Tuesday, July 7, 2009

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.

Recent works by Al Bremer and Kate Timm
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Healing Art Passages: A Journey of Grace -- works of Suzanne Masters
Westcott Community Center

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

Painting and collage provide examples of "working through" from Suzanne's own personal experiences and of how she takes her students through the process of self discovery.

"Through visual art we can consciously process old beliefs and 'stuck' patterns that hold us back. Through this discovery, we can see clearly and decide the paths we choose to take in our lives. As an artist and a teacher, I have learned that when we close our mouths and stop the chatter, and let colors and forms talk, we shift the process to the other side of the brain where it can speak about things we may have covered up long ago. When they come back to us this way, it is with a different sound. The journey through such an emergence is powerful and beautiful!"

Terrain
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Sharon Gordon: Oil Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

Organic Watermarks: Photographs by Gus Bennett, Jr.
Community Folk Art Center

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

In the exhibition "Organic Watermarks," New Orleans photographer Gus Bennett, Jr., displays portraits of New Orleans residents juxtaposed with layers of debris from Hurricane Katrina. Watermarks on concrete and other surfaces, leaves, textures, colors and remnants left behind by Katrina form layers in front of, behind and even merged onto the surface of the skin of the subjects. Together, the subjects and debris become storytellers of New Orleans post-Katrina. Shot entirely in natural light, the overall mood of the pieces is almost of an ethereal quality, with the ghost-like images of debris commingling with the subjects. According to Bennett, as many as 82 layers comprise one individual portrait. The subjects either appear draped in fabric or nude, which the artist explains is a means of eliminating social class or status: "with Katrina, everyone got left behind." With "Organic Watermarks," Bennett creates true works of beauty, proving that even in the aftermath of chaos, hope can still prevail.

Purple Treatment: Ceramic Works by Eunjung Shin
Community Folk Art Center

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

In "Purple Treatment," Eunjung Shin's figurative ceramic sculptures represent stories from the artist's life. Shin has taken personal memories and transformed them into three-dimensional artistic expressions. The highly detailed figures are skillfully rendered and express a range of emotions. Shin describes some of her figures as "clowns" because they hide their true selves, putting on a face to the world in order to please others. Many of the pieces prompt the viewer to look inward to reflect upon their meaning.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"What does the world look like from a non-violent point of view? What would happen if the youth of Syracuse city and Syracuse University joined together to explore this question?" These are the questions that led Anne Beffel, a New York based public artist and Associate Professor of Art at Syracuse University and Pam McLaughlin, Everson Curator of Education and Public Programs to bring the Sitting Still contemplative video project to high school students from the Syracuse City School District. Beffel and McLaughlin worked together for over a year to put video cameras in the hands eight young artists, so that they could stop, look, and listen as scenes unfolded before them ranging from those that inspired awe to those that compelled participation and intervention. Within the context of four workshops at the SU Warehouse e-tags studio, students engaged in making video art from a perfectly still point of view, and then used their artworks as the basis for sharing their diverse visions. The workshops were at the heart of this process of opening up to environments -- both physical and social.

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

In November 2004, Frank Warren began a community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. Two requirements were: the secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person. Today Warren has been mailed more than 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets never voiced. This extraordinary project has become an international phenomenon with thousands of people participating in scheduled PostSecret events throughout the United States, and through the PostSecret website and blog.

This exhibition features 450 postcards bringing together the most powerful, poignant and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received in the past four years. In many cases, the illustrations on the cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The two solo exhibitions, Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and Xiaowen Chen: 100 Last Names, present work from the past nine years by Chinese-born, Ithaca-based artist Chen. Having lived in the United States for the past two decades, Chen has focused his work on the space between East and West. From his many return trips to China, Chen has created digital images and video projections reflecting American and Chinese attitudes toward the 21st-century role of media and technology and identity issues. His work of overlapping the cultures of East and West addresses his search for what he called in 1993 the "manifestation of the universal and the expression of the particular."

Chen places himself in the position of both the American and the Chinese tourist. He has noted that when photographing in China he feels like a foreigner, while in the U.S. he feels like a traveler. His work addresses both China's historical transformation and his personal experience as an émigré.

Like other artists of his generation, Chen grew up under Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution and was exposed to a visual vocabulary that highlighted fragmentation and repetition. As a result, works by Xiaowen Chen evoke cultural clichés and stereotypes.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

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.

Recent works by Al Bremer and Kate Timm
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Healing Art Passages: A Journey of Grace -- works of Suzanne Masters
Westcott Community Center

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

Painting and collage provide examples of "working through" from Suzanne's own personal experiences and of how she takes her students through the process of self discovery.

"Through visual art we can consciously process old beliefs and 'stuck' patterns that hold us back. Through this discovery, we can see clearly and decide the paths we choose to take in our lives. As an artist and a teacher, I have learned that when we close our mouths and stop the chatter, and let colors and forms talk, we shift the process to the other side of the brain where it can speak about things we may have covered up long ago. When they come back to us this way, it is with a different sound. The journey through such an emergence is powerful and beautiful!"

Terrain
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Sharon Gordon: Oil Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

Purple Treatment: Ceramic Works by Eunjung Shin
Community Folk Art Center

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

In "Purple Treatment," Eunjung Shin's figurative ceramic sculptures represent stories from the artist's life. Shin has taken personal memories and transformed them into three-dimensional artistic expressions. The highly detailed figures are skillfully rendered and express a range of emotions. Shin describes some of her figures as "clowns" because they hide their true selves, putting on a face to the world in order to please others. Many of the pieces prompt the viewer to look inward to reflect upon their meaning.

Organic Watermarks: Photographs by Gus Bennett, Jr.
Community Folk Art Center

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

In the exhibition "Organic Watermarks," New Orleans photographer Gus Bennett, Jr., displays portraits of New Orleans residents juxtaposed with layers of debris from Hurricane Katrina. Watermarks on concrete and other surfaces, leaves, textures, colors and remnants left behind by Katrina form layers in front of, behind and even merged onto the surface of the skin of the subjects. Together, the subjects and debris become storytellers of New Orleans post-Katrina. Shot entirely in natural light, the overall mood of the pieces is almost of an ethereal quality, with the ghost-like images of debris commingling with the subjects. According to Bennett, as many as 82 layers comprise one individual portrait. The subjects either appear draped in fabric or nude, which the artist explains is a means of eliminating social class or status: "with Katrina, everyone got left behind." With "Organic Watermarks," Bennett creates true works of beauty, proving that even in the aftermath of chaos, hope can still prevail.

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

In November 2004, Frank Warren began a community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. Two requirements were: the secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person. Today Warren has been mailed more than 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets never voiced. This extraordinary project has become an international phenomenon with thousands of people participating in scheduled PostSecret events throughout the United States, and through the PostSecret website and blog.

This exhibition features 450 postcards bringing together the most powerful, poignant and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received in the past four years. In many cases, the illustrations on the cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"What does the world look like from a non-violent point of view? What would happen if the youth of Syracuse city and Syracuse University joined together to explore this question?" These are the questions that led Anne Beffel, a New York based public artist and Associate Professor of Art at Syracuse University and Pam McLaughlin, Everson Curator of Education and Public Programs to bring the Sitting Still contemplative video project to high school students from the Syracuse City School District. Beffel and McLaughlin worked together for over a year to put video cameras in the hands eight young artists, so that they could stop, look, and listen as scenes unfolded before them ranging from those that inspired awe to those that compelled participation and intervention. Within the context of four workshops at the SU Warehouse e-tags studio, students engaged in making video art from a perfectly still point of view, and then used their artworks as the basis for sharing their diverse visions. The workshops were at the heart of this process of opening up to environments -- both physical and social.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The two solo exhibitions, Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and Xiaowen Chen: 100 Last Names, present work from the past nine years by Chinese-born, Ithaca-based artist Chen. Having lived in the United States for the past two decades, Chen has focused his work on the space between East and West. From his many return trips to China, Chen has created digital images and video projections reflecting American and Chinese attitudes toward the 21st-century role of media and technology and identity issues. His work of overlapping the cultures of East and West addresses his search for what he called in 1993 the "manifestation of the universal and the expression of the particular."

Chen places himself in the position of both the American and the Chinese tourist. He has noted that when photographing in China he feels like a foreigner, while in the U.S. he feels like a traveler. His work addresses both China's historical transformation and his personal experience as an émigré.

Like other artists of his generation, Chen grew up under Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution and was exposed to a visual vocabulary that highlighted fragmentation and repetition. As a result, works by Xiaowen Chen evoke cultural clichés and stereotypes.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A powerful exhibit of photographs from the Oaxaca, Mexico resistance movement combined with original political posters from art collectives there.

In 2006, Oaxaca, Mexico came alive with a broad and diverse movement that captivated the nation and inspired communities organizing for social justice around the world. Fueled by long ignored social contradictions, what began as a teachers' strike demanding more resources for education quickly turned into a massive movement that demanded direct, participatory democracy.

Hundreds of thousands of Oaxacans raised their voices against the abuses of the state government. They participated in marches of up to 800,000 people, planned strategy at the barricades, occupied government buildings, took over radio stations, held sit-ins, and reclaimed spaces for public art and altars for assassinated activists. In the now Legendary March of Pots and Pans, 2,000 women peacefully took over and operated the state television channel for three weeks.

Boots N Shorts
Liverpool is the Place

Price: Free
Johnson Park
Corner of Vine and Oswego Streets, Liverpool

One of CNY's best young bluegrass bands.
Rain Date: Thursday, July 9

For information on concerts or to see if a concert has been rained out, please call 315-457-3895.

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO String Quartet II

Price: Free
Jordan Bramley Library
15 Mechanic St., Jordan

Thursday, July 9, 2009

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.

Recent works by Al Bremer and Kate Timm
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Healing Art Passages: A Journey of Grace -- works of Suzanne Masters
Westcott Community Center

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

Painting and collage provide examples of "working through" from Suzanne's own personal experiences and of how she takes her students through the process of self discovery.

"Through visual art we can consciously process old beliefs and 'stuck' patterns that hold us back. Through this discovery, we can see clearly and decide the paths we choose to take in our lives. As an artist and a teacher, I have learned that when we close our mouths and stop the chatter, and let colors and forms talk, we shift the process to the other side of the brain where it can speak about things we may have covered up long ago. When they come back to us this way, it is with a different sound. The journey through such an emergence is powerful and beautiful!"

Terrain
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Sharon Gordon: Oil Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

Organic Watermarks: Photographs by Gus Bennett, Jr.
Community Folk Art Center

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

In the exhibition "Organic Watermarks," New Orleans photographer Gus Bennett, Jr., displays portraits of New Orleans residents juxtaposed with layers of debris from Hurricane Katrina. Watermarks on concrete and other surfaces, leaves, textures, colors and remnants left behind by Katrina form layers in front of, behind and even merged onto the surface of the skin of the subjects. Together, the subjects and debris become storytellers of New Orleans post-Katrina. Shot entirely in natural light, the overall mood of the pieces is almost of an ethereal quality, with the ghost-like images of debris commingling with the subjects. According to Bennett, as many as 82 layers comprise one individual portrait. The subjects either appear draped in fabric or nude, which the artist explains is a means of eliminating social class or status: "with Katrina, everyone got left behind." With "Organic Watermarks," Bennett creates true works of beauty, proving that even in the aftermath of chaos, hope can still prevail.

Purple Treatment: Ceramic Works by Eunjung Shin
Community Folk Art Center

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

In "Purple Treatment," Eunjung Shin's figurative ceramic sculptures represent stories from the artist's life. Shin has taken personal memories and transformed them into three-dimensional artistic expressions. The highly detailed figures are skillfully rendered and express a range of emotions. Shin describes some of her figures as "clowns" because they hide their true selves, putting on a face to the world in order to please others. Many of the pieces prompt the viewer to look inward to reflect upon their meaning.

Wild Card Exhibit -- Price Check: Syracuse
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

An interactive curatorial exhibition organized by two former staffers at the Delavan, Courtney Rile and Roslyn Esperon, for a research project that examines the variations of the visual art market based upon geographic proximity to a major art center.

Reflections
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Featuring works by Marna Bell, Deborah Walsh, Mary Lou Colgin, and Carol Osborne-Ackles.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"What does the world look like from a non-violent point of view? What would happen if the youth of Syracuse city and Syracuse University joined together to explore this question?" These are the questions that led Anne Beffel, a New York based public artist and Associate Professor of Art at Syracuse University and Pam McLaughlin, Everson Curator of Education and Public Programs to bring the Sitting Still contemplative video project to high school students from the Syracuse City School District. Beffel and McLaughlin worked together for over a year to put video cameras in the hands eight young artists, so that they could stop, look, and listen as scenes unfolded before them ranging from those that inspired awe to those that compelled participation and intervention. Within the context of four workshops at the SU Warehouse e-tags studio, students engaged in making video art from a perfectly still point of view, and then used their artworks as the basis for sharing their diverse visions. The workshops were at the heart of this process of opening up to environments -- both physical and social.

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

In November 2004, Frank Warren began a community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. Two requirements were: the secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person. Today Warren has been mailed more than 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets never voiced. This extraordinary project has become an international phenomenon with thousands of people participating in scheduled PostSecret events throughout the United States, and through the PostSecret website and blog.

This exhibition features 450 postcards bringing together the most powerful, poignant and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received in the past four years. In many cases, the illustrations on the cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The two solo exhibitions, Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and Xiaowen Chen: 100 Last Names, present work from the past nine years by Chinese-born, Ithaca-based artist Chen. Having lived in the United States for the past two decades, Chen has focused his work on the space between East and West. From his many return trips to China, Chen has created digital images and video projections reflecting American and Chinese attitudes toward the 21st-century role of media and technology and identity issues. His work of overlapping the cultures of East and West addresses his search for what he called in 1993 the "manifestation of the universal and the expression of the particular."

Chen places himself in the position of both the American and the Chinese tourist. He has noted that when photographing in China he feels like a foreigner, while in the U.S. he feels like a traveler. His work addresses both China's historical transformation and his personal experience as an émigré.

Like other artists of his generation, Chen grew up under Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution and was exposed to a visual vocabulary that highlighted fragmentation and repetition. As a result, works by Xiaowen Chen evoke cultural clichés and stereotypes.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A powerful exhibit of photographs from the Oaxaca, Mexico resistance movement combined with original political posters from art collectives there.

In 2006, Oaxaca, Mexico came alive with a broad and diverse movement that captivated the nation and inspired communities organizing for social justice around the world. Fueled by long ignored social contradictions, what began as a teachers' strike demanding more resources for education quickly turned into a massive movement that demanded direct, participatory democracy.

Hundreds of thousands of Oaxacans raised their voices against the abuses of the state government. They participated in marches of up to 800,000 people, planned strategy at the barricades, occupied government buildings, took over radio stations, held sit-ins, and reclaimed spaces for public art and altars for assassinated activists. In the now Legendary March of Pots and Pans, 2,000 women peacefully took over and operated the state television channel for three weeks.

West Side Story
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Read a review!

Friday, July 10, 2009

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.

Recent works by Al Bremer and Kate Timm
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Healing Art Passages: A Journey of Grace -- works of Suzanne Masters
Westcott Community Center

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

Painting and collage provide examples of "working through" from Suzanne's own personal experiences and of how she takes her students through the process of self discovery.

"Through visual art we can consciously process old beliefs and 'stuck' patterns that hold us back. Through this discovery, we can see clearly and decide the paths we choose to take in our lives. As an artist and a teacher, I have learned that when we close our mouths and stop the chatter, and let colors and forms talk, we shift the process to the other side of the brain where it can speak about things we may have covered up long ago. When they come back to us this way, it is with a different sound. The journey through such an emergence is powerful and beautiful!"

Terrain
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Sharon Gordon: Oil Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

Purple Treatment: Ceramic Works by Eunjung Shin
Community Folk Art Center

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

In "Purple Treatment," Eunjung Shin's figurative ceramic sculptures represent stories from the artist's life. Shin has taken personal memories and transformed them into three-dimensional artistic expressions. The highly detailed figures are skillfully rendered and express a range of emotions. Shin describes some of her figures as "clowns" because they hide their true selves, putting on a face to the world in order to please others. Many of the pieces prompt the viewer to look inward to reflect upon their meaning.

Organic Watermarks: Photographs by Gus Bennett, Jr.
Community Folk Art Center

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

In the exhibition "Organic Watermarks," New Orleans photographer Gus Bennett, Jr., displays portraits of New Orleans residents juxtaposed with layers of debris from Hurricane Katrina. Watermarks on concrete and other surfaces, leaves, textures, colors and remnants left behind by Katrina form layers in front of, behind and even merged onto the surface of the skin of the subjects. Together, the subjects and debris become storytellers of New Orleans post-Katrina. Shot entirely in natural light, the overall mood of the pieces is almost of an ethereal quality, with the ghost-like images of debris commingling with the subjects. According to Bennett, as many as 82 layers comprise one individual portrait. The subjects either appear draped in fabric or nude, which the artist explains is a means of eliminating social class or status: "with Katrina, everyone got left behind." With "Organic Watermarks," Bennett creates true works of beauty, proving that even in the aftermath of chaos, hope can still prevail.

Wild Card Exhibit -- Price Check: Syracuse
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

An interactive curatorial exhibition organized by two former staffers at the Delavan, Courtney Rile and Roslyn Esperon, for a research project that examines the variations of the visual art market based upon geographic proximity to a major art center.

Reflections
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Featuring works by Marna Bell, Deborah Walsh, Mary Lou Colgin, and Carol Osborne-Ackles.

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

In November 2004, Frank Warren began a community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. Two requirements were: the secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person. Today Warren has been mailed more than 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets never voiced. This extraordinary project has become an international phenomenon with thousands of people participating in scheduled PostSecret events throughout the United States, and through the PostSecret website and blog.

This exhibition features 450 postcards bringing together the most powerful, poignant and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received in the past four years. In many cases, the illustrations on the cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"What does the world look like from a non-violent point of view? What would happen if the youth of Syracuse city and Syracuse University joined together to explore this question?" These are the questions that led Anne Beffel, a New York based public artist and Associate Professor of Art at Syracuse University and Pam McLaughlin, Everson Curator of Education and Public Programs to bring the Sitting Still contemplative video project to high school students from the Syracuse City School District. Beffel and McLaughlin worked together for over a year to put video cameras in the hands eight young artists, so that they could stop, look, and listen as scenes unfolded before them ranging from those that inspired awe to those that compelled participation and intervention. Within the context of four workshops at the SU Warehouse e-tags studio, students engaged in making video art from a perfectly still point of view, and then used their artworks as the basis for sharing their diverse visions. The workshops were at the heart of this process of opening up to environments -- both physical and social.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The two solo exhibitions, Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and Xiaowen Chen: 100 Last Names, present work from the past nine years by Chinese-born, Ithaca-based artist Chen. Having lived in the United States for the past two decades, Chen has focused his work on the space between East and West. From his many return trips to China, Chen has created digital images and video projections reflecting American and Chinese attitudes toward the 21st-century role of media and technology and identity issues. His work of overlapping the cultures of East and West addresses his search for what he called in 1993 the "manifestation of the universal and the expression of the particular."

Chen places himself in the position of both the American and the Chinese tourist. He has noted that when photographing in China he feels like a foreigner, while in the U.S. he feels like a traveler. His work addresses both China's historical transformation and his personal experience as an émigré.

Like other artists of his generation, Chen grew up under Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution and was exposed to a visual vocabulary that highlighted fragmentation and repetition. As a result, works by Xiaowen Chen evoke cultural clichés and stereotypes.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A powerful exhibit of photographs from the Oaxaca, Mexico resistance movement combined with original political posters from art collectives there.

In 2006, Oaxaca, Mexico came alive with a broad and diverse movement that captivated the nation and inspired communities organizing for social justice around the world. Fueled by long ignored social contradictions, what began as a teachers' strike demanding more resources for education quickly turned into a massive movement that demanded direct, participatory democracy.

Hundreds of thousands of Oaxacans raised their voices against the abuses of the state government. They participated in marches of up to 800,000 people, planned strategy at the barricades, occupied government buildings, took over radio stations, held sit-ins, and reclaimed spaces for public art and altars for assassinated activists. In the now Legendary March of Pots and Pans, 2,000 women peacefully took over and operated the state television channel for three weeks.

Empire State Brewing and Music Festival

Price: $35 in advance before June 11; $40 in advance after June 11; $50 at the gate. Music Only tickets $20.
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

5:00 pm: The Bagpipe Dudes
5:15 pm: CX Tec Dinosaurs
5:45 pm: Merit
6:15 pm: Blue Sky Mission Club
7:15 pm: Los Blancos
8:15 pm: Josh Dion
9:15 pm: Horseshoe Lounge Playboys

For more information, visit empirebrewfest.com.

Dancing Under the Stars
Featuring Stan Colella Orchestra

Price: Free
Sunnycrest Rink
Sunnycrest Park, Syracuse

Swing and big band favorites for listening and dancing. Bring lawn chairs and a picnic dinner!

For more information, phone 315-473-4330.

Cinderella and Give My Regards to Broadway
Syracuse Children's Theatre

Carrier Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Cinderella performed by students in grades 1-5; Give My Regards to Broadway performed by grades 6-12.

Don't Feed The Actors
Appleseed Productions

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors (price includes dessert and beverage at intermission)
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Appleseed Productions proudly announces the return of Don't Feed The Actors!, an improv troupe made up of some of Appleseed's regular performers. Hosted by the Game Warden Greg J. Hipius, the (mostly) starving actors will improv their butts off for two nights, filled with games of improvisation, in hopes of getting a few table scraps. However the improv does not stop at the stage's edge as suggestions are culled from the audience and sometimes a few are dragged (willingly) on stage to play along.

The Menagerie (in alphabetical order): Rachelle Clavin, Dustin M. Czarny, Megan Flanagan, Mark Allen Holt, Terry LaCasse, Wendy Sikorski, and CJ Young

West Side Story
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Read a review!

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Wild Card Exhibit -- Price Check: Syracuse
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

An interactive curatorial exhibition organized by two former staffers at the Delavan, Courtney Rile and Roslyn Esperon, for a research project that examines the variations of the visual art market based upon geographic proximity to a major art center.

Curators Courtney Rile and Roslyn Esperon in attendance 12:00-2:00 pm
Closing reception 3:00-4:00 pm
Price Check: Syracuse discussion 4:00-5:00 pm

Reflections
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Featuring works by Marna Bell, Deborah Walsh, Mary Lou Colgin, and Carol Osborne-Ackles.

Terrain
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Sharon Gordon: Oil Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"What does the world look like from a non-violent point of view? What would happen if the youth of Syracuse city and Syracuse University joined together to explore this question?" These are the questions that led Anne Beffel, a New York based public artist and Associate Professor of Art at Syracuse University and Pam McLaughlin, Everson Curator of Education and Public Programs to bring the Sitting Still contemplative video project to high school students from the Syracuse City School District. Beffel and McLaughlin worked together for over a year to put video cameras in the hands eight young artists, so that they could stop, look, and listen as scenes unfolded before them ranging from those that inspired awe to those that compelled participation and intervention. Within the context of four workshops at the SU Warehouse e-tags studio, students engaged in making video art from a perfectly still point of view, and then used their artworks as the basis for sharing their diverse visions. The workshops were at the heart of this process of opening up to environments -- both physical and social.

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

In November 2004, Frank Warren began a community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. Two requirements were: the secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person. Today Warren has been mailed more than 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets never voiced. This extraordinary project has become an international phenomenon with thousands of people participating in scheduled PostSecret events throughout the United States, and through the PostSecret website and blog.

This exhibition features 450 postcards bringing together the most powerful, poignant and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received in the past four years. In many cases, the illustrations on the cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text.

Organic Watermarks: Photographs by Gus Bennett, Jr.
Community Folk Art Center

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

In the exhibition "Organic Watermarks," New Orleans photographer Gus Bennett, Jr., displays portraits of New Orleans residents juxtaposed with layers of debris from Hurricane Katrina. Watermarks on concrete and other surfaces, leaves, textures, colors and remnants left behind by Katrina form layers in front of, behind and even merged onto the surface of the skin of the subjects. Together, the subjects and debris become storytellers of New Orleans post-Katrina. Shot entirely in natural light, the overall mood of the pieces is almost of an ethereal quality, with the ghost-like images of debris commingling with the subjects. According to Bennett, as many as 82 layers comprise one individual portrait. The subjects either appear draped in fabric or nude, which the artist explains is a means of eliminating social class or status: "with Katrina, everyone got left behind." With "Organic Watermarks," Bennett creates true works of beauty, proving that even in the aftermath of chaos, hope can still prevail.

Purple Treatment: Ceramic Works by Eunjung Shin
Community Folk Art Center

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

In "Purple Treatment," Eunjung Shin's figurative ceramic sculptures represent stories from the artist's life. Shin has taken personal memories and transformed them into three-dimensional artistic expressions. The highly detailed figures are skillfully rendered and express a range of emotions. Shin describes some of her figures as "clowns" because they hide their true selves, putting on a face to the world in order to please others. Many of the pieces prompt the viewer to look inward to reflect upon their meaning.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A powerful exhibit of photographs from the Oaxaca, Mexico resistance movement combined with original political posters from art collectives there.

In 2006, Oaxaca, Mexico came alive with a broad and diverse movement that captivated the nation and inspired communities organizing for social justice around the world. Fueled by long ignored social contradictions, what began as a teachers' strike demanding more resources for education quickly turned into a massive movement that demanded direct, participatory democracy.

Hundreds of thousands of Oaxacans raised their voices against the abuses of the state government. They participated in marches of up to 800,000 people, planned strategy at the barricades, occupied government buildings, took over radio stations, held sit-ins, and reclaimed spaces for public art and altars for assassinated activists. In the now Legendary March of Pots and Pans, 2,000 women peacefully took over and operated the state television channel for three weeks.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The two solo exhibitions, Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and Xiaowen Chen: 100 Last Names, present work from the past nine years by Chinese-born, Ithaca-based artist Chen. Having lived in the United States for the past two decades, Chen has focused his work on the space between East and West. From his many return trips to China, Chen has created digital images and video projections reflecting American and Chinese attitudes toward the 21st-century role of media and technology and identity issues. His work of overlapping the cultures of East and West addresses his search for what he called in 1993 the "manifestation of the universal and the expression of the particular."

Chen places himself in the position of both the American and the Chinese tourist. He has noted that when photographing in China he feels like a foreigner, while in the U.S. he feels like a traveler. His work addresses both China's historical transformation and his personal experience as an émigré.

Like other artists of his generation, Chen grew up under Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution and was exposed to a visual vocabulary that highlighted fragmentation and repetition. As a result, works by Xiaowen Chen evoke cultural clichés and stereotypes.

NYS Rhythm and Blues Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

Main Stage
1:15 pm: Chris Beard
3:30 pm: Popa Chubby
6:30 pm: Alexis P. Sutter
9:30 pm: Savoy Brown
Emcee: Dan Aykroyd

Dinosaur Stage
12:30 pm: The Delinquents
2:45 pm: The Fabulous Ripcords
5:00 pm: Rory Block
8:00 pm: J. Collins & the Kings County Band

For more information, visit nysbluesfest.com.

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO Brass Quintet II

Price: Free
Petit Branch Library
105 Victoria Pl., Syracuse

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO Wind Quintet

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

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO Onondaga Quartet

Price: Free
Paine Branch Library
113 Nichols, Syraucuse

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Candlelight Series
Grant Cooper, conductor

Price: Free
Armory Square
Clinton and Jefferson St., Syracuse

Enjoy fantastic music in the great outdoors and take advantage of the warm season! Join the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra for a musical journey through jazz, cinema, and theater at this free and family-friendly event. Featuring works by John Williams, including the theme from Superman, and Gershwin's Cuban Overture, this eclectic program is sure to inspire the audience and celebrate the excitement and energy of summertime.

Rain location: Mulroy Civic Center

Stone Canoe Writers Series: Donna Emerson
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The Falsettos Murder
Without A Cue

Price: $39.50 includes dinner, show, tax, and gratuity
Glen Loch Restaurant
4626 North St., Jamesville

In this a parody of the HBO mega hit, The Sopranos, Tony and his entourage are in town for—what else?—a waste management convention. When somebody gets whacked it's nothing personal, strictly "business."

For reservations, phone 315-469-6969. For more information, visit www.glenloch.net.

Don't Feed The Actors
Appleseed Productions

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors (price includes dessert and beverage at intermission)
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Appleseed Productions proudly announces the return of Don't Feed The Actors!, an improv troupe made up of some of Appleseed's regular performers. Hosted by the Game Warden Greg J. Hipius, the (mostly) starving actors will improv their butts off for two nights, filled with games of improvisation, in hopes of getting a few table scraps. However the improv does not stop at the stage's edge as suggestions are culled from the audience and sometimes a few are dragged (willingly) on stage to play along.

The Menagerie (in alphabetical order): Rachelle Clavin, Dustin M. Czarny, Megan Flanagan, Mark Allen Holt, Terry LaCasse, Wendy Sikorski, and CJ Young

West Side Story
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Read a review!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

In November 2004, Frank Warren began a community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in his Washington, D.C. neighborhood. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. Two requirements were: the secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person. Today Warren has been mailed more than 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets never voiced. This extraordinary project has become an international phenomenon with thousands of people participating in scheduled PostSecret events throughout the United States, and through the PostSecret website and blog.

This exhibition features 450 postcards bringing together the most powerful, poignant and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received in the past four years. In many cases, the illustrations on the cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"What does the world look like from a non-violent point of view? What would happen if the youth of Syracuse city and Syracuse University joined together to explore this question?" These are the questions that led Anne Beffel, a New York based public artist and Associate Professor of Art at Syracuse University and Pam McLaughlin, Everson Curator of Education and Public Programs to bring the Sitting Still contemplative video project to high school students from the Syracuse City School District. Beffel and McLaughlin worked together for over a year to put video cameras in the hands eight young artists, so that they could stop, look, and listen as scenes unfolded before them ranging from those that inspired awe to those that compelled participation and intervention. Within the context of four workshops at the SU Warehouse e-tags studio, students engaged in making video art from a perfectly still point of view, and then used their artworks as the basis for sharing their diverse visions. The workshops were at the heart of this process of opening up to environments -- both physical and social.

NYS Rhythm and Blues Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

Main Stage
1:15 pm: Chris Bergson Band
3:45 pm: Bruce Katz Band with Joe Beard
6:30 pm: John Mooney & Bluesiana
9:30 pm: John Hammond Quartet

Dinosaur Stage
12:30 pm: Tas Cru & the Slow Happy Boys
2:45 pm: Dan Bliss
5:45 pm: The Josh Dion Band
8:00 pm: A Tribute to Roosevelt Dean with Carolyn Kelly, the Roosevelt Dean Band, and many more!

For more information, visit nysbluesfest.com.

Piano, Clarinet & Co.
Pianist's Choice Concert Series
Featuring Crystal LaPoint, piano; Tom McKay, clarinet

Price: Free; donations accepted
May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Leonard Bernstein Sonata for Clarinet and Piano
Ludwig Spohr selections from German Songs for Voice, Clarinet and Piano
Gerald Finzi selections from Bagatelles
John Williams Air and Simple Gifts
Francis Poulenc Sextet for Wind Quintet and Piano

Featured performers include Patricia Sharpe, oboe; Carolyn Weber, mezzo-soprano; Jeff Stockham, horn; Patine Ryu, cello; and Stephanie Koppeis, violin.

For more information, visit www.crystal-photoimpressions.blogspot.com.

Savory Sounds Sunday
Showcase Sundays
Featuring Ronnie Leigh and the Mix

Price: Free
Spirit of Jubilee Park
161 South Ave., Syracuse

For more information, visit showcasesundays.com.

Monday, July 13, 2009

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.

Healing Art Passages: A Journey of Grace -- works of Suzanne Masters
Westcott Community Center

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

Painting and collage provide examples of "working through" from Suzanne's own personal experiences and of how she takes her students through the process of self discovery.

"Through visual art we can consciously process old beliefs and 'stuck' patterns that hold us back. Through this discovery, we can see clearly and decide the paths we choose to take in our lives. As an artist and a teacher, I have learned that when we close our mouths and stop the chatter, and let colors and forms talk, we shift the process to the other side of the brain where it can speak about things we may have covered up long ago. When they come back to us this way, it is with a different sound. The journey through such an emergence is powerful and beautiful!"

The Fab Five
Liverpool is the Place

Price: Free
Johnson Park
Corner of Vine and Oswego Streets, Liverpool

Beatles tribute band led by Liverpool's own Paul Davie plays Johnson Park for the last time before retiring in October.
Rain Date: Tuesday, July 14

For information on concerts or to see if a concert has been rained out, please call 315-457-3895.

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO String Quartet

Price: Free
Tully United Community Church
Meetinghouse Road, Tully

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO Brass Quintet II

Price: Free
Dewitt Community Church
3600 Erie Blvd. East, Dewitt

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
SSO Onondaga Quartet

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

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

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.

Recent works by Al Bremer and Kate Timm
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Healing Art Passages: A Journey of Grace -- works of Suzanne Masters
Westcott Community Center

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

Painting and collage provide examples of "working through" from Suzanne's own personal experiences and of how she takes her students through the process of self discovery.

"Through visual art we can consciously process old beliefs and 'stuck' patterns that hold us back. Through this discovery, we can see clearly and decide the paths we choose to take in our lives. As an artist and a teacher, I have learned that when we close our mouths and stop the chatter, and let colors and forms talk, we shift the process to the other side of the brain where it can speak about things we may have covered up long ago. When they come back to us this way, it is with a different sound. The journey through such an emergence is powerful and beautiful!"

Terrain
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Sharon Gordon: Oil Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

Purple Treatment: Ceramic Works by Eunjung Shin
Community Folk Art Center

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

In "Purple Treatment," Eunjung Shin's figurative ceramic sculptures represent stories from the artist's life. Shin has taken personal memories and transformed them into three-dimensional artistic expressions. The highly detailed figures are skillfully rendered and express a range of emotions. Shin describes some of her figures as "clowns" because they hide their true selves, putting on a face to the world in order to please others. Many of the pieces prompt the viewer to look inward to reflect upon their meaning.

Organic Watermarks: Photographs by Gus Bennett, Jr.
Community Folk Art Center

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

In the exhibition "Organic Watermarks," New Orleans photographer Gus Bennett, Jr., displays portraits of New Orleans residents juxtaposed with layers of debris from Hurricane Katrina. Watermarks on concrete and other surfaces, leaves, textures, colors and remnants left behind by Katrina form layers in front of, behind and even merged onto the surface of the skin of the subjects. Together, the subjects and debris become storytellers of New Orleans post-Katrina. Shot entirely in natural light, the overall mood of the pieces is almost of an ethereal quality, with the ghost-like images of debris commingling with the subjects. According to Bennett, as many as 82 layers comprise one individual portrait. The subjects either appear draped in fabric or nude, which the artist explains is a means of eliminating social class or status: "with Katrina, everyone got left behind." With "Organic Watermarks," Bennett creates true works of beauty, proving that even in the aftermath of chaos, hope can still prevail.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

The two solo exhibitions, Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and Xiaowen Chen: 100 Last Names, present work from the past nine years by Chinese-born, Ithaca-based artist Chen. Having lived in the United States for the past two decades, Chen has focused his work on the space between East and West. From his many return trips to China, Chen has created digital images and video projections reflecting American and Chinese attitudes toward the 21st-century role of media and technology and identity issues. His work of overlapping the cultures of East and West addresses his search for what he called in 1993 the "manifestation of the universal and the expression of the particular."

Chen places himself in the position of both the American and the Chinese tourist. He has noted that when photographing in China he feels like a foreigner, while in the U.S. he feels like a traveler. His work addresses both China's historical transformation and his personal experience as an émigré.

Like other artists of his generation, Chen grew up under Mao Tse-tung's Cultural Revolution and was exposed to a visual vocabulary that highlighted fragmentation and repetition. As a result, works by Xiaowen Chen evoke cultural clichés and stereotypes.

Pops in the Park

Price: Free
Onondaga Park
Roberts Avenue, Syracuse