Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

Clayscapes Pottery Studio
1003 W. Fayette St., Suite L1, Syracuse

Senior ceramics majors in the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University will present the exhibition "BFA Ceramics 2009," featuring the work of five seniors: Tim Brockhaus, Rebecca Hill, Crystal Lasda, Jaimie Merrell and Vanna Valdez.

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

To a large extent, Cappuccilli's drawings and paintings are about the beauty of mark making, sensitivity of touch, and forms that are fundamentally mysterious. Her drawings are sometimes mistaken for photographs. The biomorphic drawings may read as benign or threatening hybrids, or as unknown species. The stain drawings developed from recognition of the delicate formal quality of grease stains, and their random patterns.

The Gallery as Studio: Drawings on Delirium
Point of Contact Gallery

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

A world-renowned Uruguayan artist, Ricardo Lanzarini comes from Montevideo to Syracuse to recreate the mundane and the extraordinary in his drawings on delirium made to unexpected scales. The exhibition comes to life at The Point of Contact Gallery where the space has turned into an artist's studio. The work of the exhibit is to be produced entirely on site and directly onto the walls of the gallery in the weeks leading up to the opening. Lanzarini will also share this experiment with students from Syracuse University's Fine Arts Department who will join in the creative process.

Lanzarini's work balances extremes of scale, crafting an extensive abstract image from precise, miniscule characters, whose everyday activities serve as a window into a miniature world, frozen in time. These drawings sarcastically explore the two major paradigms in figurative art of the 20th century: Social and Fantastic Realism

The exhibit will last through the summer and then Lanzarini returns to Point of Contact to perform an "erasure" of the work on September 4. The book catalogue documenting the entire project will be presented at the close.

Photo-Drawings: Recent Works by Julieve Jubin and Juan Perdiguero, and An Introduction: Recent Works by Barbara Stout
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

Fun, wild, and experimental artwork by Rochester's Arena Art Group.

A Goodly Heritage of Study: The Portfolio Club of Syracuse
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

Displayed are the archives of a still-thriving women's study club that was formed in 1875 in Syracuse. The Portfolio Club exemplifies a post-Civil War movement in which many thousands of middle-class women came together to educate themselves in a society that restricted women's access to institutions of higher learning. This club began a few weeks after the Association for the Advancement of Women held a congress at the Wieting Opera House in downtown Syracuse. At these congresses, which took place in many American cities, Julia Ward Howe and other presenters encouraged women to form study clubs for self-culture.

Nine young women founded the Portfolio Club, with guidance from Mary Dana Hicks, their art teacher. Though they began with a focus on art, in the middle 1880s they expanded their scope to include literature, current events, history, performing arts and many other subjects. Members have always met regularly from October through April to read their papers on a topic assigned by each year's president.

Syracuse residents and those long associated with SU will recognize the married names of many past club members, such as Mrs. Donald Dey, Mrs. William Nottingham, Mrs. E.N. Westcott, and Mrs. Mildred Eggers. Among Portfolio guest speakers during the club's first several decades were Judge Charles Andrews, Dean George Fiske Comfort, Howard Lyman, professors Sawyer Falk and Irene Sargent, Paul Paine, Douglas Petit, Katherine Sibley, and SU Chancellor Charles Sims.

The exhibition, which emphasizes the years 1875-1950, includes annual program booklets, many of them finely crafted. Also on display are meeting minutes, clippings, photographs, film footage of a 1935 gathering and other club documents.

Faces: Inspiration from Within -- Works by Erin Boyle
Westcott Community Center

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

Cutting away from traditional portraiture, Erin creates edgy images that offer more expressive descriptions.

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer, and Tamara Natalie Madden
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer and Tamara Natalie Madden features works by three contemporary African American women artists who work in different media but explore issues of ethnicity, identity, history and culture in their work.

Robin Holder's works are inspired by issues of empowerment and integrity as well as the complexities of American identity: culture, gender, class, race and ethnicity. The works in her series "Behind Each Window, A Voice," were inspired by oral histories of eight of her neighbors in Brooklyn. Issues of race, social and political victimization, and ideas about society are shared by each of the subjects in their personal histories. The works are a combination of painting, collage and printmaking techniques.

Sonya Lawyer's photographic transfers combine imagery from vintage photographs with modern hand-dyed cotton fabric. The photographs were collected by the artist from vintage photo albums purchased at antique stores and through online auctions. Concerned that pieces of history were literally being torn apart and sold to the highest bidder, Lawyer was prompted to start acquiring images in order to protect them from further disturbance. Works from two series, "Searching For Beulah (limit of disturbance)" and "Finding Authenticity (does anyone remember?)" contain singular images of men and women of color juxtaposed with fabric blocks of varying hues. The works are a celebration of the persons depicted, each work revealing strength, pride, beauty and a quintessential timelessness.

Tamara Natalie Madden, in her recent series of mixed media paintings, creates images of kings,queens and warriors, using everyday people as her inspiration. Recognizing the struggles of the working class, the unseen and unheard, Madden chooses to depict them as kings and queens, as a means of expressing appreciation for their experiences, struggles and triumphs. The paintings are layered with quilted fabrics, which represent regal clothing and, symbolically, storytelling and quilts reflecting African traditions. The birds in the paintings represent a sense of freedom.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

"Limbo" depicts a graceful yet unusually honest and insightful snapshot of Eritrea, an East African country suspended in an unsettled state between war and peace.

Eritrea warred with neighboring Ethiopia for 30 years before gaining independence in 1991. Then, in 1998, they entered another war with Ethiopia that lasted two years. Today, the war-torn country is yet again at the brink of war with their neighbor. Years of unrest have left the people of Eritrea waiting for life to improve. According to Habteslasie: "Transitory states become permanent; empty villas, destroyed old buildings and unfinished new buildings dot the landscape, monuments to the suspension of history. The collision between Eritrea's proud historical narrative and the bleak ennui of the present has produced an obsessive focus on the future. Reconstruction and infrastructure development are energetically driven forward whilst the economy remains essentially shut off from the outside world." The images in "Limbo" capture both destruction and construction, both the unhealed wounds of war and a fierce optimism and hope for a brighter future.

Habteslasie was born in Kuwait, and his parents are Eritrean. He received his master's degree from the London College of Communication in photojournalism and documentary photography. His photographic projects look at the ideas of identity, history, and the re-evaluation of our relationship with historical process. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Flowers East and 198 Gallery in London. His work has also been published in Source Magazine.

As It Happens: Artists-in-Residence at Light Work
Light Work Gallery

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

Josh Brilliant curates a selection of images by recent Light Work Artists-in-Residence, including Amy Stein, Kelli Connell, Cristina Fraire, Krista Steinke, and Christine Osinski. Brilliant is currently an MFA candidate in the Museum Studies program at Syracuse University.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

50/50: Works of Nancy Jurs
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Nancy Jurs juxtaposes her signature large-scale, hand-built ceramic sculptures with recent site-specific installations composed of ceramic, mixed-media and found objects. Throughout her 40-year career Jurs, a Rochester-based sculptor and ceramic artist, has produced an astounding body of work that largely addresses female power and strength. In 2003, Jurs completed the Armor Series, a grouping of six life-size armored torsos that present themselves with empowered determination. The stylized shells not only serve to protect the figures but to symbolize renewed confidence and strength in a post-9/11 world. "Undaunted" (2003), which is part of the Armor Series, was acquired by the Everson in 2004.

Also on view will be "Triad," a monumental 16-foot high sculpture composed of ceramic slabs that have been hand-built: cut, scraped, modeled, and stacked in three interacting totem-like structures. Triad will be prominently displayed in the Rosamond Gifford Sculpture Court.

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer's interest in materials and artistic processes is evident in "Concealed Objects," a provocative new site-specific installation created for her first museum solo exhibition at the Everson. Inspired by British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, whose sculpture is at once unique and fleeting, Cofer creates objects that exist for a moment and place in time and then are recycled and reused for other projects. The installation designed for the Everson is composed of skirt forms constructed of cloth and wet clay suspended from the ceiling in grid fashion. The skirts, arranged in perfect harmony within the space that contains them, appear to float in contradiction to the heavy clay that pulls them downward. Each garment is cut from a Victorian-era dress pattern (ca. 1895), combined with wet clay and modeled by hand to capture every fold of the fabric as it cascades to the floor. The repetition of form and motion recalls the monotonous tasks of domestic chores that have existed for centuries without change. Cofer assigns new meaning to the found and recycled fabrics she chooses for the garments: the bed linens, table cloths, furniture upholstery, and well-worn clothing conceal the individual histories, memories and stories untold about their previous owners.

Anne Cofer was the recipient of the Best-of-Show Award given at the 2008 Everson Biennial exhibition.

Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibition of works by Andrew Deutsch and Stephen Vitiello, "Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass," is an installation composed of audio and video pieces as well as photographs, prints and sculpture. Deutsch and Vitiello are musicians, composers and sound artists who have been collaborating since 1999. For this, their first co-exhibition, the artists provided each other with musical scores for the other to perform. In so doing, they emphasize the visual nature of sound scores, shedding light on this complex, seemingly inaccessible medium called sound art.

In Vitiello's work viewers will see a shift from landscape photographs (7 Studies for Graphic Scores, 2007) to abstract black-and-white prints (Pond Set, 2008) that continue to refer to landscape through black lines that evoke both reeds and musical notes. In the background of his videos, Deutsch includes imagery from the "Notgeld" (emergency money that was put into circulation in Germany during the economic crisis of the 1920s) as a reflection on our difficult economic times. Deutsch also uses these collectibles in the making of his own sound scores; he has created a narrative referring to the films of Fritz Lang, to illustrated children's books, and to early 20th-century European artistic abstraction, where sound and sight blend into a common experience.

Visiting Artist Lecture
Syracuse University School of Art and Design
Featuring Chris Martin

Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Chris Martin lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, and has exhibited his work internationally, most recently in a solo show at Mitchell-Innes & Nash in New York City. He is a past recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, the Pollack-Krasner Foundation Award and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. He holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the School of Visual Arts.

Music Journeys presents A World of Words
LeMoyne College

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors, students and LeMoyne community free
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Two great art forms—music and literature—combine in this evening of poetry and performances featuring Le Moyne College faculty members and guests.

Le Moyne's Artist-in-Residence Andrew Russo will perform The Alcotts from Charles Ives' Concord Sonata with a reading from Louisa May Alcott by poet Elizabeth Twiddy. Also on the program are poems by Federico Garcia Lorca, read by Josefa Alvarez; Nuala Ni Dhomnaill, read by Kathleen Costello-Sullivan; and David Lloyd read by the author.

Each poem will be followed by a performance of corresponding music, featuring performances by Jonathan Chai (Irish fiddle), Nick Whitmer (uileann pipes), and Tom Bronzetti (guitar).

Windjammer Vocal Jazz Ensemble
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Bill DiCosimo, conductor

Price: Free
Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The concert will feature jazz standards from the Great American Songbook as well as special material and arrangements by the Real Group, the Manhattan Transfer, Greg Jasperse, and DiCosimo.

Parking is available in Irving Garage.

For more information, contact DiCosimo at 315-443-6145 or wjdicosi@syr.edu.

Poet Jane Hirshfield
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
Curtin Auditorium, Onondaga County Public Library
The Galleries of Syracuse, 447 S. Salina St., Syracuse

Jane Hirshfield is the author of six books of poetry, including After, Given Sugar, Given Salt (winner of the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award), and The Lives of the Heart, as well as a book of essays, Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. In 2008, Bloodaxe Books (UK) released her book Hiddenness, Uncertainty, Surprise: Three Generative Energies of Poetry. Hirshfield's other honors include The Poetry Center Book Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the NEA, and the Academy of American Poets. Her work has been featured in five editions of The Best American Poetry. In 2004, Hirshfield was awarded the 70th Academy Fellowship for distinguished poetic achievement by The Academy of American Poets, an honor formerly held by such poets as Robert Frost, Ezra Pound and Elizabeth Bishop. The DWC is pleased to co-sponsor poet Jane Hirshfield's visit to Syracuse, along with the Onondaga County Public Library, Syracuse University, and The Zen Center of Syracuse.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

Clayscapes Pottery Studio
1003 W. Fayette St., Suite L1, Syracuse

Senior ceramics majors in the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University will present the exhibition "BFA Ceramics 2009," featuring the work of five seniors: Tim Brockhaus, Rebecca Hill, Crystal Lasda, Jaimie Merrell and Vanna Valdez.

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

To a large extent, Cappuccilli's drawings and paintings are about the beauty of mark making, sensitivity of touch, and forms that are fundamentally mysterious. Her drawings are sometimes mistaken for photographs. The biomorphic drawings may read as benign or threatening hybrids, or as unknown species. The stain drawings developed from recognition of the delicate formal quality of grease stains, and their random patterns.

The Gallery as Studio: Drawings on Delirium
Point of Contact Gallery

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

A world-renowned Uruguayan artist, Ricardo Lanzarini comes from Montevideo to Syracuse to recreate the mundane and the extraordinary in his drawings on delirium made to unexpected scales. The exhibition comes to life at The Point of Contact Gallery where the space has turned into an artist's studio. The work of the exhibit is to be produced entirely on site and directly onto the walls of the gallery in the weeks leading up to the opening. Lanzarini will also share this experiment with students from Syracuse University's Fine Arts Department who will join in the creative process.

Lanzarini's work balances extremes of scale, crafting an extensive abstract image from precise, miniscule characters, whose everyday activities serve as a window into a miniature world, frozen in time. These drawings sarcastically explore the two major paradigms in figurative art of the 20th century: Social and Fantastic Realism

The exhibit will last through the summer and then Lanzarini returns to Point of Contact to perform an "erasure" of the work on September 4. The book catalogue documenting the entire project will be presented at the close.

Photo-Drawings: Recent Works by Julieve Jubin and Juan Perdiguero, and An Introduction: Recent Works by Barbara Stout
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

Fun, wild, and experimental artwork by Rochester's Arena Art Group.

A Goodly Heritage of Study: The Portfolio Club of Syracuse
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

Displayed are the archives of a still-thriving women's study club that was formed in 1875 in Syracuse. The Portfolio Club exemplifies a post-Civil War movement in which many thousands of middle-class women came together to educate themselves in a society that restricted women's access to institutions of higher learning. This club began a few weeks after the Association for the Advancement of Women held a congress at the Wieting Opera House in downtown Syracuse. At these congresses, which took place in many American cities, Julia Ward Howe and other presenters encouraged women to form study clubs for self-culture.

Nine young women founded the Portfolio Club, with guidance from Mary Dana Hicks, their art teacher. Though they began with a focus on art, in the middle 1880s they expanded their scope to include literature, current events, history, performing arts and many other subjects. Members have always met regularly from October through April to read their papers on a topic assigned by each year's president.

Syracuse residents and those long associated with SU will recognize the married names of many past club members, such as Mrs. Donald Dey, Mrs. William Nottingham, Mrs. E.N. Westcott, and Mrs. Mildred Eggers. Among Portfolio guest speakers during the club's first several decades were Judge Charles Andrews, Dean George Fiske Comfort, Howard Lyman, professors Sawyer Falk and Irene Sargent, Paul Paine, Douglas Petit, Katherine Sibley, and SU Chancellor Charles Sims.

The exhibition, which emphasizes the years 1875-1950, includes annual program booklets, many of them finely crafted. Also on display are meeting minutes, clippings, photographs, film footage of a 1935 gathering and other club documents.

Faces: Inspiration from Within -- Works by Erin Boyle
Westcott Community Center

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

Cutting away from traditional portraiture, Erin creates edgy images that offer more expressive descriptions.

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer, and Tamara Natalie Madden
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer and Tamara Natalie Madden features works by three contemporary African American women artists who work in different media but explore issues of ethnicity, identity, history and culture in their work.

Robin Holder's works are inspired by issues of empowerment and integrity as well as the complexities of American identity: culture, gender, class, race and ethnicity. The works in her series "Behind Each Window, A Voice," were inspired by oral histories of eight of her neighbors in Brooklyn. Issues of race, social and political victimization, and ideas about society are shared by each of the subjects in their personal histories. The works are a combination of painting, collage and printmaking techniques.

Sonya Lawyer's photographic transfers combine imagery from vintage photographs with modern hand-dyed cotton fabric. The photographs were collected by the artist from vintage photo albums purchased at antique stores and through online auctions. Concerned that pieces of history were literally being torn apart and sold to the highest bidder, Lawyer was prompted to start acquiring images in order to protect them from further disturbance. Works from two series, "Searching For Beulah (limit of disturbance)" and "Finding Authenticity (does anyone remember?)" contain singular images of men and women of color juxtaposed with fabric blocks of varying hues. The works are a celebration of the persons depicted, each work revealing strength, pride, beauty and a quintessential timelessness.

Tamara Natalie Madden, in her recent series of mixed media paintings, creates images of kings,queens and warriors, using everyday people as her inspiration. Recognizing the struggles of the working class, the unseen and unheard, Madden chooses to depict them as kings and queens, as a means of expressing appreciation for their experiences, struggles and triumphs. The paintings are layered with quilted fabrics, which represent regal clothing and, symbolically, storytelling and quilts reflecting African traditions. The birds in the paintings represent a sense of freedom.

New York Waters: Photographs by Randy Duchaine
Erie Canal Museum

Price: Free
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse

The exhibition investigates the lives of those who work and play on the fabled bodies of water that border the city's five boroughs. Among those you will meet are a dry dock operator, an eel fisherman, a fireboat preservationist, and a guerilla swimmer. Gathered from the East River to the Erie Basin, the Hudson to Hempstead Harbor, each new perspective connects a personal passion to a fabled local maritime history.

As It Happens: Artists-in-Residence at Light Work
Light Work Gallery

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

Josh Brilliant curates a selection of images by recent Light Work Artists-in-Residence, including Amy Stein, Kelli Connell, Cristina Fraire, Krista Steinke, and Christine Osinski. Brilliant is currently an MFA candidate in the Museum Studies program at Syracuse University.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

"Limbo" depicts a graceful yet unusually honest and insightful snapshot of Eritrea, an East African country suspended in an unsettled state between war and peace.

Eritrea warred with neighboring Ethiopia for 30 years before gaining independence in 1991. Then, in 1998, they entered another war with Ethiopia that lasted two years. Today, the war-torn country is yet again at the brink of war with their neighbor. Years of unrest have left the people of Eritrea waiting for life to improve. According to Habteslasie: "Transitory states become permanent; empty villas, destroyed old buildings and unfinished new buildings dot the landscape, monuments to the suspension of history. The collision between Eritrea's proud historical narrative and the bleak ennui of the present has produced an obsessive focus on the future. Reconstruction and infrastructure development are energetically driven forward whilst the economy remains essentially shut off from the outside world." The images in "Limbo" capture both destruction and construction, both the unhealed wounds of war and a fierce optimism and hope for a brighter future.

Habteslasie was born in Kuwait, and his parents are Eritrean. He received his master's degree from the London College of Communication in photojournalism and documentary photography. His photographic projects look at the ideas of identity, history, and the re-evaluation of our relationship with historical process. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Flowers East and 198 Gallery in London. His work has also been published in Source Magazine.

Exploring History with Art: The Changing View—Landscapes
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth! Works of Chris Wildrick
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

For several years Chris Wildrick has been working to become a self-taught professional paleontologist. He specializes in "dinosaur aesthetics," or why we think dinosaurs looked the way we think they looked. What kinds of colors and patterns did they have? How did they move? What did they sound like? How have our conceptions of these things changed over the years?

He creates his work through interactive projects with the public, which take the form of polls, games, and creative activities. For the past several months he has worked as an artist in residence with the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), doing projects at their Museum of the Earth in Ithaca as well as the New York State Fair and local schools.

This exhibition compiles his research into colorful and complex charts and graphs, audio recordings, and sculptures. He will also be doing his interactive projects at the opening and at other points throughout the show, so anyone can join in and share in the creation of the work. Chris will try to guess your favorite dinosaur, ask you to make dinosaur sounds, and challenge you to recast famous movies using only dinosaur species in the actors' roles. Plus, try to beat the reigning champion as you name as many dinosaurs as you can in one minute!

Redhouse Art Radio will feature selections from his audio projects, including interviews with famous dinosaur illustrators, throughout the show.

This show is great for all ages: it's philosophical, experimental, and hey, it has dinosaurs.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer's interest in materials and artistic processes is evident in "Concealed Objects," a provocative new site-specific installation created for her first museum solo exhibition at the Everson. Inspired by British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, whose sculpture is at once unique and fleeting, Cofer creates objects that exist for a moment and place in time and then are recycled and reused for other projects. The installation designed for the Everson is composed of skirt forms constructed of cloth and wet clay suspended from the ceiling in grid fashion. The skirts, arranged in perfect harmony within the space that contains them, appear to float in contradiction to the heavy clay that pulls them downward. Each garment is cut from a Victorian-era dress pattern (ca. 1895), combined with wet clay and modeled by hand to capture every fold of the fabric as it cascades to the floor. The repetition of form and motion recalls the monotonous tasks of domestic chores that have existed for centuries without change. Cofer assigns new meaning to the found and recycled fabrics she chooses for the garments: the bed linens, table cloths, furniture upholstery, and well-worn clothing conceal the individual histories, memories and stories untold about their previous owners.

Anne Cofer was the recipient of the Best-of-Show Award given at the 2008 Everson Biennial exhibition.

50/50: Works of Nancy Jurs
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Nancy Jurs juxtaposes her signature large-scale, hand-built ceramic sculptures with recent site-specific installations composed of ceramic, mixed-media and found objects. Throughout her 40-year career Jurs, a Rochester-based sculptor and ceramic artist, has produced an astounding body of work that largely addresses female power and strength. In 2003, Jurs completed the Armor Series, a grouping of six life-size armored torsos that present themselves with empowered determination. The stylized shells not only serve to protect the figures but to symbolize renewed confidence and strength in a post-9/11 world. "Undaunted" (2003), which is part of the Armor Series, was acquired by the Everson in 2004.

Also on view will be "Triad," a monumental 16-foot high sculpture composed of ceramic slabs that have been hand-built: cut, scraped, modeled, and stacked in three interacting totem-like structures. Triad will be prominently displayed in the Rosamond Gifford Sculpture Court.

Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibition of works by Andrew Deutsch and Stephen Vitiello, "Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass," is an installation composed of audio and video pieces as well as photographs, prints and sculpture. Deutsch and Vitiello are musicians, composers and sound artists who have been collaborating since 1999. For this, their first co-exhibition, the artists provided each other with musical scores for the other to perform. In so doing, they emphasize the visual nature of sound scores, shedding light on this complex, seemingly inaccessible medium called sound art.

In Vitiello's work viewers will see a shift from landscape photographs (7 Studies for Graphic Scores, 2007) to abstract black-and-white prints (Pond Set, 2008) that continue to refer to landscape through black lines that evoke both reeds and musical notes. In the background of his videos, Deutsch includes imagery from the "Notgeld" (emergency money that was put into circulation in Germany during the economic crisis of the 1920s) as a reflection on our difficult economic times. Deutsch also uses these collectibles in the making of his own sound scores; he has created a narrative referring to the films of Fritz Lang, to illustrated children's books, and to early 20th-century European artistic abstraction, where sound and sight blend into a common experience.

Iraq & the U.S. -- Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

Iraq & the U.S.—Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace is an exhibit of artwork exchanged between Iraqi refugee children living in Jordan and students at our own Van Duyn Elementary School. The exhibit will display a joint mural, an Iraqi mural and other artwork from children connected to the project.

Festival Pre-Screening
Syracuse International Film Festival

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

Films from the 2008 festival.

Making Leisure Work: Architecture and the Experience Economy
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring Brian Lonsway

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Auditorium
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Contemporary architecture of theme-based design is examined, provoking a new understanding of architecture's role in the increasingly diversified consumer environment.

Brian Lonsway is an architectural theorist and technology researcher whose work is invested in the evolving relationships between design technologies and spatial thought.

Reflections in Black
Featuring Deborah Willis, art historian and photographer

Price: Free
Maxwell Auditorium
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Deborah Willis, one of the nations leading historians of African American photography and curator of African American culture, will visit Syracuse University to talk about the importance of preserving the history of African American communities in Syracuse through a photography archive.

Willis will talk about the value of photographs in documenting history, and how they can be woven into the Community Black History Preservation Project currently under way in Syracuse. The project, developed last year by the South Side Initiative Office, iSchool Professor of Practice Kenneth Lavender, and African American Studies Associate Professor Joan Bryant, is aimed at collecting and preserving the history of black people in Syracuse.

Willis is University Professor, professor and chair of the photography and imaging department at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and holds an affiliated appointment with the universitys Africana Studies program. She was a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow and Fletcher Fellow, a 2000 MacArthur Fellow, and the 1996 recipient of the Anonymous Was a Woman Foundation.

The presentation is sponsored by the Syracuse University South Side Initiative, Light Work, U.Encounter, the Onondaga Historical Association, and the Community Black History Preservation Project. Parking will be available in the Irving Garage.

Civic Morning Musicals
Voice Studio of Jonathan English, Syracuse University

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

Eighteen voice students from the studio of Jonathan English, faculty member in the Setnor School, will perform a variety of music, including opera, art song and musical theater. Selections will include arias from The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart, a duet from a rare version of Giulietta e Romeo by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli, and art songs by Margaret Bonds and Richard Hundley. Musical theater will be represented by selections from Oklahoma!, Seussical: The Musical, Me and Juliet, A Chorus Line, and others.

Little Women Book Club
Syracuse Opera
Featuring Laura Hand

Price: Free
Northern Onondaga Public Library (North Syracuse)
100 Trolley Barn Lane, North Syracuse

This event will feature performances from Mark Adamo's opera Little Women performed by Syracuse Opera Resident Artists, as well as readings from the book. The book club will also provide other fun activities for women of all ages. Syracuse Opera invites you to join them in their goal to Promote Literacy, Empower Women, and Enhance Community Involvement through the arts.

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

The story is simplicity itself. A young girl, alive to everything around her and awakening within her, with hopes and dreams of the life she may one day lead with friends and family, confides to her diary the secrets of her heart. That diary, as we all know, becomes one of the lasting documents of the 20th century, a testament not to the horrors we know so well, but to the indomitability of the human spirit. That's what's so wonderful about this version of The Diary of Anne Frank, newly revised by Wendy Kesselman. With information gleaned from previously withheld portions of the diary and additional survivor accounts, we glimpse this remarkable young woman with greater clarity and deeper understanding of the fullness of her life. Was she on the verge of falling in love for the first time? Did she harbor misgivings about herself or members of the "family" imposed on her? We know the sad end of the tale, but do we really know the complexity of the heart that with its every beat sought to find the goodness in others?

Read a Review!

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

Clayscapes Pottery Studio
1003 W. Fayette St., Suite L1, Syracuse

Senior ceramics majors in the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University will present the exhibition "BFA Ceramics 2009," featuring the work of five seniors: Tim Brockhaus, Rebecca Hill, Crystal Lasda, Jaimie Merrell and Vanna Valdez.

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

To a large extent, Cappuccilli's drawings and paintings are about the beauty of mark making, sensitivity of touch, and forms that are fundamentally mysterious. Her drawings are sometimes mistaken for photographs. The biomorphic drawings may read as benign or threatening hybrids, or as unknown species. The stain drawings developed from recognition of the delicate formal quality of grease stains, and their random patterns.

The Gallery as Studio: Drawings on Delirium
Point of Contact Gallery

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

A world-renowned Uruguayan artist, Ricardo Lanzarini comes from Montevideo to Syracuse to recreate the mundane and the extraordinary in his drawings on delirium made to unexpected scales. The exhibition comes to life at The Point of Contact Gallery where the space has turned into an artist's studio. The work of the exhibit is to be produced entirely on site and directly onto the walls of the gallery in the weeks leading up to the opening. Lanzarini will also share this experiment with students from Syracuse University's Fine Arts Department who will join in the creative process.

Lanzarini's work balances extremes of scale, crafting an extensive abstract image from precise, miniscule characters, whose everyday activities serve as a window into a miniature world, frozen in time. These drawings sarcastically explore the two major paradigms in figurative art of the 20th century: Social and Fantastic Realism

The exhibit will last through the summer and then Lanzarini returns to Point of Contact to perform an "erasure" of the work on September 4. The book catalogue documenting the entire project will be presented at the close.

Photo-Drawings: Recent Works by Julieve Jubin and Juan Perdiguero, and An Introduction: Recent Works by Barbara Stout
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

Fun, wild, and experimental artwork by Rochester's Arena Art Group.

A Goodly Heritage of Study: The Portfolio Club of Syracuse
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

Displayed are the archives of a still-thriving women's study club that was formed in 1875 in Syracuse. The Portfolio Club exemplifies a post-Civil War movement in which many thousands of middle-class women came together to educate themselves in a society that restricted women's access to institutions of higher learning. This club began a few weeks after the Association for the Advancement of Women held a congress at the Wieting Opera House in downtown Syracuse. At these congresses, which took place in many American cities, Julia Ward Howe and other presenters encouraged women to form study clubs for self-culture.

Nine young women founded the Portfolio Club, with guidance from Mary Dana Hicks, their art teacher. Though they began with a focus on art, in the middle 1880s they expanded their scope to include literature, current events, history, performing arts and many other subjects. Members have always met regularly from October through April to read their papers on a topic assigned by each year's president.

Syracuse residents and those long associated with SU will recognize the married names of many past club members, such as Mrs. Donald Dey, Mrs. William Nottingham, Mrs. E.N. Westcott, and Mrs. Mildred Eggers. Among Portfolio guest speakers during the club's first several decades were Judge Charles Andrews, Dean George Fiske Comfort, Howard Lyman, professors Sawyer Falk and Irene Sargent, Paul Paine, Douglas Petit, Katherine Sibley, and SU Chancellor Charles Sims.

The exhibition, which emphasizes the years 1875-1950, includes annual program booklets, many of them finely crafted. Also on display are meeting minutes, clippings, photographs, film footage of a 1935 gathering and other club documents.

Faces: Inspiration from Within -- Works by Erin Boyle
Westcott Community Center

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

Cutting away from traditional portraiture, Erin creates edgy images that offer more expressive descriptions.

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer, and Tamara Natalie Madden
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer and Tamara Natalie Madden features works by three contemporary African American women artists who work in different media but explore issues of ethnicity, identity, history and culture in their work.

Robin Holder's works are inspired by issues of empowerment and integrity as well as the complexities of American identity: culture, gender, class, race and ethnicity. The works in her series "Behind Each Window, A Voice," were inspired by oral histories of eight of her neighbors in Brooklyn. Issues of race, social and political victimization, and ideas about society are shared by each of the subjects in their personal histories. The works are a combination of painting, collage and printmaking techniques.

Sonya Lawyer's photographic transfers combine imagery from vintage photographs with modern hand-dyed cotton fabric. The photographs were collected by the artist from vintage photo albums purchased at antique stores and through online auctions. Concerned that pieces of history were literally being torn apart and sold to the highest bidder, Lawyer was prompted to start acquiring images in order to protect them from further disturbance. Works from two series, "Searching For Beulah (limit of disturbance)" and "Finding Authenticity (does anyone remember?)" contain singular images of men and women of color juxtaposed with fabric blocks of varying hues. The works are a celebration of the persons depicted, each work revealing strength, pride, beauty and a quintessential timelessness.

Tamara Natalie Madden, in her recent series of mixed media paintings, creates images of kings,queens and warriors, using everyday people as her inspiration. Recognizing the struggles of the working class, the unseen and unheard, Madden chooses to depict them as kings and queens, as a means of expressing appreciation for their experiences, struggles and triumphs. The paintings are layered with quilted fabrics, which represent regal clothing and, symbolically, storytelling and quilts reflecting African traditions. The birds in the paintings represent a sense of freedom.

New York Waters: Photographs by Randy Duchaine
Erie Canal Museum

Price: Free
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse

The exhibition investigates the lives of those who work and play on the fabled bodies of water that border the city's five boroughs. Among those you will meet are a dry dock operator, an eel fisherman, a fireboat preservationist, and a guerilla swimmer. Gathered from the East River to the Erie Basin, the Hudson to Hempstead Harbor, each new perspective connects a personal passion to a fabled local maritime history.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

"Limbo" depicts a graceful yet unusually honest and insightful snapshot of Eritrea, an East African country suspended in an unsettled state between war and peace.

Eritrea warred with neighboring Ethiopia for 30 years before gaining independence in 1991. Then, in 1998, they entered another war with Ethiopia that lasted two years. Today, the war-torn country is yet again at the brink of war with their neighbor. Years of unrest have left the people of Eritrea waiting for life to improve. According to Habteslasie: "Transitory states become permanent; empty villas, destroyed old buildings and unfinished new buildings dot the landscape, monuments to the suspension of history. The collision between Eritrea's proud historical narrative and the bleak ennui of the present has produced an obsessive focus on the future. Reconstruction and infrastructure development are energetically driven forward whilst the economy remains essentially shut off from the outside world." The images in "Limbo" capture both destruction and construction, both the unhealed wounds of war and a fierce optimism and hope for a brighter future.

Habteslasie was born in Kuwait, and his parents are Eritrean. He received his master's degree from the London College of Communication in photojournalism and documentary photography. His photographic projects look at the ideas of identity, history, and the re-evaluation of our relationship with historical process. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Flowers East and 198 Gallery in London. His work has also been published in Source Magazine.

As It Happens: Artists-in-Residence at Light Work
Light Work Gallery

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

Josh Brilliant curates a selection of images by recent Light Work Artists-in-Residence, including Amy Stein, Kelli Connell, Cristina Fraire, Krista Steinke, and Christine Osinski. Brilliant is currently an MFA candidate in the Museum Studies program at Syracuse University.

Exploring History with Art: The Changing View—Landscapes
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth! Works of Chris Wildrick
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

For several years Chris Wildrick has been working to become a self-taught professional paleontologist. He specializes in "dinosaur aesthetics," or why we think dinosaurs looked the way we think they looked. What kinds of colors and patterns did they have? How did they move? What did they sound like? How have our conceptions of these things changed over the years?

He creates his work through interactive projects with the public, which take the form of polls, games, and creative activities. For the past several months he has worked as an artist in residence with the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), doing projects at their Museum of the Earth in Ithaca as well as the New York State Fair and local schools.

This exhibition compiles his research into colorful and complex charts and graphs, audio recordings, and sculptures. He will also be doing his interactive projects at the opening and at other points throughout the show, so anyone can join in and share in the creation of the work. Chris will try to guess your favorite dinosaur, ask you to make dinosaur sounds, and challenge you to recast famous movies using only dinosaur species in the actors' roles. Plus, try to beat the reigning champion as you name as many dinosaurs as you can in one minute!

Redhouse Art Radio will feature selections from his audio projects, including interviews with famous dinosaur illustrators, throughout the show.

This show is great for all ages: it's philosophical, experimental, and hey, it has dinosaurs.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

Phoenix: Reinvention, Renewal, Resurrection
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Five artists interpretation on the mythical and cross-cultural status of reinvention, renewal, and resurrection.

MFA 2009
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

MFA 2009 is an exhibition of master of fine arts degree candidates from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. Twenty-two artists will exhibit a range of work from traditional media such as oil on canvas, portraiture, and atmospheric-fired pottery to contemporary media including digital prints, site-specific installation, and video projection. The diversity of the show is also distinctly international, with artists from Canada, France, Korea and Russia.

While the artists work in a variety of media and techniques, themes emerge across the disciplines. The concept of the fabricated or manipulated environment is evident in many of the artists' sculptural installations, including a monumental model stagecoach positioned in a moon-landing re-creation and a faux-storefront display with ceramic poodles that both mock and celebrate what we regard as haute couture.

Nostalgia and personal identity are also sources of inspiration in this year's exhibition. One artist's work reinterprets the well-known characters from Sesame Street into an iconic status, while another incorporates the artist's past memories and dark humor into photographs that explore childhood experiences of fear, mortality and sex.

Fiber Art
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Works include framed batik, cloth colleges, sculptural coiled basketry, quilting, tapestry, and more by artists Wilson Akuamoah-Boateng, Sharon Bottle Souva, Lauren Bristol, Barbara Conte-Gaugel, Linda Esterley, Alice Gant, Hilary Gifford, Mary Kester, and Holly Knott.

Wild Card Exhibit: Serymour and Blodgett School Art Show
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Opening reception 3:30-6:00 pm.

50/50: Works of Nancy Jurs
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Nancy Jurs juxtaposes her signature large-scale, hand-built ceramic sculptures with recent site-specific installations composed of ceramic, mixed-media and found objects. Throughout her 40-year career Jurs, a Rochester-based sculptor and ceramic artist, has produced an astounding body of work that largely addresses female power and strength. In 2003, Jurs completed the Armor Series, a grouping of six life-size armored torsos that present themselves with empowered determination. The stylized shells not only serve to protect the figures but to symbolize renewed confidence and strength in a post-9/11 world. "Undaunted" (2003), which is part of the Armor Series, was acquired by the Everson in 2004.

Also on view will be "Triad," a monumental 16-foot high sculpture composed of ceramic slabs that have been hand-built: cut, scraped, modeled, and stacked in three interacting totem-like structures. Triad will be prominently displayed in the Rosamond Gifford Sculpture Court.

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer's interest in materials and artistic processes is evident in "Concealed Objects," a provocative new site-specific installation created for her first museum solo exhibition at the Everson. Inspired by British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, whose sculpture is at once unique and fleeting, Cofer creates objects that exist for a moment and place in time and then are recycled and reused for other projects. The installation designed for the Everson is composed of skirt forms constructed of cloth and wet clay suspended from the ceiling in grid fashion. The skirts, arranged in perfect harmony within the space that contains them, appear to float in contradiction to the heavy clay that pulls them downward. Each garment is cut from a Victorian-era dress pattern (ca. 1895), combined with wet clay and modeled by hand to capture every fold of the fabric as it cascades to the floor. The repetition of form and motion recalls the monotonous tasks of domestic chores that have existed for centuries without change. Cofer assigns new meaning to the found and recycled fabrics she chooses for the garments: the bed linens, table cloths, furniture upholstery, and well-worn clothing conceal the individual histories, memories and stories untold about their previous owners.

Anne Cofer was the recipient of the Best-of-Show Award given at the 2008 Everson Biennial exhibition.

Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibition of works by Andrew Deutsch and Stephen Vitiello, "Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass," is an installation composed of audio and video pieces as well as photographs, prints and sculpture. Deutsch and Vitiello are musicians, composers and sound artists who have been collaborating since 1999. For this, their first co-exhibition, the artists provided each other with musical scores for the other to perform. In so doing, they emphasize the visual nature of sound scores, shedding light on this complex, seemingly inaccessible medium called sound art.

In Vitiello's work viewers will see a shift from landscape photographs (7 Studies for Graphic Scores, 2007) to abstract black-and-white prints (Pond Set, 2008) that continue to refer to landscape through black lines that evoke both reeds and musical notes. In the background of his videos, Deutsch includes imagery from the "Notgeld" (emergency money that was put into circulation in Germany during the economic crisis of the 1920s) as a reflection on our difficult economic times. Deutsch also uses these collectibles in the making of his own sound scores; he has created a narrative referring to the films of Fritz Lang, to illustrated children's books, and to early 20th-century European artistic abstraction, where sound and sight blend into a common experience.

Iraq & the U.S. -- Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

Iraq & the U.S.—Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace is an exhibit of artwork exchanged between Iraqi refugee children living in Jordan and students at our own Van Duyn Elementary School. The exhibit will display a joint mural, an Iraqi mural and other artwork from children connected to the project.

Film Series: The U.S. vs John Lennon
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

This acclaimed documentary tracks the transformation of John Lennon from world-famous musician and adored Beatle to government-stalked peace and antiwar activist.

Film Series: The U.S. vs John Lennon
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

This acclaimed documentary tracks the transformation of John Lennon from world-famous musician and adored Beatle to government-stalked peace and antiwar activist.

Video Now! 2009
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

The annual screening of fresh, original and experimental video shorts by students from Syracuse University's Transmedia Department. There will be an intermission reception with light refreshments.

Spoken-Word Poetry Performance and Artist Reception
Light Work Gallery
Featuring Admas Habteslasie

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Light Work will feature an evening with artist Admas Habteslasie, in conjunction with the Limbo exhibit. The evening will begin with a spoken-word poetry performance by Verbal Blend, followed by a question-and-answer session with Habteslasie, and a gallery reception. Verbal Blend is a spoken-word poetry program sponsored by Syracuse University's Office of Multicultural Affairs, designed to enhance participants' confidence in writing and performing original poems. The program consists of a five-week workshop series on poetry forms and formats, journal entries, and peer reviews. Participants get the opportunity to showcase their work at public venues such as open mic nights. For this event, a group of SU students, high school students, and community members have prepared spoken-word performances in response to Habteslasie's images.

Death Warmed Over
Acme Mystery Company

Price: $25.95 plus tax and gratuities (includes meal and show)
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

Interactive mystery/comedy dinner theater. A sleepy village is in for strange events when a famous medium comes to a haunted cottage to run a live seance on his television show.

Jerry Seinfeld Live

Landmark Theatre
362 S. Salina St., Syracuse

For tickets, phone 315-472-0700.

Invisible Women Melting
Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company

Price: $10 regular, $5 students
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

One-act play by Jessica Ann Mitchell, depicting the pain and turmoil that black women all over the world endure. For more information, phone 315-422-2727.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

Clayscapes Pottery Studio
1003 W. Fayette St., Suite L1, Syracuse

Senior ceramics majors in the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University will present the exhibition "BFA Ceramics 2009," featuring the work of five seniors: Tim Brockhaus, Rebecca Hill, Crystal Lasda, Jaimie Merrell and Vanna Valdez.

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

To a large extent, Cappuccilli's drawings and paintings are about the beauty of mark making, sensitivity of touch, and forms that are fundamentally mysterious. Her drawings are sometimes mistaken for photographs. The biomorphic drawings may read as benign or threatening hybrids, or as unknown species. The stain drawings developed from recognition of the delicate formal quality of grease stains, and their random patterns.

The Gallery as Studio: Drawings on Delirium
Point of Contact Gallery

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

A world-renowned Uruguayan artist, Ricardo Lanzarini comes from Montevideo to Syracuse to recreate the mundane and the extraordinary in his drawings on delirium made to unexpected scales. The exhibition comes to life at The Point of Contact Gallery where the space has turned into an artist's studio. The work of the exhibit is to be produced entirely on site and directly onto the walls of the gallery in the weeks leading up to the opening. Lanzarini will also share this experiment with students from Syracuse University's Fine Arts Department who will join in the creative process.

Lanzarini's work balances extremes of scale, crafting an extensive abstract image from precise, miniscule characters, whose everyday activities serve as a window into a miniature world, frozen in time. These drawings sarcastically explore the two major paradigms in figurative art of the 20th century: Social and Fantastic Realism

The exhibit will last through the summer and then Lanzarini returns to Point of Contact to perform an "erasure" of the work on September 4. The book catalogue documenting the entire project will be presented at the close.

Photo-Drawings: Recent Works by Julieve Jubin and Juan Perdiguero, and An Introduction: Recent Works by Barbara Stout
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

Fun, wild, and experimental artwork by Rochester's Arena Art Group.

A Goodly Heritage of Study: The Portfolio Club of Syracuse
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

Displayed are the archives of a still-thriving women's study club that was formed in 1875 in Syracuse. The Portfolio Club exemplifies a post-Civil War movement in which many thousands of middle-class women came together to educate themselves in a society that restricted women's access to institutions of higher learning. This club began a few weeks after the Association for the Advancement of Women held a congress at the Wieting Opera House in downtown Syracuse. At these congresses, which took place in many American cities, Julia Ward Howe and other presenters encouraged women to form study clubs for self-culture.

Nine young women founded the Portfolio Club, with guidance from Mary Dana Hicks, their art teacher. Though they began with a focus on art, in the middle 1880s they expanded their scope to include literature, current events, history, performing arts and many other subjects. Members have always met regularly from October through April to read their papers on a topic assigned by each year's president.

Syracuse residents and those long associated with SU will recognize the married names of many past club members, such as Mrs. Donald Dey, Mrs. William Nottingham, Mrs. E.N. Westcott, and Mrs. Mildred Eggers. Among Portfolio guest speakers during the club's first several decades were Judge Charles Andrews, Dean George Fiske Comfort, Howard Lyman, professors Sawyer Falk and Irene Sargent, Paul Paine, Douglas Petit, Katherine Sibley, and SU Chancellor Charles Sims.

The exhibition, which emphasizes the years 1875-1950, includes annual program booklets, many of them finely crafted. Also on display are meeting minutes, clippings, photographs, film footage of a 1935 gathering and other club documents.

Faces: Inspiration from Within -- Works by Erin Boyle
Westcott Community Center

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

Cutting away from traditional portraiture, Erin creates edgy images that offer more expressive descriptions.

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer, and Tamara Natalie Madden
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer and Tamara Natalie Madden features works by three contemporary African American women artists who work in different media but explore issues of ethnicity, identity, history and culture in their work.

Robin Holder's works are inspired by issues of empowerment and integrity as well as the complexities of American identity: culture, gender, class, race and ethnicity. The works in her series "Behind Each Window, A Voice," were inspired by oral histories of eight of her neighbors in Brooklyn. Issues of race, social and political victimization, and ideas about society are shared by each of the subjects in their personal histories. The works are a combination of painting, collage and printmaking techniques.

Sonya Lawyer's photographic transfers combine imagery from vintage photographs with modern hand-dyed cotton fabric. The photographs were collected by the artist from vintage photo albums purchased at antique stores and through online auctions. Concerned that pieces of history were literally being torn apart and sold to the highest bidder, Lawyer was prompted to start acquiring images in order to protect them from further disturbance. Works from two series, "Searching For Beulah (limit of disturbance)" and "Finding Authenticity (does anyone remember?)" contain singular images of men and women of color juxtaposed with fabric blocks of varying hues. The works are a celebration of the persons depicted, each work revealing strength, pride, beauty and a quintessential timelessness.

Tamara Natalie Madden, in her recent series of mixed media paintings, creates images of kings,queens and warriors, using everyday people as her inspiration. Recognizing the struggles of the working class, the unseen and unheard, Madden chooses to depict them as kings and queens, as a means of expressing appreciation for their experiences, struggles and triumphs. The paintings are layered with quilted fabrics, which represent regal clothing and, symbolically, storytelling and quilts reflecting African traditions. The birds in the paintings represent a sense of freedom.

New York Waters: Photographs by Randy Duchaine
Erie Canal Museum

Price: Free
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse

The exhibition investigates the lives of those who work and play on the fabled bodies of water that border the city's five boroughs. Among those you will meet are a dry dock operator, an eel fisherman, a fireboat preservationist, and a guerilla swimmer. Gathered from the East River to the Erie Basin, the Hudson to Hempstead Harbor, each new perspective connects a personal passion to a fabled local maritime history.

As It Happens: Artists-in-Residence at Light Work
Light Work Gallery

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

Josh Brilliant curates a selection of images by recent Light Work Artists-in-Residence, including Amy Stein, Kelli Connell, Cristina Fraire, Krista Steinke, and Christine Osinski. Brilliant is currently an MFA candidate in the Museum Studies program at Syracuse University.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

"Limbo" depicts a graceful yet unusually honest and insightful snapshot of Eritrea, an East African country suspended in an unsettled state between war and peace.

Eritrea warred with neighboring Ethiopia for 30 years before gaining independence in 1991. Then, in 1998, they entered another war with Ethiopia that lasted two years. Today, the war-torn country is yet again at the brink of war with their neighbor. Years of unrest have left the people of Eritrea waiting for life to improve. According to Habteslasie: "Transitory states become permanent; empty villas, destroyed old buildings and unfinished new buildings dot the landscape, monuments to the suspension of history. The collision between Eritrea's proud historical narrative and the bleak ennui of the present has produced an obsessive focus on the future. Reconstruction and infrastructure development are energetically driven forward whilst the economy remains essentially shut off from the outside world." The images in "Limbo" capture both destruction and construction, both the unhealed wounds of war and a fierce optimism and hope for a brighter future.

Habteslasie was born in Kuwait, and his parents are Eritrean. He received his master's degree from the London College of Communication in photojournalism and documentary photography. His photographic projects look at the ideas of identity, history, and the re-evaluation of our relationship with historical process. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Flowers East and 198 Gallery in London. His work has also been published in Source Magazine.

Exploring History with Art: The Changing View—Landscapes
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth! Works of Chris Wildrick
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

For several years Chris Wildrick has been working to become a self-taught professional paleontologist. He specializes in "dinosaur aesthetics," or why we think dinosaurs looked the way we think they looked. What kinds of colors and patterns did they have? How did they move? What did they sound like? How have our conceptions of these things changed over the years?

He creates his work through interactive projects with the public, which take the form of polls, games, and creative activities. For the past several months he has worked as an artist in residence with the Paleontological Research Institution (PRI), doing projects at their Museum of the Earth in Ithaca as well as the New York State Fair and local schools.

This exhibition compiles his research into colorful and complex charts and graphs, audio recordings, and sculptures. He will also be doing his interactive projects at the opening and at other points throughout the show, so anyone can join in and share in the creation of the work. Chris will try to guess your favorite dinosaur, ask you to make dinosaur sounds, and challenge you to recast famous movies using only dinosaur species in the actors' roles. Plus, try to beat the reigning champion as you name as many dinosaurs as you can in one minute!

Redhouse Art Radio will feature selections from his audio projects, including interviews with famous dinosaur illustrators, throughout the show.

This show is great for all ages: it's philosophical, experimental, and hey, it has dinosaurs.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

Phoenix: Reinvention, Renewal, Resurrection
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Five artists interpretation on the mythical and cross-cultural status of reinvention, renewal, and resurrection.

MFA 2009
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

MFA 2009 is an exhibition of master of fine arts degree candidates from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. Twenty-two artists will exhibit a range of work from traditional media such as oil on canvas, portraiture, and atmospheric-fired pottery to contemporary media including digital prints, site-specific installation, and video projection. The diversity of the show is also distinctly international, with artists from Canada, France, Korea and Russia.

While the artists work in a variety of media and techniques, themes emerge across the disciplines. The concept of the fabricated or manipulated environment is evident in many of the artists' sculptural installations, including a monumental model stagecoach positioned in a moon-landing re-creation and a faux-storefront display with ceramic poodles that both mock and celebrate what we regard as haute couture.

Nostalgia and personal identity are also sources of inspiration in this year's exhibition. One artist's work reinterprets the well-known characters from Sesame Street into an iconic status, while another incorporates the artist's past memories and dark humor into photographs that explore childhood experiences of fear, mortality and sex.

Fiber Art
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Works include framed batik, cloth colleges, sculptural coiled basketry, quilting, tapestry, and more by artists Wilson Akuamoah-Boateng, Sharon Bottle Souva, Lauren Bristol, Barbara Conte-Gaugel, Linda Esterley, Alice Gant, Hilary Gifford, Mary Kester, and Holly Knott.

Wild Card Exhibit: Serymour and Blodgett School Art Show
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer's interest in materials and artistic processes is evident in "Concealed Objects," a provocative new site-specific installation created for her first museum solo exhibition at the Everson. Inspired by British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, whose sculpture is at once unique and fleeting, Cofer creates objects that exist for a moment and place in time and then are recycled and reused for other projects. The installation designed for the Everson is composed of skirt forms constructed of cloth and wet clay suspended from the ceiling in grid fashion. The skirts, arranged in perfect harmony within the space that contains them, appear to float in contradiction to the heavy clay that pulls them downward. Each garment is cut from a Victorian-era dress pattern (ca. 1895), combined with wet clay and modeled by hand to capture every fold of the fabric as it cascades to the floor. The repetition of form and motion recalls the monotonous tasks of domestic chores that have existed for centuries without change. Cofer assigns new meaning to the found and recycled fabrics she chooses for the garments: the bed linens, table cloths, furniture upholstery, and well-worn clothing conceal the individual histories, memories and stories untold about their previous owners.

Anne Cofer was the recipient of the Best-of-Show Award given at the 2008 Everson Biennial exhibition.

50/50: Works of Nancy Jurs
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Nancy Jurs juxtaposes her signature large-scale, hand-built ceramic sculptures with recent site-specific installations composed of ceramic, mixed-media and found objects. Throughout her 40-year career Jurs, a Rochester-based sculptor and ceramic artist, has produced an astounding body of work that largely addresses female power and strength. In 2003, Jurs completed the Armor Series, a grouping of six life-size armored torsos that present themselves with empowered determination. The stylized shells not only serve to protect the figures but to symbolize renewed confidence and strength in a post-9/11 world. "Undaunted" (2003), which is part of the Armor Series, was acquired by the Everson in 2004.

Also on view will be "Triad," a monumental 16-foot high sculpture composed of ceramic slabs that have been hand-built: cut, scraped, modeled, and stacked in three interacting totem-like structures. Triad will be prominently displayed in the Rosamond Gifford Sculpture Court.

Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibition of works by Andrew Deutsch and Stephen Vitiello, "Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass," is an installation composed of audio and video pieces as well as photographs, prints and sculpture. Deutsch and Vitiello are musicians, composers and sound artists who have been collaborating since 1999. For this, their first co-exhibition, the artists provided each other with musical scores for the other to perform. In so doing, they emphasize the visual nature of sound scores, shedding light on this complex, seemingly inaccessible medium called sound art.

In Vitiello's work viewers will see a shift from landscape photographs (7 Studies for Graphic Scores, 2007) to abstract black-and-white prints (Pond Set, 2008) that continue to refer to landscape through black lines that evoke both reeds and musical notes. In the background of his videos, Deutsch includes imagery from the "Notgeld" (emergency money that was put into circulation in Germany during the economic crisis of the 1920s) as a reflection on our difficult economic times. Deutsch also uses these collectibles in the making of his own sound scores; he has created a narrative referring to the films of Fritz Lang, to illustrated children's books, and to early 20th-century European artistic abstraction, where sound and sight blend into a common experience.

Iraq & the U.S. -- Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

Iraq & the U.S.—Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace is an exhibit of artwork exchanged between Iraqi refugee children living in Jordan and students at our own Van Duyn Elementary School. The exhibit will display a joint mural, an Iraqi mural and other artwork from children connected to the project.

Periphercalculumination: A Projected Kinetic Installation
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Work by Chuyen Huynh and Mark Povinelli.

Electric Art Show
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Graduate students and faculty in SU's Department of Transmedia's computer art program will present the "Electric Art Show," an exhibition of interactive and electronic works.

The "Electric Art Show" features fun, interactive art installations, 3-D computer animation, culture jamming and physical computing projects. All of the artwork functions using electronics and computers in some way, making this an exhibition fit for the 21st century.

The graduate students' projects include an installation that reveals flirtatious messaging that happens on craigslist in Syracuse, a culture jamming project that takes greenwashing marketing propaganda and flips it on its head, an augmented reality device that allows the user to control a real person as if he or she was a video game, a series of prints generated by a custom sound-to-image visualizer, a showing of an Internet TV show that takes an absurd look at the relationship between a man and his wearable computer named Al, and a seller's booth for a dubious new software that purports to replace human socializing.

FridayFLICS: The Search
ArtRage Gallery

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

In this acclaimed film, shot in postwar Berlin, an American private helps a lost Czech boy (an Auschwitz survivor) find his mother. With Montgomery Clift. Oscars: Best writing, motion picture; outstanding juvenile performance. Directed by Fred Zinneman, 1948.

The New Trinos - Albums that Shook the World: Volume 6: The Beatles' Revolver
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Gordon Student Center
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

The New Trinos are lads bent on re-creating the musical sounds that permeated the airwaves in their youth. These were the days when AM radio was in vogue and if you were lucky, on a cold rainy weekday night with the antenna tipped just right, you might tune in some frenetic sounds from across the Atlantic. The sixth installment is an ongoing series featuring albums with the purpose of transforming music's landscape, risked truth, encouraged the unorthodox, ignited imagination, and opened eyes to life's possibilities.

Faure's Requiem
James O. Welsch, conductor

Price: Free
Plymouth Church
232 E. Onondaga St., Syracuse

Combined choir of singers from Liverpool First United Methodist, First Unitarian Universalist, University United Methodist, and Plymouth Churches.

Bill Cole's Untempered Ensemble
Redhouse

Price: Free
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

A rare breed of jazz artist who has focused his efforts on uniting Eastern sounds with the American art form, Bill Cole is a musical seeker who has, over the better part of four decades, mastered an array of non-traditional, non-Western instruments: the Chinese Sona, Australian Digeridoo, Indian Shenai, Ghanaian flute, and Indian Nagaswarm.

Cole's Untempered Ensemble is a sextet featuring the front line of Warren Smith on multiple percussion, Joe Daley on tuba and baritone horn, Shayna Dulberger on acoustic base, Atticus Cole on multiple percussion, vocals by Althea SullyCole, and Bill Cole on Asian horns and digeridoo. Together they layer their freewheeling artistry, along with Cole's searing double-reed wailing, over rollicking, rolling African percussion.

Bill Cole is currently a professor in the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University.

Invisible Women Melting
Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company

Price: $10 regular, $5 students
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

One-act play by Jessica Ann Mitchell, depicting the pain and turmoil that black women all over the world endure. For more information, phone 315-422-2727.

SubUrbia
Warehoure Architecture Theatre: WhAT

Westcott Theater
524 Westcott St., Syracuse

A play by Eric Bogosian.

Jesus Christ Superstar
Salt City Center for the Performing Arts
Joe Lotito, director
Featuring Bob Brown and Robert Steingraber

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

Read a Review!

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

The story is simplicity itself. A young girl, alive to everything around her and awakening within her, with hopes and dreams of the life she may one day lead with friends and family, confides to her diary the secrets of her heart. That diary, as we all know, becomes one of the lasting documents of the 20th century, a testament not to the horrors we know so well, but to the indomitability of the human spirit. That's what's so wonderful about this version of The Diary of Anne Frank, newly revised by Wendy Kesselman. With information gleaned from previously withheld portions of the diary and additional survivor accounts, we glimpse this remarkable young woman with greater clarity and deeper understanding of the fullness of her life. Was she on the verge of falling in love for the first time? Did she harbor misgivings about herself or members of the "family" imposed on her? We know the sad end of the tale, but do we really know the complexity of the heart that with its every beat sought to find the goodness in others?

Read a Review!

Ruthless! The Musical
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Fasten your seatbelts...it's gonna be a laughed-so-hard-I-almost-fell-outta-my-seat night! What happens when you take the classic movies The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Gypsy, and Auntie Mame and roll them all together? You get Ruthless! The Musical, the story of 8-year-old Tina Denmark who would kill for the lead in her school play. Add her split-personality mother and a few other bizarre characters and you have a hysterical spoof filled with infamous deeds, mysterious pasts, hidden identities, outrageous plot twists, and loads of laughter.

Ten-year old Julia Goodwin stars as Tina Denmark, the aspiring child actress in Talent Companys production of Ruthless! A student at Reynolds Elementary School in Baldwinsville, Julia has appeared in seven musicals, including the title role in Annie and as Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. In February, she appeared as Chip for Baker High School's production of Beauty & The Beast. She has sung the National Anthem for the Syracuse Crunch Hockey Team and the Syracuse University Women's Basketball Team. Recently called back after her first NYC audition, Julia was one of the finalists for Broadway's Mary Poppins.

Read a Review!

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

Clayscapes Pottery Studio
1003 W. Fayette St., Suite L1, Syracuse

Senior ceramics majors in the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University will present the exhibition "BFA Ceramics 2009," featuring the work of five seniors: Tim Brockhaus, Rebecca Hill, Crystal Lasda, Jaimie Merrell and Vanna Valdez.

Wild Card Exhibit: Serymour and Blodgett School Art Show
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Fiber Art
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Works include framed batik, cloth colleges, sculptural coiled basketry, quilting, tapestry, and more by artists Wilson Akuamoah-Boateng, Sharon Bottle Souva, Lauren Bristol, Barbara Conte-Gaugel, Linda Esterley, Alice Gant, Hilary Gifford, Mary Kester, and Holly Knott.

New York Waters: Photographs by Randy Duchaine
Erie Canal Museum

Price: Free
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse

The exhibition investigates the lives of those who work and play on the fabled bodies of water that border the city's five boroughs. Among those you will meet are a dry dock operator, an eel fisherman, a fireboat preservationist, and a guerilla swimmer. Gathered from the East River to the Erie Basin, the Hudson to Hempstead Harbor, each new perspective connects a personal passion to a fabled local maritime history.

50/50: Works of Nancy Jurs
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Nancy Jurs juxtaposes her signature large-scale, hand-built ceramic sculptures with recent site-specific installations composed of ceramic, mixed-media and found objects. Throughout her 40-year career Jurs, a Rochester-based sculptor and ceramic artist, has produced an astounding body of work that largely addresses female power and strength. In 2003, Jurs completed the Armor Series, a grouping of six life-size armored torsos that present themselves with empowered determination. The stylized shells not only serve to protect the figures but to symbolize renewed confidence and strength in a post-9/11 world. "Undaunted" (2003), which is part of the Armor Series, was acquired by the Everson in 2004.

Also on view will be "Triad," a monumental 16-foot high sculpture composed of ceramic slabs that have been hand-built: cut, scraped, modeled, and stacked in three interacting totem-like structures. Triad will be prominently displayed in the Rosamond Gifford Sculpture Court.

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer's interest in materials and artistic processes is evident in "Concealed Objects," a provocative new site-specific installation created for her first museum solo exhibition at the Everson. Inspired by British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, whose sculpture is at once unique and fleeting, Cofer creates objects that exist for a moment and place in time and then are recycled and reused for other projects. The installation designed for the Everson is composed of skirt forms constructed of cloth and wet clay suspended from the ceiling in grid fashion. The skirts, arranged in perfect harmony within the space that contains them, appear to float in contradiction to the heavy clay that pulls them downward. Each garment is cut from a Victorian-era dress pattern (ca. 1895), combined with wet clay and modeled by hand to capture every fold of the fabric as it cascades to the floor. The repetition of form and motion recalls the monotonous tasks of domestic chores that have existed for centuries without change. Cofer assigns new meaning to the found and recycled fabrics she chooses for the garments: the bed linens, table cloths, furniture upholstery, and well-worn clothing conceal the individual histories, memories and stories untold about their previous owners.

Anne Cofer was the recipient of the Best-of-Show Award given at the 2008 Everson Biennial exhibition.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer, and Tamara Natalie Madden
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer and Tamara Natalie Madden features works by three contemporary African American women artists who work in different media but explore issues of ethnicity, identity, history and culture in their work.

Robin Holder's works are inspired by issues of empowerment and integrity as well as the complexities of American identity: culture, gender, class, race and ethnicity. The works in her series "Behind Each Window, A Voice," were inspired by oral histories of eight of her neighbors in Brooklyn. Issues of race, social and political victimization, and ideas about society are shared by each of the subjects in their personal histories. The works are a combination of painting, collage and printmaking techniques.

Sonya Lawyer's photographic transfers combine imagery from vintage photographs with modern hand-dyed cotton fabric. The photographs were collected by the artist from vintage photo albums purchased at antique stores and through online auctions. Concerned that pieces of history were literally being torn apart and sold to the highest bidder, Lawyer was prompted to start acquiring images in order to protect them from further disturbance. Works from two series, "Searching For Beulah (limit of disturbance)" and "Finding Authenticity (does anyone remember?)" contain singular images of men and women of color juxtaposed with fabric blocks of varying hues. The works are a celebration of the persons depicted, each work revealing strength, pride, beauty and a quintessential timelessness.

Tamara Natalie Madden, in her recent series of mixed media paintings, creates images of kings,queens and warriors, using everyday people as her inspiration. Recognizing the struggles of the working class, the unseen and unheard, Madden chooses to depict them as kings and queens, as a means of expressing appreciation for their experiences, struggles and triumphs. The paintings are layered with quilted fabrics, which represent regal clothing and, symbolically, storytelling and quilts reflecting African traditions. The birds in the paintings represent a sense of freedom.

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Exploring History with Art: The Changing View—Landscapes
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Phoenix: Reinvention, Renewal, Resurrection
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

There will be an artist reception 6:00-9:00.

Five artists interpretation on the mythical and cross-cultural status of reinvention, renewal, and resurrection.

MFA 2009
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

MFA 2009 is an exhibition of master of fine arts degree candidates from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. Twenty-two artists will exhibit a range of work from traditional media such as oil on canvas, portraiture, and atmospheric-fired pottery to contemporary media including digital prints, site-specific installation, and video projection. The diversity of the show is also distinctly international, with artists from Canada, France, Korea and Russia.

While the artists work in a variety of media and techniques, themes emerge across the disciplines. The concept of the fabricated or manipulated environment is evident in many of the artists' sculptural installations, including a monumental model stagecoach positioned in a moon-landing re-creation and a faux-storefront display with ceramic poodles that both mock and celebrate what we regard as haute couture.

Nostalgia and personal identity are also sources of inspiration in this year's exhibition. One artist's work reinterprets the well-known characters from Sesame Street into an iconic status, while another incorporates the artist's past memories and dark humor into photographs that explore childhood experiences of fear, mortality and sex.

Iraq & the U.S. -- Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

Iraq & the U.S.—Children, Art & Building a Culture of Peace is an exhibit of artwork exchanged between Iraqi refugee children living in Jordan and students at our own Van Duyn Elementary School. The exhibit will display a joint mural, an Iraqi mural and other artwork from children connected to the project.

Periphercalculumination: A Projected Kinetic Installation
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Shaffer Art Building; Drawing Gallery (Room 431)
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Work by Chuyen Huynh and Mark Povinelli.

Off The Wall
Westcott Community Center

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

Off The Wall, featuring Camden-area musicians Larry Fox and Charlie Ingersoll, will entertain with their own style of Bluegrass music which has been pleasing local audiences for many years. The combination of Larry's guitar playing and vocals with Charlie's resophonic guitar and high harmonies create an ear pleasing sound that is uniquely their own.

Larry Fox can sing and play everything from a tender ballad to a driving bluegrass number and deliver a sweet sound that is second to none. Charlie Ingersoll adds a tasteful harmony vocal.

Blending folk, bluegrass and traditional country into a unique, no frills sound that lends itself to the works of John Prine, Guy Clark, Tim O'Brien and the Seldom Scene, as well as the works of more obscure songwriters. Add to that, strong vocals and tight harmonies, you have the makings of enjoyable music that tells the story of life's journey.

Opening will be ZipWire, an intriguing collaboration between Black Eyed Susies' members Leah Houghtaling and Amelia Sauter, and Jules Piper of The Witching. Fusing old-time, country, classical and rock-n-roll influences, ZipWire plays a fresh blend of folk-rock, alt country and Americana.

Westcott Theater
The Sister Lovers

Westcott Theater
524 Westcott St., Syracuse

The Elephant's Lullaby
Open Hand Theater
Featuring Tom Knight

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

This brand new performance from our favorite singer, songwriter and puppeteer for young children will charm audiences with a combination of hysterical puppets and original sing-along songs and sketches.
Tom Knight's visit is always a delight in the simple pleasures of puppets and song.

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

The story is simplicity itself. A young girl, alive to everything around her and awakening within her, with hopes and dreams of the life she may one day lead with friends and family, confides to her diary the secrets of her heart. That diary, as we all know, becomes one of the lasting documents of the 20th century, a testament not to the horrors we know so well, but to the indomitability of the human spirit. That's what's so wonderful about this version of The Diary of Anne Frank, newly revised by Wendy Kesselman. With information gleaned from previously withheld portions of the diary and additional survivor accounts, we glimpse this remarkable young woman with greater clarity and deeper understanding of the fullness of her life. Was she on the verge of falling in love for the first time? Did she harbor misgivings about herself or members of the "family" imposed on her? We know the sad end of the tale, but do we really know the complexity of the heart that with its every beat sought to find the goodness in others?

Read a Review!

SubUrbia
Warehoure Architecture Theatre: WhAT

Westcott Theater
524 Westcott St., Syracuse

A play by Eric Bogosian.

Invisible Women Melting
Paul Robeson Performing Arts Company

Price: $10 regular, $5 students
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

One-act play by Jessica Ann Mitchell, depicting the pain and turmoil that black women all over the world endure. For more information, phone 315-422-2727.

Jesus Christ Superstar
Salt City Center for the Performing Arts
Joe Lotito, director
Featuring Bob Brown and Robert Steingraber

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

Read a Review!

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

The story is simplicity itself. A young girl, alive to everything around her and awakening within her, with hopes and dreams of the life she may one day lead with friends and family, confides to her diary the secrets of her heart. That diary, as we all know, becomes one of the lasting documents of the 20th century, a testament not to the horrors we know so well, but to the indomitability of the human spirit. That's what's so wonderful about this version of The Diary of Anne Frank, newly revised by Wendy Kesselman. With information gleaned from previously withheld portions of the diary and additional survivor accounts, we glimpse this remarkable young woman with greater clarity and deeper understanding of the fullness of her life. Was she on the verge of falling in love for the first time? Did she harbor misgivings about herself or members of the "family" imposed on her? We know the sad end of the tale, but do we really know the complexity of the heart that with its every beat sought to find the goodness in others?

Read a Review!

Ruthless! The Musical
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Fasten your seatbelts...it's gonna be a laughed-so-hard-I-almost-fell-outta-my-seat night! What happens when you take the classic movies The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Gypsy, and Auntie Mame and roll them all together? You get Ruthless! The Musical, the story of 8-year-old Tina Denmark who would kill for the lead in her school play. Add her split-personality mother and a few other bizarre characters and you have a hysterical spoof filled with infamous deeds, mysterious pasts, hidden identities, outrageous plot twists, and loads of laughter.

Ten-year old Julia Goodwin stars as Tina Denmark, the aspiring child actress in Talent Companys production of Ruthless! A student at Reynolds Elementary School in Baldwinsville, Julia has appeared in seven musicals, including the title role in Annie and as Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden. In February, she appeared as Chip for Baker High School's production of Beauty & The Beast. She has sung the National Anthem for the Syracuse Crunch Hockey Team and the Syracuse University Women's Basketball Team. Recently called back after her first NYC audition, Julia was one of the finalists for Broadway's Mary Poppins.

Read a Review!

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

Phoenix: Reinvention, Renewal, Resurrection
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Five artists interpretation on the mythical and cross-cultural status of reinvention, renewal, and resurrection.

Periphercalculumination: A Projected Kinetic Installation
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Shaffer Art Building; Drawing Gallery (Room 431)
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Work by Chuyen Huynh and Mark Povinelli.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

To a large extent, Cappuccilli's drawings and paintings are about the beauty of mark making, sensitivity of touch, and forms that are fundamentally mysterious. Her drawings are sometimes mistaken for photographs. The biomorphic drawings may read as benign or threatening hybrids, or as unknown species. The stain drawings developed from recognition of the delicate formal quality of grease stains, and their random patterns.

The Gallery as Studio: Drawings on Delirium
Point of Contact Gallery

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

A world-renowned Uruguayan artist, Ricardo Lanzarini comes from Montevideo to Syracuse to recreate the mundane and the extraordinary in his drawings on delirium made to unexpected scales. The exhibition comes to life at The Point of Contact Gallery where the space has turned into an artist's studio. The work of the exhibit is to be produced entirely on site and directly onto the walls of the gallery in the weeks leading up to the opening. Lanzarini will also share this experiment with students from Syracuse University's Fine Arts Department who will join in the creative process.

Lanzarini's work balances extremes of scale, crafting an extensive abstract image from precise, miniscule characters, whose everyday activities serve as a window into a miniature world, frozen in time. These drawings sarcastically explore the two major paradigms in figurative art of the 20th century: Social and Fantastic Realism

The exhibit will last through the summer and then Lanzarini returns to Point of Contact to perform an "erasure" of the work on September 4. The book catalogue documenting the entire project will be presented at the close.

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

Fun, wild, and experimental artwork by Rochester's Arena Art Group.

A Goodly Heritage of Study: The Portfolio Club of Syracuse
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

Displayed are the archives of a still-thriving women's study club that was formed in 1875 in Syracuse. The Portfolio Club exemplifies a post-Civil War movement in which many thousands of middle-class women came together to educate themselves in a society that restricted women's access to institutions of higher learning. This club began a few weeks after the Association for the Advancement of Women held a congress at the Wieting Opera House in downtown Syracuse. At these congresses, which took place in many American cities, Julia Ward Howe and other presenters encouraged women to form study clubs for self-culture.

Nine young women founded the Portfolio Club, with guidance from Mary Dana Hicks, their art teacher. Though they began with a focus on art, in the middle 1880s they expanded their scope to include literature, current events, history, performing arts and many other subjects. Members have always met regularly from October through April to read their papers on a topic assigned by each year's president.

Syracuse residents and those long associated with SU will recognize the married names of many past club members, such as Mrs. Donald Dey, Mrs. William Nottingham, Mrs. E.N. Westcott, and Mrs. Mildred Eggers. Among Portfolio guest speakers during the club's first several decades were Judge Charles Andrews, Dean George Fiske Comfort, Howard Lyman, professors Sawyer Falk and Irene Sargent, Paul Paine, Douglas Petit, Katherine Sibley, and SU Chancellor Charles Sims.

The exhibition, which emphasizes the years 1875-1950, includes annual program booklets, many of them finely crafted. Also on display are meeting minutes, clippings, photographs, film footage of a 1935 gathering and other club documents.

Faces: Inspiration from Within -- Works by Erin Boyle
Westcott Community Center

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

Cutting away from traditional portraiture, Erin creates edgy images that offer more expressive descriptions.

New York Waters: Photographs by Randy Duchaine
Erie Canal Museum

Price: Free
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse

The exhibition investigates the lives of those who work and play on the fabled bodies of water that border the city's five boroughs. Among those you will meet are a dry dock operator, an eel fisherman, a fireboat preservationist, and a guerilla swimmer. Gathered from the East River to the Erie Basin, the Hudson to Hempstead Harbor, each new perspective connects a personal passion to a fabled local maritime history.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

"Limbo" depicts a graceful yet unusually honest and insightful snapshot of Eritrea, an East African country suspended in an unsettled state between war and peace.

Eritrea warred with neighboring Ethiopia for 30 years before gaining independence in 1991. Then, in 1998, they entered another war with Ethiopia that lasted two years. Today, the war-torn country is yet again at the brink of war with their neighbor. Years of unrest have left the people of Eritrea waiting for life to improve. According to Habteslasie: "Transitory states become permanent; empty villas, destroyed old buildings and unfinished new buildings dot the landscape, monuments to the suspension of history. The collision between Eritrea's proud historical narrative and the bleak ennui of the present has produced an obsessive focus on the future. Reconstruction and infrastructure development are energetically driven forward whilst the economy remains essentially shut off from the outside world." The images in "Limbo" capture both destruction and construction, both the unhealed wounds of war and a fierce optimism and hope for a brighter future.

Habteslasie was born in Kuwait, and his parents are Eritrean. He received his master's degree from the London College of Communication in photojournalism and documentary photography. His photographic projects look at the ideas of identity, history, and the re-evaluation of our relationship with historical process. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Flowers East and 198 Gallery in London. His work has also been published in Source Magazine.

As It Happens: Artists-in-Residence at Light Work
Light Work Gallery

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

Josh Brilliant curates a selection of images by recent Light Work Artists-in-Residence, including Amy Stein, Kelli Connell, Cristina Fraire, Krista Steinke, and Christine Osinski. Brilliant is currently an MFA candidate in the Museum Studies program at Syracuse University.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

Phoenix: Reinvention, Renewal, Resurrection
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Five artists interpretation on the mythical and cross-cultural status of reinvention, renewal, and resurrection.

Periphercalculumination: A Projected Kinetic Installation
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Price: Free
Shaffer Art Building; Drawing Gallery (Room 431)
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Work by Chuyen Huynh and Mark Povinelli.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Window Projects: Museum of the City of Lost and Found
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Museum of the City of Lost and Found, Marion Wilson's latest sculpture project, is a continuation of her public art project launched in conjunction with the 2008 New Orleans Biennial. The exhibition is a combination of hexagram patterns of i-ching (a symbol system used to identify order in random events) collaboratively painted on the wall by the artist, community members, faculty and students at Syracuse University; miniature "igloo" and cast resin objects; and a short video of Wilson's bicycle (mobile museum) performance in New Orleans edited by Jessica Posner. Wilson invites audience participation by filling out Lost and Found Report cards (available throughout the exhibition), her method of collecting stories about viewers' personal losses, chances, findings and discoveries.

Marion Wilson uses igloos as a nomadic structure of native materials to remind us of our basic human need for shelter and protection. In addition, it is a reference to fundamentals of human existence and the Italian Arte Povera artist Mario Merz (1925-2003). In New Orleans, Wilson's sculpture was originally mounted on a constructed bicycle able to roam the city streets within the St. Roch neighborhood and the French Market. In Syracuse, Wilson will exhibit her 'mobile museum' at the Warehouse Gallery, thus, creating a "museum inside a museum." Although the installation in the Window Projects will remain through June 6, its appearance will continuously change through the continual addition of found materials collected by the artist. Wilson will be guided in selecting these additional materials by outside interviews with the general public in the greater Syracuse community.

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

To a large extent, Cappuccilli's drawings and paintings are about the beauty of mark making, sensitivity of touch, and forms that are fundamentally mysterious. Her drawings are sometimes mistaken for photographs. The biomorphic drawings may read as benign or threatening hybrids, or as unknown species. The stain drawings developed from recognition of the delicate formal quality of grease stains, and their random patterns.

The Gallery as Studio: Drawings on Delirium
Point of Contact Gallery

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

A world-renowned Uruguayan artist, Ricardo Lanzarini comes from Montevideo to Syracuse to recreate the mundane and the extraordinary in his drawings on delirium made to unexpected scales. The exhibition comes to life at The Point of Contact Gallery where the space has turned into an artist's studio. The work of the exhibit is to be produced entirely on site and directly onto the walls of the gallery in the weeks leading up to the opening. Lanzarini will also share this experiment with students from Syracuse University's Fine Arts Department who will join in the creative process.

Lanzarini's work balances extremes of scale, crafting an extensive abstract image from precise, miniscule characters, whose everyday activities serve as a window into a miniature world, frozen in time. These drawings sarcastically explore the two major paradigms in figurative art of the 20th century: Social and Fantastic Realism

The exhibit will last through the summer and then Lanzarini returns to Point of Contact to perform an "erasure" of the work on September 4. The book catalogue documenting the entire project will be presented at the close.

Photo-Drawings: Recent Works by Julieve Jubin and Juan Perdiguero, and An Introduction: Recent Works by Barbara Stout
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

Fun, wild, and experimental artwork by Rochester's Arena Art Group.

A Goodly Heritage of Study: The Portfolio Club of Syracuse
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

Displayed are the archives of a still-thriving women's study club that was formed in 1875 in Syracuse. The Portfolio Club exemplifies a post-Civil War movement in which many thousands of middle-class women came together to educate themselves in a society that restricted women's access to institutions of higher learning. This club began a few weeks after the Association for the Advancement of Women held a congress at the Wieting Opera House in downtown Syracuse. At these congresses, which took place in many American cities, Julia Ward Howe and other presenters encouraged women to form study clubs for self-culture.

Nine young women founded the Portfolio Club, with guidance from Mary Dana Hicks, their art teacher. Though they began with a focus on art, in the middle 1880s they expanded their scope to include literature, current events, history, performing arts and many other subjects. Members have always met regularly from October through April to read their papers on a topic assigned by each year's president.

Syracuse residents and those long associated with SU will recognize the married names of many past club members, such as Mrs. Donald Dey, Mrs. William Nottingham, Mrs. E.N. Westcott, and Mrs. Mildred Eggers. Among Portfolio guest speakers during the club's first several decades were Judge Charles Andrews, Dean George Fiske Comfort, Howard Lyman, professors Sawyer Falk and Irene Sargent, Paul Paine, Douglas Petit, Katherine Sibley, and SU Chancellor Charles Sims.

The exhibition, which emphasizes the years 1875-1950, includes annual program booklets, many of them finely crafted. Also on display are meeting minutes, clippings, photographs, film footage of a 1935 gathering and other club documents.

Faces: Inspiration from Within -- Works by Erin Boyle
Westcott Community Center

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

Cutting away from traditional portraiture, Erin creates edgy images that offer more expressive descriptions.

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer, and Tamara Natalie Madden
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Free
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Three Sisters: The Art of Robin Holder, Sonya A. Lawyer and Tamara Natalie Madden features works by three contemporary African American women artists who work in different media but explore issues of ethnicity, identity, history and culture in their work.

Robin Holder's works are inspired by issues of empowerment and integrity as well as the complexities of American identity: culture, gender, class, race and ethnicity. The works in her series "Behind Each Window, A Voice," were inspired by oral histories of eight of her neighbors in Brooklyn. Issues of race, social and political victimization, and ideas about society are shared by each of the subjects in their personal histories. The works are a combination of painting, collage and printmaking techniques.

Sonya Lawyer's photographic transfers combine imagery from vintage photographs with modern hand-dyed cotton fabric. The photographs were collected by the artist from vintage photo albums purchased at antique stores and through online auctions. Concerned that pieces of history were literally being torn apart and sold to the highest bidder, Lawyer was prompted to start acquiring images in order to protect them from further disturbance. Works from two series, "Searching For Beulah (limit of disturbance)" and "Finding Authenticity (does anyone remember?)" contain singular images of men and women of color juxtaposed with fabric blocks of varying hues. The works are a celebration of the persons depicted, each work revealing strength, pride, beauty and a quintessential timelessness.

Tamara Natalie Madden, in her recent series of mixed media paintings, creates images of kings,queens and warriors, using everyday people as her inspiration. Recognizing the struggles of the working class, the unseen and unheard, Madden chooses to depict them as kings and queens, as a means of expressing appreciation for their experiences, struggles and triumphs. The paintings are layered with quilted fabrics, which represent regal clothing and, symbolically, storytelling and quilts reflecting African traditions. The birds in the paintings represent a sense of freedom.

New York Waters: Photographs by Randy Duchaine
Erie Canal Museum

Price: Free
Erie Canal Museum
318 Erie Blvd. E., Syracuse

The exhibition investigates the lives of those who work and play on the fabled bodies of water that border the city's five boroughs. Among those you will meet are a dry dock operator, an eel fisherman, a fireboat preservationist, and a guerilla swimmer. Gathered from the East River to the Erie Basin, the Hudson to Hempstead Harbor, each new perspective connects a personal passion to a fabled local maritime history.

As It Happens: Artists-in-Residence at Light Work
Light Work Gallery

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

Josh Brilliant curates a selection of images by recent Light Work Artists-in-Residence, including Amy Stein, Kelli Connell, Cristina Fraire, Krista Steinke, and Christine Osinski. Brilliant is currently an MFA candidate in the Museum Studies program at Syracuse University.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

"Limbo" depicts a graceful yet unusually honest and insightful snapshot of Eritrea, an East African country suspended in an unsettled state between war and peace.

Eritrea warred with neighboring Ethiopia for 30 years before gaining independence in 1991. Then, in 1998, they entered another war with Ethiopia that lasted two years. Today, the war-torn country is yet again at the brink of war with their neighbor. Years of unrest have left the people of Eritrea waiting for life to improve. According to Habteslasie: "Transitory states become permanent; empty villas, destroyed old buildings and unfinished new buildings dot the landscape, monuments to the suspension of history. The collision between Eritrea's proud historical narrative and the bleak ennui of the present has produced an obsessive focus on the future. Reconstruction and infrastructure development are energetically driven forward whilst the economy remains essentially shut off from the outside world." The images in "Limbo" capture both destruction and construction, both the unhealed wounds of war and a fierce optimism and hope for a brighter future.

Habteslasie was born in Kuwait, and his parents are Eritrean. He received his master's degree from the London College of Communication in photojournalism and documentary photography. His photographic projects look at the ideas of identity, history, and the re-evaluation of our relationship with historical process. His work has been exhibited at venues such as Flowers East and 198 Gallery in London. His work has also been published in Source Magazine.

Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

A new exhibit featuring artists Tim Etter (photography), Gretchen Hamlin (blown glass jewelry) and Lisa Noviasky (oil paintings).

Phoenix: Reinvention, Renewal, Resurrection
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Five artists interpretation on the mythical and cross-cultural status of reinvention, renewal, and resurrection.

MFA 2009
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

MFA 2009 is an exhibition of master of fine arts degree candidates from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. Twenty-two artists will exhibit a range of work from traditional media such as oil on canvas, portraiture, and atmospheric-fired pottery to contemporary media including digital prints, site-specific installation, and video projection. The diversity of the show is also distinctly international, with artists from Canada, France, Korea and Russia.

While the artists work in a variety of media and techniques, themes emerge across the disciplines. The concept of the fabricated or manipulated environment is evident in many of the artists' sculptural installations, including a monumental model stagecoach positioned in a moon-landing re-creation and a faux-storefront display with ceramic poodles that both mock and celebrate what we regard as haute couture.

Nostalgia and personal identity are also sources of inspiration in this year's exhibition. One artist's work reinterprets the well-known characters from Sesame Street into an iconic status, while another incorporates the artist's past memories and dark humor into photographs that explore childhood experiences of fear, mortality and sex.

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Anne Cofer's interest in materials and artistic processes is evident in "Concealed Objects," a provocative new site-specific installation created for her first museum solo exhibition at the Everson. Inspired by British artists such as Cornelia Parker and Rachel Whiteread, whose sculpture is at once unique and fleeting, Cofer creates objects that exist for a moment and place in time and then are recycled and reused for other projects. The installation designed for the Everson is composed of skirt forms constructed of cloth and wet clay suspended from the ceiling in grid fashion. The skirts, arranged in perfect harmony within the space that contains them, appear to float in contradiction to the heavy clay that pulls them downward. Each garment is cut from a Victorian-era dress pattern (ca. 1895), combined with wet clay and modeled by hand to capture every fold of the fabric as it cascades to the floor. The repetition of form and motion recalls the monotonous tasks of domestic chores that have existed for centuries without change. Cofer assigns new meaning to the found and recycled fabrics she chooses for the garments: the bed linens, table cloths, furniture upholstery, and well-worn clothing conceal the individual histories, memories and stories untold about their previous owners.

Anne Cofer was the recipient of the Best-of-Show Award given at the 2008 Everson Biennial exhibition.

50/50: Works of Nancy Jurs
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Nancy Jurs juxtaposes her signature large-scale, hand-built ceramic sculptures with recent site-specific installations composed of ceramic, mixed-media and found objects. Throughout her 40-year career Jurs, a Rochester-based sculptor and ceramic artist, has produced an astounding body of work that largely addresses female power and strength. In 2003, Jurs completed the Armor Series, a grouping of six life-size armored torsos that present themselves with empowered determination. The stylized shells not only serve to protect the figures but to symbolize renewed confidence and strength in a post-9/11 world. "Undaunted" (2003), which is part of the Armor Series, was acquired by the Everson in 2004.

Also on view will be "Triad," a monumental 16-foot high sculpture composed of ceramic slabs that have been hand-built: cut, scraped, modeled, and stacked in three interacting totem-like structures. Triad will be prominently displayed in the Rosamond Gifford Sculpture Court.

Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The exhibition of works by Andrew Deutsch and Stephen Vitiello, "Sound Scores: Paper, Wood, Stone and Glass," is an installation composed of audio and video pieces as well as photographs, prints and sculpture. Deutsch and Vitiello are musicians, composers and sound artists who have been collaborating since 1999. For this, their first co-exhibition, the artists provided each other with musical scores for the other to perform. In so doing, they emphasize the visual nature of sound scores, shedding light on this complex, seemingly inaccessible medium called sound art.

In Vitiello's work viewers will see a shift from landscape photographs (7 Studies for Graphic Scores, 2007) to abstract black-and-white prints (Pond Set, 2008) that continue to refer to landscape through black lines that evoke both reeds and musical notes. In the background of his videos, Deutsch includes imagery from the "Notgeld" (emergency money that was put into circulation in Germany during the economic crisis of the 1920s) as a reflection on our difficult economic times. Deutsch also uses these collectibles in the making of his own sound scores; he has created a narrative referring to the films of Fritz Lang, to illustrated children's books, and to early 20th-century European artistic abstraction, where sound and sight blend into a common experience.

Periphercalculumination: A Projected Kinetic Installation
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Price: Free
Shaffer Art Building; Drawing Gallery (Room 431)
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Work by Chuyen Huynh and Mark Povinelli.

Thinking and Doing: Recent Works at Snøhetta
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring Craig Dykers

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Auditorium
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Syracuse Architecture NYC visiting critic Craig Dykers is a founding partner of SNOHETTA, and has been involved in the design and construction of several major projects in the Middle East, Europe, and the US including the new library in Alexandria, Egypt, the new National Opera House in Oslo, Norway and most recently the National September 11 Memorial Museum Pavilion in NYC. Craig resides in both Oslo and in NYC. Reception to follow.

Soundscape Design: Acoustic Creativity-'Klanguage' for Media
The Warehouse Gallery
Featuring Hans-Ulrich Werner

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

Hans-Ulrich Werner is a professor for sound, media and acoustic communication at the University of Applied Sciences in Offenburg, Germany, and a visiting lecturer in the Department of Television, Radio and Film, S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Syracuse University.

Spring
LeMoyne College
LeMoyne College Chamber Orchestra and Jazzuits
Featuring Grammy Award-winning violinist James Ehnes; jazz vocalist Nancy Kelly

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors, students free
Palace Theater
2384 James St., Syracuse

An evening of music featuring Vivaldi's Spring and all of your favorite Beatles tunes.

S.U. Brazilian Ensemble
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music

Price: Free
Setnor Auditorium, Crouse College
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Waffles for Opera: Barrio Bohème
Syracuse Opera

Price: $10
Westcott Theater
524 Westcott St., Syracuse

Come join the Syracuse Opera for a great evening of fun, food and music. The Opera's Resident Artists will perform Barrio Bohème, a shortened version of Puccini's masterpiece set in 1960s Spanish Harlem, followed by a meet and greet with the artists, and some of the most amazing waffles ever made, served by Funk N' Waffles.

Proceeds to benefit Syracuse Opera.

For more information, email education@syracuseopera.com.

Sweeney Todd
Broadway in Syracuse

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

Experience, live on stage, the musical that inspired the Tim Burton and Johnny Depp movie. When the infamous demon barber takes up with his crafty neighbor, Mrs. Lovett, the two embark on a delicious plot to slice their way through London's upper crust. Justice is served -- along with lush melody, audacious humor and hair-raising excitement. Don't miss this phenomenal productionwith full music and lyrics by multiple Tony-Award winner Stephen Sondheim.

Read a review!