Day (just a cheesy excuse for the government to get a day off from work). So, to make things more interesting, we're combining the two. Join us for an evening of hilarious improv comedy with our show, "Presidents...and the Women Who Loved Them."

We give mad props to the First Ladies...who, throughout history, have been the Women-Behind-the-Men in the Oval Office. But, let's not forget the "Second Ladies." From Marilyn Monroe ("Happy Birrrrthday, Mister Pres-i-dent") to Monica Lewinsky (seriously...who doesn't enjoy a good cigar), many of our Commanders-in-Chief have enjoyed a little somethin'-somethin' on the side.

Featured in this show is the Salt City Improv house team, Pork Pie Hat, doing short-form improv in the style of the hit TV show, Whose Line Is It, Anyway?

Caribbean Cinematic Festival: Historical Films
Community Folk Art Center

Price: $5 regular, $3 student per film; $12 day pass
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

11:00 am-12:30 pm: Fire in Babylon
Fire in Babylon is the breathtaking story of how a team of West Indian cricket players used their undisputed skill, combined with a fearless spirit, to dominate the genteel game at the highest level, replaying it on their own terms. Directed by Stevan Riley, 120 minutes, USA, sports documentary, 2011

12:30-1:30 pm: Discussion led by Professor Kevin Browne

1:30-3:00 pm: First Rasta
He sought to find his promised land. With a cocktail of ideas—Bolshevism to New Thought, Gandhi to Anarchism and Garveyism to psychoanalysis—Leonard Going Howell, the First Rasta, founded Pinnacle, the first Rasta community in Jamaica. Directed by Hélène Lee, 90 minutes, France, documentary, 2011

3:00-4:00 pm: Discussion led by Professor Horace Campbell and Jerk Hut owner Irvin "Bongo" Hanslip.

4:30-5:30 pm: Egalite for All
The only successful slave insurrection in history, the Haitian revolution grasped the full meaning of French revolutionary ideas liberté, eqalité, fraternité and used them to create the world's first Black republic. Directed by Noland Walker, 60 minutes. USA, Documentary, 2009.

5:30-6:30 pm: Discussion led by Professor Herbert G. Ruffin

Festival Film Series: Finnster and Androides
ArtRage Gallery
Syracuse International Film Festival

Price: $5 suggested donation
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

Finnster by Thomas Korthals Altes (Netherlands), fiction, 47 min
Finn, 15, is an uncomplicated schoolboy until one day, coming home from school he catches his father Roelof in his mom's dress. The man Finn has looked up to his whole life wants to become a woman. Finn, just discovering his own sexuality, is troubled by this new discovery. A struggle with feelings of shame, love and loyalty follows. Luckily Lizzie, his new found friend, is there to help him.

Androides by María Pérez (Spain), fiction, 15 min
Facing a boring and lonely summer, androgynous teenage Simon takes to trying alien communication. No news is dull news till a mysterious girl comes into the neighborhood -- and turns Simon’s life around.

Children's Games: Music for Dance & Play

Price: $10 adults, students free regular, $ students/seniors
Andrews Memorial United Methodist Church
106 Church St., North Syracuse

This program will feature dancers from Dance Centre North; Gerald Zampino, clarinet; Martha Grener, flute; and Maryna Mazhukhova, piano.

One Shot Willy & The Chasers
Steeple Coffeehouse

Price: $10 includes dessert and beverage
United Church of Fayetteville
310 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville

Featuring original and popular music.

Joanne Shenandoah
Westcott Community Center

Price: $15 regular, $12 WCC members
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

As one of America's most celebrated and critically acclaimed musicians, Joanne Shenandoah is a powerful advocate for Native American music and cultural traditions. To help celebrate the release of her latest CD, "Lifegivers," she'll present a special concert at the Westcott Center, featuring new songs from the album, as well as other selections from her musical legacy. For this concert she will be joined by her sister Diane, daughter Leah, and Chris Vescey on dulcimer.

Inspired by rhythms and music from different cultures, "Lifegivers" is a tribute to the life cycles of women, from the first beating of her heart to the time her spirit returns home to the Skyworld. These uplifting songs embrace the many life givers of the world; newborns, young women, pregnant women, women in love, women who sing, women who teach, and women of wisdom. Each song brings the listener to a place of celebration for every cycle of life.

Shenandoah is a Wolf Clan member of the Iroquois Confederacy and draws her musical inspiration from her heritage. She sings with a power and energy that complement the tender warmth of the songs. She has truly fulfilled the promise of her Native American name, Tekaliwah-kwa, (She Sings).

Einstein's Amazin' Equation
Open Hand Theater

Price: $8 adults, $6 children
International Mask and Puppet Museum
518 Prospect Ave., Syracuse

Albert Einstein's life was influenced by many events and the work of many scientists throughout history. Open Hand Theater creates simple delightful scenes where each concept in Einstein's famous equation E=mc² comes to life as each puppet scientist describes the ideas that led to their discoveries. The performance is fun, lively and thought provoking.

The Little Mermaid
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

Price: $5
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

Interactive adaptation of the children's classic.

Read a review!

Caroline, or Change
Syracuse Stage
Marcela Lorca, director

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The acclaimed musical event blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek: The Musical).

An eight-year-old boy named Noah Gellman struggles with the loss of his mother and the arrival of a new stepmother. One constant in his life are the small daily rituals he shares with Caroline, the family's African-American maid. The year is 1963—civil rights and Kennedy—and in the Gellman household in Lake Charles, Louisiana, change is coming for everyone, in big ways and small. Two powerhouses of the American theatre, playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori, join forces on a musical of startling creativity and refreshing originality (don't be surprised when the washing machine starts to sing). Acclaimed on Broadway and winner of London's prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Musical, with a score ranging from blues to gospel to traditional Jewish melodies, Caroline, or Change proves playwright Kushner's point that "music is a blessing that enters the soul through the ear."

Read a Review!

I Love You Because
CNY Playhouse
Meghan Pearson, director

Price: Dinner theater: $35 single; $65 couple. Show only: $25 (limited availability)
Fire and Ice Banquet Hall, The Locker Room
528 Hiawatha Blvd., Syracuse

Dinner at 6:45 pm, followed by show at 8:00 pm.

A modern day musical love story.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, NATC presents a modern twist on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, set in New York City. A young, uptight greeting card writer's life is changed when he meets a flighty photographer. Along with their eccentric friends and siblings, they learn to love each other not in spite of their faults, but because of them. This wonderful event will be great for Valentine's dates or as a night out for singles looking to laugh at love.

Music by Joshua Salzman, book and lyrics by Ryan Cunningham, orchestrations by Larry Hochman, music direction by Ceara Windhausen

Read a Review!

Othello
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Price: $12 regular; $10 student/senior; $5 SU students, faculty, staff and alumni
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

This play is one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. Othello focuses on the themes of love, jealousy and ambition. Set in modern times, the show will resonate with audience members who see our cultural mores in the 21st century played out in Shakespeare's beautiful language. Starring Tony Brown in the title role, SSF's 5th annual Shakespeare Under A Roof kickoff features the considerable acting talents of Rick Signorelli as Iago, Sara Caliva as Desdemona, and Nora O'Dea as Emilia. Don't miss this classic of The Bard.

Read a Review!

Red Light Series: Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion
Redhouse

Price: $20 regular, $15 members
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Featured as part of GAYFEST NYC, Steve Hayes' Hollywood Reunion is a truly hilarious investigation of one man's obsession with the classic screen sirens of the 1940s and '50s and their role in shaping his outlook and identity. The autobiographical work was written by and stars Syracuse native Steve Hayes, and Steve Hayes is all we need onstage for a fast-paced, continuously funny experience.

Steve is a nine-time nominee and three-time winner of the Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs MAC Award for Outstanding Comedian and Characterization. He is also the recipient of the Backstage Bistro Award for Comedy Performer of the Year and is a six-time recipient of the ASCAP Popular Music Award. He is known for this film roles in Trick and The Big Gay Musical, as well as his weekly YouTube video blog, "Tired Old Queen at the Movies."

Read a review!

Caroline, or Change
Syracuse Stage
Marcela Lorca, director

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The acclaimed musical event blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek: The Musical).

An eight-year-old boy named Noah Gellman struggles with the loss of his mother and the arrival of a new stepmother. One constant in his life are the small daily rituals he shares with Caroline, the family's African-American maid. The year is 1963—civil rights and Kennedy—and in the Gellman household in Lake Charles, Louisiana, change is coming for everyone, in big ways and small. Two powerhouses of the American theatre, playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori, join forces on a musical of startling creativity and refreshing originality (don't be surprised when the washing machine starts to sing). Acclaimed on Broadway and winner of London's prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Musical, with a score ranging from blues to gospel to traditional Jewish melodies, Caroline, or Change proves playwright Kushner's point that "music is a blessing that enters the soul through the ear."

Read a Review!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

Envisionary
Szozda Gallery

Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Well established artist Phil Parsons and relatively new talent Emily Elizabeth display their painterly visions of atmospheric and landscape horizons surrounding Central New York. "Envisionary," the show's title, was coined perhaps to sharpen the concept of changing environs, elements commonplace every day that some artists foresee in greater depths than what most people perceive. In Elizabeth's case, it's her fascination with the universe that compels her to paint beyond shape and form to focus on color and atmosphere, while Parsons chooses to capture memorable landscapes that he himself alters with color and invented skies, reflecting his own feelings.

Read a review!

Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Pressing Print: Contemporary Prints and Process from Universal Limited Art Editions" chronicles the recent decade of artwork published by one of the most renowned American printmaking workshops. The exhibition of 60 works illustrates the impact that artists like Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler and Kiki Smith have had on contemporary art, evident through the work of artists Jason Middelbrook, Amy Cutler and Jane Hammond. The show also illustrates how emerging artists recently selected to work with ULAE has influenced the current trend, in both process and concept.

Weekend and evening visitors can park in the Q4 lot on College Place. Notify the attendant that you are visiting the Galleries and you will be directed where to park. Parking is on a space available basis and may be restricted during events held at the Carrier Dome. If spaces are not available, the attendant will direct you to the nearest lot.

Emilio Sanchez: No Way Home--Images of the Caribbean and New York City
Syracuse University Art Museum

Price: Free
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"No Way Home" features a selection of 24 paintings, watercolors, drawings and prints drawn from the recently acquired collection of work by Cuban-American artist Emilio Sanchez (1921-1999). Best known for his brightly colored, strongly shadowed images of Caribbean and New York City architecture, this exhibition reveals the artist's ongoing interest in repetitive patterns. The show highlights a recent gift to the University Art Collection from the Emilio Sanchez Foundation of over 250 paintings, drawings and prints.

From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $10 adults, $8 students/seniors, $30 family pack (2 adults, 4 children))
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland" is the first exhibition to examine the American artist's work focused on the Irish landscape and people, particularly children, created between the time of his first trip to Ireland in 1913 and his last trip there in 1928. Long celebrated as an iconic American artist due to his important early work as a teacher and as the leader of The Eight, Henri's paintings have received less attention on their own. Most projects explored his career as it related to his role as a member of The Eight or in a broadly retrospective manner. Few projects focused on his landscapes, drawings, or foreign portraits.

Henri's Irish portraits constitute his largest focused body of work, and often depict the same sitters year after year. These paintings offer a unique and fascinating window onto the genre about which Henri felt most strongly--portraiture--and also chart his experiments with paint handling and color theories over time. He wrote that the time spent in Ireland was extremely valuable to him (it was the only other place besides New York where he purchased a residence), for only there was he able to focus on his painting without the distractions of life in New York. It is not surprising, then, that the periods Henri spent in Ireland were among his most prolific, and the paintings produced there among his most accomplished. Just before his death, Henri composed a list of his most important paintings; many of the works on this list were his Irish subjects. Forty-one paintings of Irish people and landscapes will be on view in the upcoming exhibition.

John Knecht: Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $5 suggested donation
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

John Knecht is the featured artist for the Urban Video Project in January and February. In conjunction with the exhibition of "Deluge and Anima" on the Everson's north façade, a series of Knecht's animations, called "Fragments from the Wheels of Ezekiel," will be on view inside the museum. The Fragments, individual animations displayed on monitors, provide a glimpse into the artist's brilliant imagination, where fantasy collides with vivid colors and quirky sounds.

VPA Faculty Show Part I
XL Projects

Price: Free
XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

Part one of an exhibition of work by faculty in S.U.'s College of Visual and Performing Arts.

For more information, phone 315-442-2542 during gallery hours or e-mail Andrew Havenhand at ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Price Check
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A research-based curatorial examination by Roslyn Esperon and Courtney Rile, featuring the art of Michael Barletta, Caol Flaitz, Carla Goldberg, Novado Cappuccilli, Jason Varone, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, and Leah Wolff

John Knecht: Deluge and Anima
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Deluge (2010) hand-drawn looping animation
Anima (2011) hand-drawn looping animation

Artist Statement:
Things have been falling in my videos for decades. It was at first formal. Falling things filled the frame and made a complicated cinematic space. The things falling -- wishbones, test tubes, martini glasses, plastic strawberries that looked like a human heart, cement blocks and infected molars -- increasingly became an atmosphere, functioning both as a formal device and a metaphorical space.

There is a drawing in the collection of the Queen, hanging in Buckingham Palace, by Leonardo daVinci which depicts a deluge of raining everyday objects: rakes, funnels, lamps and general debris. The title of the drawing is "A Cloudburst of Material Things." It is graphite on paper and credited to daVinci. It is dated 1500. The drawing is torn in half so only a part of the drawing remains. I have struggled to find out more about the piece and there is virtually nothing written about it, but I am haunted by it. "Deluge" is directly informed by the overwhelmed totality of daVinci's image. What was he thinking?

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

Caribbean Cinematic Festival: Music
Community Folk Art Center

Price: $5 regular, $3 student per film
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

12:00-1:40 pm: La Salsa Cubana
An authentic and rare view of Cuba today and the dancing that lifts the national spirit, La Salsa Cubana is about a dance group from the outskirts of Havana, striving to win the Cuban national dance competition. Directed by Eric Joseph Johnson and Sarita Streng, 80 minutes, USA/Cuba, music/dance documentary, 2011.

1:40-2:40 pm: Discussion immediately following led by Professor Kwame Dixon, with Salsa lesson by Jose Miguel "Papo"

Black History Month Cabaret with the Allan Harris Quartet
CNY Jazz Arts Foundation

Price: $30 regular, $25 subscribers/donors
Sheraton Syracuse University Grand Ballroom
801 University Ave., Syracuse

CNY Jazz's ever-popular Black History Month cabaret returns this year, with "protean talent" Allan Harris joining us from New York City. A blues/jazz guitarist and baritone crooner, Harris is a three times winner of a New York Nightlife Award who has been described by none other than Tony Bennett as "my favorite singer." Praise doesn't get higher than that!

Based in New York City, he's a regular at the world's great music festivals, including Jazz Aspen, Wien Jazz Festival in Austria, and the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy.

A diverse talent, Harris can be seen on TV as Price Chopper's latest "endorsing guitarist," and for the theater, he composed "Cross That River," a full-scale Western musical featuring the words and music of a black cowboy. Harris received a prestigious Chamber Music America Grant for that production.

Carmina Burana
Syracuse Opera

Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Carmina Burana is Carl Orff's masterpiece of total theater presented fully staged as the composer intended, with stage action, dance, choreography, lighting and dramatic visual design. Orff's dynamic score celebrates life through all four seasons. A favorite musical choice of filmmakers, the score includes a compelling blend of pagan rhythm and sublime melodies. Sung in Latin and Middle High German with projected English titles.

Read a Review!

Othello
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Price: $12 regular; $10 student/senior; $5 SU students, faculty, staff and alumni
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

This play is one of Shakespeare's masterpieces. Othello focuses on the themes of love, jealousy and ambition. Set in modern times, the show will resonate with audience members who see our cultural mores in the 21st century played out in Shakespeare's beautiful language. Starring Tony Brown in the title role, SSF's 5th annual Shakespeare Under A Roof kickoff features the considerable acting talents of Rick Signorelli as Iago, Sara Caliva as Desdemona, and Nora O'Dea as Emilia. Don't miss this classic of The Bard.

Read a Review!

Caroline, or Change
Syracuse Stage
Marcela Lorca, director

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The acclaimed musical event blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek: The Musical).

An eight-year-old boy named Noah Gellman struggles with the loss of his mother and the arrival of a new stepmother. One constant in his life are the small daily rituals he shares with Caroline, the family's African-American maid. The year is 1963—civil rights and Kennedy—and in the Gellman household in Lake Charles, Louisiana, change is coming for everyone, in big ways and small. Two powerhouses of the American theatre, playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori, join forces on a musical of startling creativity and refreshing originality (don't be surprised when the washing machine starts to sing). Acclaimed on Broadway and winner of London's prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Musical, with a score ranging from blues to gospel to traditional Jewish melodies, Caroline, or Change proves playwright Kushner's point that "music is a blessing that enters the soul through the ear."

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Caroline, or Change
Syracuse Stage
Marcela Lorca, director

Archbold Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Talkback Series: Meet the actors following this performance.

The acclaimed musical event blending blues, gospel and traditional Jewish melodies, with book and lyrics by Tony Kushner (Angels in America) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Thoroughly Modern Millie and Shrek: The Musical).

An eight-year-old boy named Noah Gellman struggles with the loss of his mother and the arrival of a new stepmother. One constant in his life are the small daily rituals he shares with Caroline, the family's African-American maid. The year is 1963—civil rights and Kennedy—and in the Gellman household in Lake Charles, Louisiana, change is coming for everyone, in big ways and small. Two powerhouses of the American theatre, playwright Tony Kushner and composer Jeanine Tesori, join forces on a musical of startling creativity and refreshing originality (don't be surprised when the washing machine starts to sing). Acclaimed on Broadway and winner of London's prestigious Olivier Award for Best New Musical, with a score ranging from blues to gospel to traditional Jewish melodies, Caroline, or Change proves playwright Kushner's point that "music is a blessing that enters the soul through the ear."

Read a Review!

Monday, February 13, 2012

Windows Project: Elisabeth Meyer: Black Night/White Night
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Window Project features an installation by Elisabeth Meyer consisting of organic forms embroidered onto an organza fabric. The overall patterning evokes an association with ocean waves and a net. The transparent quality of the organza background allows the viewer to see through the piece that is hanging from the ceiling covering the entire window front. The work addresses the issue of displacement through traveling. Meyer, who is based in Ithaca, developed the concept for this exhibition while at a residency in Iceland, traveled to India to oversee the production of the embroidery, and created the work on site in Syracuse.

Gallery Exhibit: Abisay Puentes, Imposibilitatos
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Ann Felton Multicultural Center and Gallery
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Artist Statement:

In the imagination of all artists lay all transcendent questions that humankind have formulated in their heart and mind. In my artwork there are only a few questions as the center. Why do humans hurt each other? What is the reason for man's evil? Why do men have bad nature?

The only answer I have found is: Because mankind is "IMPOSIBILITATO" (unable, helpless, without means, impossibility in man).

This is a spiritual and physical stage that makes possible an unhappy humanity. This impossibility became the product of man losing the purpose of existence. With this loss we have found pain, agony and disorientation.

In my paintings I try to capture the diverse stages of impossibility. This is why this series has the same theme, feeling and internal message. Between the expressionism and the neo-romanticism I establish a pictorial-sonorous piece of work with its own time and space, making a greater connection with the viewer.

CNY Scholastic Art Awards Exhibit
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Whitney Applied Technology Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The Awards signify to parents, teachers, community, and colleges that a student is an accomplished artist or writer. 30,000 teen artists and writers will be recognized in their regions. 1,000 will win national awards. Each work is reviewed by a panel of arts professionals for the originality, technical skill, and emergence of personal vision or voice.

Contain/Constrain: Works by Sam Horowitz
Point of Contact Gallery

Price: Free
Point of Contact Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

In today's virtual era, when we can communicate at light speed, inhabit cyber realities, and continually discard the "old" in search for "upgrades", one might expect that technology innovation makes us less burdened, less constrained by time and space. By the same token, so many of us are living rushed unthinking lives, desensitized and isolated from anything real. Are we constrained by our own innovations? We work, live and play inside frames, according to Horowitz, and those frames are mobile or immobile, physical, mental or metaphorical.

In this exhibition, the intrusion of familiar objects with uncharacteristic contents invites the viewer to reconsider the forms, functions and limitations of recognizable, re-purposed relics, and pokes fun at our decreasing flexibility, our increasing demands, and the collective loss of craft, localized-innovation and repair. "The trunks, once utilitarian objects used to carry clothing and other personal items, are now filled for the sake of filling. The cardboard, created initially to contain other entities, functions as contents. Though each framing device no longer holds the contents they were created to contain, they contain nonetheless; it is the humor and irony of this relationship that I strive to illustrate thorough my work."

To create this installation, Horowitz began by collecting trunks, cases and boxes. Though most bore a patina of age, use and neglect, he cleaned, fixed, and saved each piece. Horowitz is able to manipulate cardboard to create the designs and patterns he finds within the lines and corrugation so readily offered. "I have drawn each piece through the gauntlet intentionally, irrationally or purely by necessity," states Horowitz. "Thinking over my work, and planning new directions strays into theory, but in practice, I work, live, and act in this moment."

Salon: Strictly Local
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

Price: Free
Syracuse Technology Garden
235 Harrison St., Syracuse

The exhibit will feature works by over 50 local artists.

The Power and The Piety: The World of Medieval and Renaissance Europe
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

Price: Free
Bird Library, 6th Floor
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibit, curated by History Professor Chris Kyle with Senior Director of Special Collections Sean Quimby, showcases the library's collection of illuminated manuscripts and early printed works, including a leaf from the Gutenberg Bible.

The title "The Power and The Piety," refers to extraordinary influence that secular monarchies and the Church had on the lives of everyday men and women. Richly illustrated late medieval psalters and books of hours exemplify the painstaking attention that the pious paid to their spiritual well-being. But the printing revolution made it possible for new ideas to spread more rapidly. Printed works like Thomas Hobbes' "Leviathan" (1651) signified the increasing power wielded by kings, queens and other secular authorities. As the Protestant Reformation and Scientific Revolution took hold of Europe, the power of the Catholic Church further waned. "The Power and the Piety" includes such important works as the first King James Bible (1611) and a second printing of Copernicus' "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" (1566), which argued in favor of a heliocentric, or sun-centered, universe.

The exhibition is arranged thematically, highlighting the overarching themes of power and piety, as well as English literature, music, architecture, science and fine bindings.

FOR_PLAY
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring James and Hayes Slade

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Gallery
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

An exhibition of projects by Slade Architecture of New York City designed for or including an element of play.

Westcott Community Gallery Group Show
Westcott Community Art Gallery

Price: Free
Westcott Community Center
Corner of Euclid Ave. and Westcott St., Syracuse

Works by Molly Susman, Steve Susman, and Jessica Breedlove.

Looking & Looking: Photos by Amy Elkins and Jen Davis
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Jen Davis and Amy Elkins create work that focuses on gaze and identity, with Davis looking at herself and Elkins looking at young male athletes. The images in the exhibition explore the perception of how men and women are supposed to appear in society -- men should be strong and confident, women should be beautiful -- and the crafting of a self-image.

Jen Davis creates self-portraits that deal with issues surrounding beauty, identity, and body image of women, and challenges the perceptions and stereotypes of how women should look in their physical appearances. Amy Elkins depicts the more aggressive, competitive, and violent aspects of male identity in her series Elegant Violence, which captures portraits of young Ivy League rugby athletes moments after their game. Elkins' images explore the balance between athleticism, modes of violence or aggression, and varying degrees of vulnerability within a sport where brutal body contact is fundamental.

Both artists focus on the construction of identity -- the players are astutely aware of how they are presenting themselves while Davis draws attention to her own self-image in a more emotional way. Shown together, the works of Davis and Elkins urge the viewer to consider expectations and perceptions (both societal and individual) of identity.

The Photographer as Child: Memories of Guatemala
La Casita Cultural Center

La Casita Cultural Center
109 Otisco St., Syracuse

Born in Guatemala, award-winning photographer Efren Lopez is a student in the Military Photojournalism Program at Syracuse University. He is also an aerial photographer for the U.S. Air Force and the first reservist to be selected to attend Newhouse's Military Photojournalism Program. He now lives in Arizona.

The exhibit features images Lopez captured on a return trip to Guatemala in 2009. "My life began in a bamboo hut at the side of a road in a tiny town named Petaca, Guatemala, in 1966," Lopez writes. "It's a town so small that it is next to impossible to find on most maps of Guatemala, much less Central America."

Lopez has documented real-world situations and the military around the globe and has captured stunning images in Arizona and Guatemala. His work has been featured in various publications, including the book Arizona 24/7, and has been awarded many distinctions, including first place in the Professional Photography category at the 2008 Arizona State Fair, an honorable mention in the pictorial category in the 2009 Military Photographer of the Year competition, and first place in the 2011 Multimedia Team 19th Annual Department of Defense Worldwide Military Photography Workshop.

For Syracuse, 2010: Selections of Truisms and Survival
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Internationally renowned artist Jenny Holzer created "For Syracuse" as a site-specific installation that streams across the facade of Syracuse Stage on an LED curtain. The installation features 272 aphorisms from her celebrated series "Truisms, and Survival" that challenge viewer's assumptions about the world we live in through the use of language as art. Whether questioning consumerist impulses, or lamenting the struggles of daily living Jenny Holzer always provokes a response. Her work crosses the boundary between poetry and visual art, and suggests both the limitations and power of technology and the information age.

For more than 30 years, this influential American conceptual artist has been creating subversive works that blend in among advertisements in public spaces questioning and confronting our passive consumption of information. Since the early 1970s, Holzer has been collecting and writing phrases and aphorisms found in literature, philosophy and contemporary culture. She calls these summaries her Truisms, and has printed them on bronze plaques, painted signs, stone benches, footstools, stickers, t-shirts, condoms, paintings, photographs, video, sound, light projection, and the Internet. In 1982, Holzer installed Truisms on one of Time Square's gigantic LED billboards. In the 1980s, for her Survival Series, Holzer adopted more personal and urgent messages about the realities of everyday living. Power, vulnerability, violence, tenderness, moral struggles and motherhood are courageously chronicled in this series which continuously prods the viewer to question the role of individuals in society.

5th Annual Gospel Fest
Onondaga Community College

Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

A showcase of local talented Gospel groups in celebration of Black History Month.