Monday, May 16, 2011

Approaches & Disclosures: Three Photographers

Price: Free
Empire State College CNY Center
6333 Route 298, East Syracuse

Approaches & Disclosures is a collection of work from three SUNY Empire State College faculty and staff members: Lee Herman, mentor at the Auburn Unit; Sue Orrell, director of academic support at the CNY Center; and Alan Stankiewicz, mentor at the CNY Center.

All three photographers approach photography from a different perspective, prompting the exhibition. The work ranges in content from urban street life, to local landscapes and constructed images of skies. As a single image or a studied series, each photograph reflects a deep rooted approach to photography based on personal experience and external influences.

The exhibition affords the Empire State College community the opportunity to view and celebrate a creative collaboration among colleagues, while broadening their own definition of photography.

For more information, contact Michael Mancini, 315-460-3176, michael.mancini@esc.edu.

Your Words Today /Tus palabras de hoy
Point of Contact Gallery

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

The Point of Contact Gallery presents the first exhibition by El Punto, a new contemporary arts program for young artists, created by Point of Contact and facilitated to local youths in collaboration with the Spanish Action League (La Liga) and La Casita Cultural Center.

Photography by Vincent Doody and Illustration by Aaron Lee
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Gallery A: Vincent Doody's photographs portraying serene country landscapes, city scenes at twilight, and reflect the desolate life of Oswego's lighthouse in winter.
Gallery B highlights Aaron Lee's selection of comic illustrations from his witty, surreal and satirical series on Wesley the robot.

Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine & Contemporary Culture
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

On display will be pulp magazines, notably titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories; the typescript of Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow," which introduced readers to one of science fiction's best known characters, Robbie the Robot; and correspondence with figures like Ray Bradbury.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Human Nature Series: Works of Maria Janina Rizzo
Westcott Community Art Gallery

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

Emerging artist Maria Rizzo exhibits 15 paintings that depict the human nature in an explosive combination of color and symbolism.

Maria Janina Rizzo was born and raised in Italy where she lived until 2007. She received a diploma from the High School for the Arts, and was mentored by the eclectic painter Roberto Giussani, an essential figure for the growth of her artistic development. She then continued on with her studies of painting at Syracuse University. In 2010 she opened "ART IT: Modern & Unique Art with a touch of Italian class" with the desire to offer original paintings and customized artwork. Her paintings were recently featured at the Emerging Women Artists of CNY show at the Red House Gallery, and at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society.

Members' Theme Show
Associated Artists of Central New York

Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

Read a review!

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Belle of the Nineties (1934)
Syracuse Cinephile Society

Price: $3 regular, $2.50 members
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

Director: Leo McCarey. Cast: Mae West, Roger Pryor, Johnny Mack Brown, John Miljan, Katherine DeMille, Warren Hymer, Duke Ellington and his Orchestra. Set in the Gay 90s, Mae plays Ruby Carter, a singer who relocates to New Orleans and becomes involved with prizefighters, crooked saloon owners, jewel thieves, romantic admirers and other assorted characters. Mae wrote the lively script, and she also joins Ellington's orchestra for several great songs, including "My Old Flame," "St. Louis Woman" and "Memphis Blues."

Plus special added attraction: One of our popular "Community Sing" sing-a-long shorts. This one invites the audience (and that means YOU) to join in for familiar tunes of The Gay 90s.

Bob Dylan's 70th Birthday Bash

Price: $29
Palace Theater
2384 James St., Syracuse

Former Dylan bandleader Rob Stoner and his band, Professor Louie and the Crowmatix, George Rossi, Loren Barrigar, Mark Nanni, Donna Colton, Todd Hobin, Leo Crandall, Colin Aberdeen, Mark Hoffman, and poet Georgia Popoff. Gary Frenay and the FabCats is the house band.

For tickets, visit www.brownpapertickets.com or phone 800-838-3006.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Approaches & Disclosures: Three Photographers

Price: Free
Empire State College CNY Center
6333 Route 298, East Syracuse

Approaches & Disclosures is a collection of work from three SUNY Empire State College faculty and staff members: Lee Herman, mentor at the Auburn Unit; Sue Orrell, director of academic support at the CNY Center; and Alan Stankiewicz, mentor at the CNY Center.

All three photographers approach photography from a different perspective, prompting the exhibition. The work ranges in content from urban street life, to local landscapes and constructed images of skies. As a single image or a studied series, each photograph reflects a deep rooted approach to photography based on personal experience and external influences.

The exhibition affords the Empire State College community the opportunity to view and celebrate a creative collaboration among colleagues, while broadening their own definition of photography.

For more information, contact Michael Mancini, 315-460-3176, michael.mancini@esc.edu.

Photography by Vincent Doody and Illustration by Aaron Lee
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Gallery A: Vincent Doody's photographs portraying serene country landscapes, city scenes at twilight, and reflect the desolate life of Oswego's lighthouse in winter.
Gallery B highlights Aaron Lee's selection of comic illustrations from his witty, surreal and satirical series on Wesley the robot.

Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine & Contemporary Culture
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

On display will be pulp magazines, notably titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories; the typescript of Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow," which introduced readers to one of science fiction's best known characters, Robbie the Robot; and correspondence with figures like Ray Bradbury.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Human Nature Series: Works of Maria Janina Rizzo
Westcott Community Art Gallery

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

Emerging artist Maria Rizzo exhibits 15 paintings that depict the human nature in an explosive combination of color and symbolism.

Maria Janina Rizzo was born and raised in Italy where she lived until 2007. She received a diploma from the High School for the Arts, and was mentored by the eclectic painter Roberto Giussani, an essential figure for the growth of her artistic development. She then continued on with her studies of painting at Syracuse University. In 2010 she opened "ART IT: Modern & Unique Art with a touch of Italian class" with the desire to offer original paintings and customized artwork. Her paintings were recently featured at the Emerging Women Artists of CNY show at the Red House Gallery, and at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society.

Three Form Expression
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Linda Bigness- Abstract oil paintings from her urbanscape and musical notes series
Tom Huff- Soapstone and alabaster sculpture
Jerome Durr- Freestanding glass sculpture

Members' Theme Show
Associated Artists of Central New York

Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

Read a review!

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

East Meets West: Works by Nikolay Mikushkin and Robert Glisson
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Robert Glisson begins his oil paintings en plein air, and completes the work in his studio, utilizing the "push and pull" technique by incorporating color with distinct to dissolved forms. The artist also is known for turning a painting upside down to push further into abstracting the composition. The time Glisson spends working in the studio allows for a less literal and more emotive interpretation of the spirit of the Central New York landscape.

Nikolay Mikushkin, born in Kazakhstan, is a classically trained landscape painter in the style of Russian Realism that he learned while attending the St. Petersburg Academy of Painting in Russia. After moving to Syracuse from New York City following 9/11, Mikushkin found an abundance of inspiration throughout the Central New York landscape in which to continue his plein air painting style. The works in this exhibition were created from his time as artist-in-residence at Saltonstall in Ithaca, NY and at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

Mikushkin also works as a scenic artist for the United Scenic Artists Union, working on movies and stage productions in New York City.

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

Orange Pulp: Works by Norman Saunders
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

A profile of pulp artist Norman Saunders (1907-1989), including 10 lush and dramatic Saunders paintings from the university collection.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Ah Leon: Memories of Elementary School
Everson Museum of Art

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

In 2008, Ah Leon envisioned a monumental ceramic installation showcasing dozens of stoneware desks and chairs in neat rows like the classrooms of our youth. It began with a small grouping called Memories of Elementary School first exhibited in August 2008 at The Taipei Gallery Exposition and in 2009 at the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) annual conference. Ah Leon continued to make more desks which were exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in 2010. Another year has passed and Ah Leon has completed the 20 sets of desks and chairs which will be showcased in this exhibition.

His original idea was to create a classroom environment that would “lead audiences to remember their childhood stories.” Ah Leon studied elementary school desks, determined that his creations would be authentic, revealing memories through carved initials, scratches and drawings on their worn surfaces. His classroom would preserve the stories of our childhood as if they were “frozen in the museum space.”

The first two rows of tables and chairs appear new. They become progressively more dilapidated--some broken, some leaning--until the last rows where the furniture is falling over and ultimately only chips and severed parts remain on the floor. In one area the desks are arranged as if a teacher reads to a group of children. The impact of the scene is immediate: viewers are taken back to their own childhood classroom and long forgotten memories drift to the surface.

Read a review!

Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds
Everson Museum of Art

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

The 2011 exhibition program will continue to highlight the talented artists of New York State through a series of focused exhibitions. The season opens with Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds, an exhibition featuring more than 100 original works of art that are seriously hilarious. The small-scale drawings depicting the comedic daily lives of humans and animals alike are all rendered by hand in a variety of media, an approach that is becoming increasing rare in a world of computer-generated images.

Dan Reynolds began drawing cartoons in 1989, when he was 30. As a youth center instructor, Reynolds was surrounded by youthful energy and creative minds. He was an avid follower of popular cartoons of the time, such as Gary Larson's Far Side and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. A native of Brewerton, NY, Reynolds was inspired by his Central New York surroundings, a place where snow is abundant and cows can be found just minutes from anywhere. From the beginning, Reynolds has used farm animals as messengers of humor, particularly cows, pigs and chickens, a series that was immediately accepted by Reader's Digest in 1989. A new cartoon has appeared in every issue since then. Reynolds' cartoons have also appeared in thematic Reynolds Unwrapped book compilations featuring everything from sports to holiday special editions. American Greetings and Recycled Greeting Cards also feature Reynolds cartoons on greeting cards for every occasion.

In 2008, Reynolds was diagnosed with testicular cancer and subsequently received months of chemotherapy. While he was in treatment, he began drawing cartoons about cancer and his personal experience which he found was shared by his fellow patients. He shared the cartoons with the staff and patients at the facility and discovered the power of art to bring humor to an otherwise humorless situation.

Read a review!

The Braid of Night and Day: Works by Cayetano Valenzuela
Echo

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

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Seneca String Quartet
Temple Society of Concord

Price: Free (donations accepted)
Temple Society of Concord
910 Madison St., Syracuse

Perceptions
ArtsEmerging at Syracuse Stage

Price: Free
Storch Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

There works written and performed by students from Nottingham High School and Fowler High School were created as part of a year-long ArtsEmerging program called “Perceptions,” which culminated in the creation of works that represent urban school communities in relation to Stage’s fall 2010 production of No Child.

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Approaches & Disclosures: Three Photographers

Price: Free
Empire State College CNY Center
6333 Route 298, East Syracuse

Approaches & Disclosures is a collection of work from three SUNY Empire State College faculty and staff members: Lee Herman, mentor at the Auburn Unit; Sue Orrell, director of academic support at the CNY Center; and Alan Stankiewicz, mentor at the CNY Center.

All three photographers approach photography from a different perspective, prompting the exhibition. The work ranges in content from urban street life, to local landscapes and constructed images of skies. As a single image or a studied series, each photograph reflects a deep rooted approach to photography based on personal experience and external influences.

The exhibition affords the Empire State College community the opportunity to view and celebrate a creative collaboration among colleagues, while broadening their own definition of photography.

For more information, contact Michael Mancini, 315-460-3176, michael.mancini@esc.edu.

Your Words Today /Tus palabras de hoy
Point of Contact Gallery

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

The Point of Contact Gallery presents the first exhibition by El Punto, a new contemporary arts program for young artists, created by Point of Contact and facilitated to local youths in collaboration with the Spanish Action League (La Liga) and La Casita Cultural Center.

Photography by Vincent Doody and Illustration by Aaron Lee
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Gallery A: Vincent Doody's photographs portraying serene country landscapes, city scenes at twilight, and reflect the desolate life of Oswego's lighthouse in winter.
Gallery B highlights Aaron Lee's selection of comic illustrations from his witty, surreal and satirical series on Wesley the robot.

Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine & Contemporary Culture
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

On display will be pulp magazines, notably titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories; the typescript of Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow," which introduced readers to one of science fiction's best known characters, Robbie the Robot; and correspondence with figures like Ray Bradbury.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Human Nature Series: Works of Maria Janina Rizzo
Westcott Community Art Gallery

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

Emerging artist Maria Rizzo exhibits 15 paintings that depict the human nature in an explosive combination of color and symbolism.

Maria Janina Rizzo was born and raised in Italy where she lived until 2007. She received a diploma from the High School for the Arts, and was mentored by the eclectic painter Roberto Giussani, an essential figure for the growth of her artistic development. She then continued on with her studies of painting at Syracuse University. In 2010 she opened "ART IT: Modern & Unique Art with a touch of Italian class" with the desire to offer original paintings and customized artwork. Her paintings were recently featured at the Emerging Women Artists of CNY show at the Red House Gallery, and at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society.

Three Form Expression
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Linda Bigness- Abstract oil paintings from her urbanscape and musical notes series
Tom Huff- Soapstone and alabaster sculpture
Jerome Durr- Freestanding glass sculpture

Members' Theme Show
Associated Artists of Central New York

Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

Read a review!

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

East Meets West: Works by Nikolay Mikushkin and Robert Glisson
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Robert Glisson begins his oil paintings en plein air, and completes the work in his studio, utilizing the "push and pull" technique by incorporating color with distinct to dissolved forms. The artist also is known for turning a painting upside down to push further into abstracting the composition. The time Glisson spends working in the studio allows for a less literal and more emotive interpretation of the spirit of the Central New York landscape.

Nikolay Mikushkin, born in Kazakhstan, is a classically trained landscape painter in the style of Russian Realism that he learned while attending the St. Petersburg Academy of Painting in Russia. After moving to Syracuse from New York City following 9/11, Mikushkin found an abundance of inspiration throughout the Central New York landscape in which to continue his plein air painting style. The works in this exhibition were created from his time as artist-in-residence at Saltonstall in Ithaca, NY and at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

Mikushkin also works as a scenic artist for the United Scenic Artists Union, working on movies and stage productions in New York City.

Faces & Figures
Szozda Gallery

Price: Free
Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A group show focusing solely on portraiture and figures. The six participating artists are Robert Glisson, Harry Freeman-Jones, Robert Niedzwiecki, Phil Parsons, Dona Flaherty, and Stephen Perrone.

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

Orange Pulp: Works by Norman Saunders
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

A profile of pulp artist Norman Saunders (1907-1989), including 10 lush and dramatic Saunders paintings from the university collection.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Ah Leon: Memories of Elementary School
Everson Museum of Art

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

In 2008, Ah Leon envisioned a monumental ceramic installation showcasing dozens of stoneware desks and chairs in neat rows like the classrooms of our youth. It began with a small grouping called Memories of Elementary School first exhibited in August 2008 at The Taipei Gallery Exposition and in 2009 at the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) annual conference. Ah Leon continued to make more desks which were exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in 2010. Another year has passed and Ah Leon has completed the 20 sets of desks and chairs which will be showcased in this exhibition.

His original idea was to create a classroom environment that would “lead audiences to remember their childhood stories.” Ah Leon studied elementary school desks, determined that his creations would be authentic, revealing memories through carved initials, scratches and drawings on their worn surfaces. His classroom would preserve the stories of our childhood as if they were “frozen in the museum space.”

The first two rows of tables and chairs appear new. They become progressively more dilapidated--some broken, some leaning--until the last rows where the furniture is falling over and ultimately only chips and severed parts remain on the floor. In one area the desks are arranged as if a teacher reads to a group of children. The impact of the scene is immediate: viewers are taken back to their own childhood classroom and long forgotten memories drift to the surface.

Read a review!

Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds
Everson Museum of Art

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

The 2011 exhibition program will continue to highlight the talented artists of New York State through a series of focused exhibitions. The season opens with Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds, an exhibition featuring more than 100 original works of art that are seriously hilarious. The small-scale drawings depicting the comedic daily lives of humans and animals alike are all rendered by hand in a variety of media, an approach that is becoming increasing rare in a world of computer-generated images.

Dan Reynolds began drawing cartoons in 1989, when he was 30. As a youth center instructor, Reynolds was surrounded by youthful energy and creative minds. He was an avid follower of popular cartoons of the time, such as Gary Larson's Far Side and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. A native of Brewerton, NY, Reynolds was inspired by his Central New York surroundings, a place where snow is abundant and cows can be found just minutes from anywhere. From the beginning, Reynolds has used farm animals as messengers of humor, particularly cows, pigs and chickens, a series that was immediately accepted by Reader's Digest in 1989. A new cartoon has appeared in every issue since then. Reynolds' cartoons have also appeared in thematic Reynolds Unwrapped book compilations featuring everything from sports to holiday special editions. American Greetings and Recycled Greeting Cards also feature Reynolds cartoons on greeting cards for every occasion.

In 2008, Reynolds was diagnosed with testicular cancer and subsequently received months of chemotherapy. While he was in treatment, he began drawing cartoons about cancer and his personal experience which he found was shared by his fellow patients. He shared the cartoons with the staff and patients at the facility and discovered the power of art to bring humor to an otherwise humorless situation.

Read a review!

The Braid of Night and Day: Works by Cayetano Valenzuela
Echo

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

CNY Pride Families: Works by Ellen Blalock
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit is a portrait of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) families in Central New York communities. Through it, we seek to challenge and change damaging myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ people and their families. We hope to contribute to the process of dismantling the destructive power of prejudice and intolerance. The photographs display positive images and first person accounts which relay the stories of LGBTQ people and their families here in the Central New York area.

In 2007, Ellen M. Blalock collaborated with Light Work and LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University on a campus exhibition of CNY Pride Families. Some families only included domestic partners, some included children, ex-partners, grandparents and pets. Some writings were done by children explaining what it is like to have two moms. Some partners included the vows from their union ceremony. The process of making these portraits turned into a celebration of families, to show and share their love, their strength and their togetherness. The ArtRage exhibit includes more families, more diversity, video, and audio.

Read a review!

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Cindy Josbena, piano; Katarina Hege, violin; Kathleen Magee Querec, soprano
Civic Morning Musicals

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

Schubert Violin Sonatina in D, D. 384<\em>
Respighi Notturno for Piano
Handel Nine German Arias selections

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Approaches & Disclosures: Three Photographers

Price: Free
Empire State College CNY Center
6333 Route 298, East Syracuse

Approaches & Disclosures is a collection of work from three SUNY Empire State College faculty and staff members: Lee Herman, mentor at the Auburn Unit; Sue Orrell, director of academic support at the CNY Center; and Alan Stankiewicz, mentor at the CNY Center.

All three photographers approach photography from a different perspective, prompting the exhibition. The work ranges in content from urban street life, to local landscapes and constructed images of skies. As a single image or a studied series, each photograph reflects a deep rooted approach to photography based on personal experience and external influences.

The exhibition affords the Empire State College community the opportunity to view and celebrate a creative collaboration among colleagues, while broadening their own definition of photography.

For more information, contact Michael Mancini, 315-460-3176, michael.mancini@esc.edu.

Photography by Vincent Doody and Illustration by Aaron Lee
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Gallery A: Vincent Doody's photographs portraying serene country landscapes, city scenes at twilight, and reflect the desolate life of Oswego's lighthouse in winter.
Gallery B highlights Aaron Lee's selection of comic illustrations from his witty, surreal and satirical series on Wesley the robot.

Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine & Contemporary Culture
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

On display will be pulp magazines, notably titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories; the typescript of Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow," which introduced readers to one of science fiction's best known characters, Robbie the Robot; and correspondence with figures like Ray Bradbury.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Human Nature Series: Works of Maria Janina Rizzo
Westcott Community Art Gallery

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

Emerging artist Maria Rizzo exhibits 15 paintings that depict the human nature in an explosive combination of color and symbolism.

Maria Janina Rizzo was born and raised in Italy where she lived until 2007. She received a diploma from the High School for the Arts, and was mentored by the eclectic painter Roberto Giussani, an essential figure for the growth of her artistic development. She then continued on with her studies of painting at Syracuse University. In 2010 she opened "ART IT: Modern & Unique Art with a touch of Italian class" with the desire to offer original paintings and customized artwork. Her paintings were recently featured at the Emerging Women Artists of CNY show at the Red House Gallery, and at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society.

Three Form Expression
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Linda Bigness- Abstract oil paintings from her urbanscape and musical notes series
Tom Huff- Soapstone and alabaster sculpture
Jerome Durr- Freestanding glass sculpture

Members' Theme Show
Associated Artists of Central New York

Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

Read a review!

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

East Meets West: Works by Nikolay Mikushkin and Robert Glisson
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Robert Glisson begins his oil paintings en plein air, and completes the work in his studio, utilizing the "push and pull" technique by incorporating color with distinct to dissolved forms. The artist also is known for turning a painting upside down to push further into abstracting the composition. The time Glisson spends working in the studio allows for a less literal and more emotive interpretation of the spirit of the Central New York landscape.

Nikolay Mikushkin, born in Kazakhstan, is a classically trained landscape painter in the style of Russian Realism that he learned while attending the St. Petersburg Academy of Painting in Russia. After moving to Syracuse from New York City following 9/11, Mikushkin found an abundance of inspiration throughout the Central New York landscape in which to continue his plein air painting style. The works in this exhibition were created from his time as artist-in-residence at Saltonstall in Ithaca, NY and at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

Mikushkin also works as a scenic artist for the United Scenic Artists Union, working on movies and stage productions in New York City.

Faces & Figures
Szozda Gallery

Price: Free
Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A group show focusing solely on portraiture and figures. The six participating artists are Robert Glisson, Harry Freeman-Jones, Robert Niedzwiecki, Phil Parsons, Dona Flaherty, and Stephen Perrone.

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

In the Garden
Gandee Gallery

Gandee Gallery
7846 Main St., Fabius

In the Garden presents an eclectic mix of styles and art media, which all celebrate the joys of the garden. The paintings and photography in the show depict floral motifs and backyard vistas. Ceramic planters and sculptural forms complement and enhance any outdoor space. The jewelry and wearable pieces reflect the colors, patterns, and styles inspired by the gorgeous flowers that make us THINK SPRING!

Participating artists include: Jenny Pope, Lucie Wellner, Nancy Kramer, Rodger DeMuth, Zach Dunn, Melissa Montgomery, Kathy Barry, Jen Gandee. Sarah Panzarella, Lynn Yenkey, Lorna Meaden, Ron DeRutte, Lori Hawk, Amy Francher, and Errol Willett.?

Orange Pulp: Works by Norman Saunders
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

A profile of pulp artist Norman Saunders (1907-1989), including 10 lush and dramatic Saunders paintings from the university collection.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Ah Leon: Memories of Elementary School
Everson Museum of Art

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

In 2008, Ah Leon envisioned a monumental ceramic installation showcasing dozens of stoneware desks and chairs in neat rows like the classrooms of our youth. It began with a small grouping called Memories of Elementary School first exhibited in August 2008 at The Taipei Gallery Exposition and in 2009 at the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) annual conference. Ah Leon continued to make more desks which were exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in 2010. Another year has passed and Ah Leon has completed the 20 sets of desks and chairs which will be showcased in this exhibition.

His original idea was to create a classroom environment that would “lead audiences to remember their childhood stories.” Ah Leon studied elementary school desks, determined that his creations would be authentic, revealing memories through carved initials, scratches and drawings on their worn surfaces. His classroom would preserve the stories of our childhood as if they were “frozen in the museum space.”

The first two rows of tables and chairs appear new. They become progressively more dilapidated--some broken, some leaning--until the last rows where the furniture is falling over and ultimately only chips and severed parts remain on the floor. In one area the desks are arranged as if a teacher reads to a group of children. The impact of the scene is immediate: viewers are taken back to their own childhood classroom and long forgotten memories drift to the surface.

Read a review!

Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds
Everson Museum of Art

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

The 2011 exhibition program will continue to highlight the talented artists of New York State through a series of focused exhibitions. The season opens with Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds, an exhibition featuring more than 100 original works of art that are seriously hilarious. The small-scale drawings depicting the comedic daily lives of humans and animals alike are all rendered by hand in a variety of media, an approach that is becoming increasing rare in a world of computer-generated images.

Dan Reynolds began drawing cartoons in 1989, when he was 30. As a youth center instructor, Reynolds was surrounded by youthful energy and creative minds. He was an avid follower of popular cartoons of the time, such as Gary Larson's Far Side and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. A native of Brewerton, NY, Reynolds was inspired by his Central New York surroundings, a place where snow is abundant and cows can be found just minutes from anywhere. From the beginning, Reynolds has used farm animals as messengers of humor, particularly cows, pigs and chickens, a series that was immediately accepted by Reader's Digest in 1989. A new cartoon has appeared in every issue since then. Reynolds' cartoons have also appeared in thematic Reynolds Unwrapped book compilations featuring everything from sports to holiday special editions. American Greetings and Recycled Greeting Cards also feature Reynolds cartoons on greeting cards for every occasion.

In 2008, Reynolds was diagnosed with testicular cancer and subsequently received months of chemotherapy. While he was in treatment, he began drawing cartoons about cancer and his personal experience which he found was shared by his fellow patients. He shared the cartoons with the staff and patients at the facility and discovered the power of art to bring humor to an otherwise humorless situation.

Read a review!

The Braid of Night and Day: Works by Cayetano Valenzuela
Echo

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

CNY Pride Families: Works by Ellen Blalock
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit is a portrait of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) families in Central New York communities. Through it, we seek to challenge and change damaging myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ people and their families. We hope to contribute to the process of dismantling the destructive power of prejudice and intolerance. The photographs display positive images and first person accounts which relay the stories of LGBTQ people and their families here in the Central New York area.

In 2007, Ellen M. Blalock collaborated with Light Work and LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University on a campus exhibition of CNY Pride Families. Some families only included domestic partners, some included children, ex-partners, grandparents and pets. Some writings were done by children explaining what it is like to have two moms. Some partners included the vows from their union ceremony. The process of making these portraits turned into a celebration of families, to show and share their love, their strength and their togetherness. The ArtRage exhibit includes more families, more diversity, video, and audio.

Read a review!

TONY: 2012 Kick-off Celebration
Everson Museum of Art

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Everson Museum of Art along with all The Other New York: 2012 partners invite the public to a celebration and kick-off event for a groundbreaking community-wide project. Enjoy live musical entertainment by Lee Whitted and light refreshments and cash bar by Phoebe's. 

The Other New York: 2012 is a community-wide, multi-venue biennial exhibition that is the result of a major collaboration among 12 art organizations in Syracuse. This ambitious project, which will open in the fall of 2012, aims to highlight the rich talent of artists across Upstate New York, with a special focus on Central New York and the surrounding counties. The project will offer diverse art venues and outdoor public spaces for contemporary creative expression on a scale not before seen in Syracuse. In addition, TONY: 2012 demonstrates the power of artistic partnerships to boost public awareness of the arts by presenting opportunities for the community to connect with exhibitions, programs, and events offered simultaneously throughout the city. Call for entries available May 1, 2011 at www.everson.org. 

TONY: 2012 is organized by Everson Museum of Art in collaboration with ArtRage-The Norton Putter Gallery, Community Folk Art Center, Erie Canal Museum, Light Work, Punto de Contacto/Point of Contact, Red House Arts Center, Stone Quarry Hill Art Park, SUArt Galleries, Urban Video Project, The Warehouse Gallery, and The City of Syracuse.

Your Words Today /Tus palabras de hoy
Point of Contact Gallery

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

The Point of Contact Gallery presents the first exhibition by El Punto, a new contemporary arts program for young artists, created by Point of Contact and facilitated to local youths in collaboration with the Spanish Action League (La Liga) and La Casita Cultural Center.

Works by Tina Zagyva: Themselves Has Been a Gathering 
Redhouse

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

The opening reception of this multi-media (and multi-venue) exhibition of the work of Syracuse-based artist Tina Zagyva will combine a looped screening of her film Dactylodida in the theatre and Endophora, a collection of printed images, in the gallery. A theatrical event will take place down the street at Lipe Art Park at sunset, with live music and the installation of three of Tina's vessels.

Photography of David S. Gandino
SparkyTown Restaurant

SparkyTown Restaurant
324 Burnet Ave., Syracuse

Friends & Family Photo Days

Price: Free
Lodi Laundromat
1600 Lodi St., Syracuse

Join the Northside Community for an inspirational event presenting the photographs of Sarah Averill. Sarah is a medical resident at St. Joseph’s Hospital Center, a former urban planner and a photographer. She focuses on using photography as a vehicle to explore communities and engage residents in conversations about themselves and their experiences. The event will be held at the Lodi Street Laundromat, a place where everyone can feel comfortable and welcome. There will be food and refreshments prepared by families from Somali and Burma. To find out more information about Sarah's experiences and her photos, please visit her blog,http://fearlesssky.blogspot.com.

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Die Another Death
Acme Mystery Company

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

Agent Double Y of Her Majesty's Secret Service is on another high-stakes mission. A legendary artifact called "The Alchemists' Cauldron" is set to be on display during a ceremony at the Sylvanian Consulate. Rumored to possess a supernatural power, the cauldron is sought by every bad guy around the globe. Who will get to it first? Who will die trying? The European Crime Boss? The Texas-sized American politician? The back-stabbing news reporter? Or will Double Y come to the rescue again, and keep the cauldron from falling into the wrong hands?

13 The Musical
Syracuse Children's Theatre

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

?For tickets or more information, phone 315-432-5437. Ages 12 and up.

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

Into the Woods
CNY Playhouse
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $25 regular, $20 student/senior, $10 children under 10
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, the Wolf, Jack, a Beanstalk, and Reality.
An ambivalent Cinderella? A blood-thirsty Little Red Ridinghood? A Prince Charming with a roving eye? A Witch...who raps? They're all among the cockeyed characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's fractured fairy tale. When a Baker and his Wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects required to break the spell, swindling, lying to and stealing from Cinderella, Little Red, Rapunzel, and Jack (the one who climbed the beanstalk). Everyone's wish is granted at the end of Act One, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later, with disastrous results. What begins a lively irreverent fantasy in the style of "The Princess Bride" becomes a moving lesson about community responsibility and the stories we tell our children. The Syracuse New Times is producing this musical in collaboration with Not Another Theater Company. Music Direction by Dan Williams, choreography by Meghan Pearson.

Starring Patrica Elise Catchouny, Alex Cupelo, Kathy Egloff, Gina Ferrelli, Liam Fitzpatrick, Lanny Freshman, Kimberly Grader, Lucas Greer, Rebecca Hall, Greg J. Hipius,Kyle Johnson, Harlow Kisselstein, Meghan Pearson, Baily Pfohl, Marissa Pizzuto, Kasey Richards, Crystal Roupas, Heather J. Roach, Michael Spinoso, Danan Tsan, Wendy Viggiano, Carmen Vivano-Crafts, and Ceara Windhausen.

Read a Review!

Finding Normal
Rarely Done Productions
Scott Austin, director

Price: $20
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

This play is a piece of interview theater about being gay and coming out in high school. Actors will be talking about their own experiences with being gay and being bullied at school. The cast has been able to input their own life experiences into an existing script. This is an exciting story about young people in our community, in our state and in our country.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Approaches & Disclosures: Three Photographers

Price: Free
Empire State College CNY Center
6333 Route 298, East Syracuse

Approaches & Disclosures is a collection of work from three SUNY Empire State College faculty and staff members: Lee Herman, mentor at the Auburn Unit; Sue Orrell, director of academic support at the CNY Center; and Alan Stankiewicz, mentor at the CNY Center.

All three photographers approach photography from a different perspective, prompting the exhibition. The work ranges in content from urban street life, to local landscapes and constructed images of skies. As a single image or a studied series, each photograph reflects a deep rooted approach to photography based on personal experience and external influences.

The exhibition affords the Empire State College community the opportunity to view and celebrate a creative collaboration among colleagues, while broadening their own definition of photography.

For more information, contact Michael Mancini, 315-460-3176, michael.mancini@esc.edu.

Your Words Today /Tus palabras de hoy
Point of Contact Gallery

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

The Point of Contact Gallery presents the first exhibition by El Punto, a new contemporary arts program for young artists, created by Point of Contact and facilitated to local youths in collaboration with the Spanish Action League (La Liga) and La Casita Cultural Center.

Photography by Vincent Doody and Illustration by Aaron Lee
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Gallery A: Vincent Doody's photographs portraying serene country landscapes, city scenes at twilight, and reflect the desolate life of Oswego's lighthouse in winter.
Gallery B highlights Aaron Lee's selection of comic illustrations from his witty, surreal and satirical series on Wesley the robot.

Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine & Contemporary Culture
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

On display will be pulp magazines, notably titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories; the typescript of Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow," which introduced readers to one of science fiction's best known characters, Robbie the Robot; and correspondence with figures like Ray Bradbury.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Human Nature Series: Works of Maria Janina Rizzo
Westcott Community Art Gallery

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

Emerging artist Maria Rizzo exhibits 15 paintings that depict the human nature in an explosive combination of color and symbolism.

Maria Janina Rizzo was born and raised in Italy where she lived until 2007. She received a diploma from the High School for the Arts, and was mentored by the eclectic painter Roberto Giussani, an essential figure for the growth of her artistic development. She then continued on with her studies of painting at Syracuse University. In 2010 she opened "ART IT: Modern & Unique Art with a touch of Italian class" with the desire to offer original paintings and customized artwork. Her paintings were recently featured at the Emerging Women Artists of CNY show at the Red House Gallery, and at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society.

Three Form Expression
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Linda Bigness- Abstract oil paintings from her urbanscape and musical notes series
Tom Huff- Soapstone and alabaster sculpture
Jerome Durr- Freestanding glass sculpture

Members' Theme Show
Associated Artists of Central New York

Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

Read a review!

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

East Meets West: Works by Nikolay Mikushkin and Robert Glisson
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Robert Glisson begins his oil paintings en plein air, and completes the work in his studio, utilizing the "push and pull" technique by incorporating color with distinct to dissolved forms. The artist also is known for turning a painting upside down to push further into abstracting the composition. The time Glisson spends working in the studio allows for a less literal and more emotive interpretation of the spirit of the Central New York landscape.

Nikolay Mikushkin, born in Kazakhstan, is a classically trained landscape painter in the style of Russian Realism that he learned while attending the St. Petersburg Academy of Painting in Russia. After moving to Syracuse from New York City following 9/11, Mikushkin found an abundance of inspiration throughout the Central New York landscape in which to continue his plein air painting style. The works in this exhibition were created from his time as artist-in-residence at Saltonstall in Ithaca, NY and at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

Mikushkin also works as a scenic artist for the United Scenic Artists Union, working on movies and stage productions in New York City.

Works by Tina Zagyva: Themselves Has Been a Gathering
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Exhibit open by appointment.

Faces & Figures
Szozda Gallery

Price: Free
Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A group show focusing solely on portraiture and figures. The six participating artists are Robert Glisson, Harry Freeman-Jones, Robert Niedzwiecki, Phil Parsons, Dona Flaherty, and Stephen Perrone.

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

In the Garden
Gandee Gallery

Gandee Gallery
7846 Main St., Fabius

In the Garden presents an eclectic mix of styles and art media, which all celebrate the joys of the garden. The paintings and photography in the show depict floral motifs and backyard vistas. Ceramic planters and sculptural forms complement and enhance any outdoor space. The jewelry and wearable pieces reflect the colors, patterns, and styles inspired by the gorgeous flowers that make us THINK SPRING!

Participating artists include: Jenny Pope, Lucie Wellner, Nancy Kramer, Rodger DeMuth, Zach Dunn, Melissa Montgomery, Kathy Barry, Jen Gandee. Sarah Panzarella, Lynn Yenkey, Lorna Meaden, Ron DeRutte, Lori Hawk, Amy Francher, and Errol Willett.?

Orange Pulp: Works by Norman Saunders
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

A profile of pulp artist Norman Saunders (1907-1989), including 10 lush and dramatic Saunders paintings from the university collection.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds
Everson Museum of Art

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

The 2011 exhibition program will continue to highlight the talented artists of New York State through a series of focused exhibitions. The season opens with Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds, an exhibition featuring more than 100 original works of art that are seriously hilarious. The small-scale drawings depicting the comedic daily lives of humans and animals alike are all rendered by hand in a variety of media, an approach that is becoming increasing rare in a world of computer-generated images.

Dan Reynolds began drawing cartoons in 1989, when he was 30. As a youth center instructor, Reynolds was surrounded by youthful energy and creative minds. He was an avid follower of popular cartoons of the time, such as Gary Larson's Far Side and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. A native of Brewerton, NY, Reynolds was inspired by his Central New York surroundings, a place where snow is abundant and cows can be found just minutes from anywhere. From the beginning, Reynolds has used farm animals as messengers of humor, particularly cows, pigs and chickens, a series that was immediately accepted by Reader's Digest in 1989. A new cartoon has appeared in every issue since then. Reynolds' cartoons have also appeared in thematic Reynolds Unwrapped book compilations featuring everything from sports to holiday special editions. American Greetings and Recycled Greeting Cards also feature Reynolds cartoons on greeting cards for every occasion.

In 2008, Reynolds was diagnosed with testicular cancer and subsequently received months of chemotherapy. While he was in treatment, he began drawing cartoons about cancer and his personal experience which he found was shared by his fellow patients. He shared the cartoons with the staff and patients at the facility and discovered the power of art to bring humor to an otherwise humorless situation.

Read a review!

Ah Leon: Memories of Elementary School
Everson Museum of Art

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

In 2008, Ah Leon envisioned a monumental ceramic installation showcasing dozens of stoneware desks and chairs in neat rows like the classrooms of our youth. It began with a small grouping called Memories of Elementary School first exhibited in August 2008 at The Taipei Gallery Exposition and in 2009 at the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) annual conference. Ah Leon continued to make more desks which were exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in 2010. Another year has passed and Ah Leon has completed the 20 sets of desks and chairs which will be showcased in this exhibition.

His original idea was to create a classroom environment that would “lead audiences to remember their childhood stories.” Ah Leon studied elementary school desks, determined that his creations would be authentic, revealing memories through carved initials, scratches and drawings on their worn surfaces. His classroom would preserve the stories of our childhood as if they were “frozen in the museum space.”

The first two rows of tables and chairs appear new. They become progressively more dilapidated--some broken, some leaning--until the last rows where the furniture is falling over and ultimately only chips and severed parts remain on the floor. In one area the desks are arranged as if a teacher reads to a group of children. The impact of the scene is immediate: viewers are taken back to their own childhood classroom and long forgotten memories drift to the surface.

Read a review!

The Braid of Night and Day: Works by Cayetano Valenzuela
Echo

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

CNY Pride Families: Works by Ellen Blalock
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit is a portrait of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) families in Central New York communities. Through it, we seek to challenge and change damaging myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ people and their families. We hope to contribute to the process of dismantling the destructive power of prejudice and intolerance. The photographs display positive images and first person accounts which relay the stories of LGBTQ people and their families here in the Central New York area.

In 2007, Ellen M. Blalock collaborated with Light Work and LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University on a campus exhibition of CNY Pride Families. Some families only included domestic partners, some included children, ex-partners, grandparents and pets. Some writings were done by children explaining what it is like to have two moms. Some partners included the vows from their union ceremony. The process of making these portraits turned into a celebration of families, to show and share their love, their strength and their togetherness. The ArtRage exhibit includes more families, more diversity, video, and audio.

Read a review!

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Red Molly
Folkus Project

Price: $15
May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

The Folkus Project wraps up its 2011 spring season with Red Molly, a dynamic female trio with stunning three-part harmonies, crisp musicianship and a warm, engaging stage presence. Their music is an eclectic mix of original and traditional songs, including folk, gospel, Western swing, and blues. High lonesome harmonies, catchy bluegrass-inspired songwriting and incisive acoustic arrangements are complemented by the delightful chemistry among the three. Laurie MacAllister (bass, banjo), Abbie Gardner (dobro, guitar) and Molly Venter (guitar) bring a warm authenticity and an undeniable charm to their concerts.

*CANCELLED* Classics Series: Fantastic Symphony
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Hege, conductor

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

Wagner Prelude to "Die Meistersinger", WWV 96
Osvaldo Golijov Sidereus (Henry Fogel Commission Consortium)
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, op. 14

13 The Musical
Syracuse Children's Theatre

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

?For tickets or more information, phone 315-432-5437. Ages 12 and up.

Take All My Loves
Gerard Moses, director
Featuring Mark Cole

Price: $12 regular, $10 seniors, $5 students
Studio 24
433 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A play based on the sonnets of William Shakespeare, conceived by Mark Cole and Patrick Murphy. A writer, alone in his studio confronts the contradictions and confusions of desire, lust, love, time and mortality. Mature subject matter.
 

Into the Woods
CNY Playhouse
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $25 regular, $20 student/senior, $10 children under 10
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, the Wolf, Jack, a Beanstalk, and Reality.
An ambivalent Cinderella? A blood-thirsty Little Red Ridinghood? A Prince Charming with a roving eye? A Witch...who raps? They're all among the cockeyed characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's fractured fairy tale. When a Baker and his Wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects required to break the spell, swindling, lying to and stealing from Cinderella, Little Red, Rapunzel, and Jack (the one who climbed the beanstalk). Everyone's wish is granted at the end of Act One, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later, with disastrous results. What begins a lively irreverent fantasy in the style of "The Princess Bride" becomes a moving lesson about community responsibility and the stories we tell our children. The Syracuse New Times is producing this musical in collaboration with Not Another Theater Company. Music Direction by Dan Williams, choreography by Meghan Pearson.

Starring Patrica Elise Catchouny, Alex Cupelo, Kathy Egloff, Gina Ferrelli, Liam Fitzpatrick, Lanny Freshman, Kimberly Grader, Lucas Greer, Rebecca Hall, Greg J. Hipius,Kyle Johnson, Harlow Kisselstein, Meghan Pearson, Baily Pfohl, Marissa Pizzuto, Kasey Richards, Crystal Roupas, Heather J. Roach, Michael Spinoso, Danan Tsan, Wendy Viggiano, Carmen Vivano-Crafts, and Ceara Windhausen.

Read a Review!

The Graduate
Covey Theatre Company
Garrett Heater, director

BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Mrs. Robinson will seduce the coming-of-age Benjamin in this stage adaptation of the classic 1967 Mike Nichols film. Please be advised -- this show contains nudity.

Starring Moe Harrington and Rob Fonda.

Finding Normal
Rarely Done Productions
Scott Austin, director

Price: $20
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

This play is a piece of interview theater about being gay and coming out in high school. Actors will be talking about their own experiences with being gay and being bullied at school. The cast has been able to input their own life experiences into an existing script. This is an exciting story about young people in our community, in our state and in our country.

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Members' Theme Show
Associated Artists of Central New York

Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

The Braid of Night and Day: Works by Cayetano Valenzuela
Echo

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

Three Form Expression
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Linda Bigness- Abstract oil paintings from her urbanscape and musical notes series
Tom Huff- Soapstone and alabaster sculpture
Jerome Durr- Freestanding glass sculpture

Ah Leon: Memories of Elementary School
Everson Museum of Art

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

In 2008, Ah Leon envisioned a monumental ceramic installation showcasing dozens of stoneware desks and chairs in neat rows like the classrooms of our youth. It began with a small grouping called Memories of Elementary School first exhibited in August 2008 at The Taipei Gallery Exposition and in 2009 at the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) annual conference. Ah Leon continued to make more desks which were exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in 2010. Another year has passed and Ah Leon has completed the 20 sets of desks and chairs which will be showcased in this exhibition.

His original idea was to create a classroom environment that would “lead audiences to remember their childhood stories.” Ah Leon studied elementary school desks, determined that his creations would be authentic, revealing memories through carved initials, scratches and drawings on their worn surfaces. His classroom would preserve the stories of our childhood as if they were “frozen in the museum space.”

The first two rows of tables and chairs appear new. They become progressively more dilapidated--some broken, some leaning--until the last rows where the furniture is falling over and ultimately only chips and severed parts remain on the floor. In one area the desks are arranged as if a teacher reads to a group of children. The impact of the scene is immediate: viewers are taken back to their own childhood classroom and long forgotten memories drift to the surface.

Read a review!

Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds
Everson Museum of Art

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

The 2011 exhibition program will continue to highlight the talented artists of New York State through a series of focused exhibitions. The season opens with Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds, an exhibition featuring more than 100 original works of art that are seriously hilarious. The small-scale drawings depicting the comedic daily lives of humans and animals alike are all rendered by hand in a variety of media, an approach that is becoming increasing rare in a world of computer-generated images.

Dan Reynolds began drawing cartoons in 1989, when he was 30. As a youth center instructor, Reynolds was surrounded by youthful energy and creative minds. He was an avid follower of popular cartoons of the time, such as Gary Larson's Far Side and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. A native of Brewerton, NY, Reynolds was inspired by his Central New York surroundings, a place where snow is abundant and cows can be found just minutes from anywhere. From the beginning, Reynolds has used farm animals as messengers of humor, particularly cows, pigs and chickens, a series that was immediately accepted by Reader's Digest in 1989. A new cartoon has appeared in every issue since then. Reynolds' cartoons have also appeared in thematic Reynolds Unwrapped book compilations featuring everything from sports to holiday special editions. American Greetings and Recycled Greeting Cards also feature Reynolds cartoons on greeting cards for every occasion.

In 2008, Reynolds was diagnosed with testicular cancer and subsequently received months of chemotherapy. While he was in treatment, he began drawing cartoons about cancer and his personal experience which he found was shared by his fellow patients. He shared the cartoons with the staff and patients at the facility and discovered the power of art to bring humor to an otherwise humorless situation.

Read a review!

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

East Meets West: Works by Nikolay Mikushkin and Robert Glisson
Limestone Art and Framing Gallery

Limestone Art and Framing Gallery
105 Brooklea Dr., Fayetteville

Robert Glisson begins his oil paintings en plein air, and completes the work in his studio, utilizing the "push and pull" technique by incorporating color with distinct to dissolved forms. The artist also is known for turning a painting upside down to push further into abstracting the composition. The time Glisson spends working in the studio allows for a less literal and more emotive interpretation of the spirit of the Central New York landscape.

Nikolay Mikushkin, born in Kazakhstan, is a classically trained landscape painter in the style of Russian Realism that he learned while attending the St. Petersburg Academy of Painting in Russia. After moving to Syracuse from New York City following 9/11, Mikushkin found an abundance of inspiration throughout the Central New York landscape in which to continue his plein air painting style. The works in this exhibition were created from his time as artist-in-residence at Saltonstall in Ithaca, NY and at the Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, NY.

Mikushkin also works as a scenic artist for the United Scenic Artists Union, working on movies and stage productions in New York City.

Faces & Figures
Szozda Gallery

Price: Free
Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Artist Phil Parsons will be in attendance this afternoon 12:00-3:00.

A group show focusing solely on portraiture and figures. The six participating artists are Robert Glisson, Harry Freeman-Jones, Robert Niedzwiecki, Phil Parsons, Dona Flaherty, and Stephen Perrone.

In the Garden
Gandee Gallery

Gandee Gallery
7846 Main St., Fabius

In the Garden presents an eclectic mix of styles and art media, which all celebrate the joys of the garden. The paintings and photography in the show depict floral motifs and backyard vistas. Ceramic planters and sculptural forms complement and enhance any outdoor space. The jewelry and wearable pieces reflect the colors, patterns, and styles inspired by the gorgeous flowers that make us THINK SPRING!

Participating artists include: Jenny Pope, Lucie Wellner, Nancy Kramer, Rodger DeMuth, Zach Dunn, Melissa Montgomery, Kathy Barry, Jen Gandee. Sarah Panzarella, Lynn Yenkey, Lorna Meaden, Ron DeRutte, Lori Hawk, Amy Francher, and Errol Willett.?

Orange Pulp: Works by Norman Saunders
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

A profile of pulp artist Norman Saunders (1907-1989), including 10 lush and dramatic Saunders paintings from the university collection.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

CNY Pride Families: Works by Ellen Blalock
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

This exhibit is a portrait of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LGBTQ) families in Central New York communities. Through it, we seek to challenge and change damaging myths and stereotypes about LGBTQ people and their families. We hope to contribute to the process of dismantling the destructive power of prejudice and intolerance. The photographs display positive images and first person accounts which relay the stories of LGBTQ people and their families here in the Central New York area.

In 2007, Ellen M. Blalock collaborated with Light Work and LGBT Resource Center at Syracuse University on a campus exhibition of CNY Pride Families. Some families only included domestic partners, some included children, ex-partners, grandparents and pets. Some writings were done by children explaining what it is like to have two moms. Some partners included the vows from their union ceremony. The process of making these portraits turned into a celebration of families, to show and share their love, their strength and their togetherness. The ArtRage exhibit includes more families, more diversity, video, and audio.

Read a review!

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Fire
ArtRage Gallery

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

Trapped in loveless, arranged marriages, two Hindu women defy tradition a to find passion in each other. First Indian film about Lesbians.
"Bold, sumptuous...and taboo-breaking"--Boston Globe
L.A. Outfest: Best Feature, Actress. Barcelona International Women's Film Fest: Best Fiction Film
(1996, directed by Deepa Mehta)

Howard & Helen Boatwright Tribute Concert

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

Concert in memory of Howardf and helen Boatwright. Several of Helen's former students will be performing, along with performers representing the Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music, the Society for New Music, Civic Morning Musicals, members of the former Syracuse Symphony Orchestra, and the S.U. Oratorio Society. Representing the Boatwright family will be Helen's grandnephew, an accomplished tenor.

Along with music of Howard Boatwright, the concert includes music of Charles Ives, Robert Schumann, Bill Bolcom (world premiere), Ralph D'Mello (world premiere), and more - all close friends of the family. The Oratorio Society will conclude the program singing the last movement of Howard’s "Canticle of the Sun" which ends with the audience joining in. In the celebratory spirit, there are premieres of works by Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Bolcom and Ralph D'Mello written especially for Helen & Howard Boatwright. Carole Brzozowski, Syracuse University Arts Presenter, will serve as mistress of ceremonies.

Pops Concert
Syracuse University Brass Ensemble
James T. Spencer, conductor

United Church of Fayetteville
310 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville

*CANCELLED* Classics Series: Fantastic Symphony
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Hege, conductor

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

Wagner Prelude to "Die Meistersinger", WWV 96
Osvaldo Golijov Sidereus (Henry Fogel Commission Consortium)
Berlioz Symphonie fantastique, op. 14

Snow White
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

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

Interactive retelling of the classic children's story.

First Act Only: Into the Woods
CNY Playhouse
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $25 regular, $20 student/senior, $10 children under 10
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

This will be a "First Act Only" performance, suitable for small children.

Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, the Wolf, Jack, a Beanstalk, and Reality.
An ambivalent Cinderella? A blood-thirsty Little Red Ridinghood? A Prince Charming with a roving eye? A Witch...who raps? They're all among the cockeyed characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's fractured fairy tale. When a Baker and his Wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects required to break the spell, swindling, lying to and stealing from Cinderella, Little Red, Rapunzel, and Jack (the one who climbed the beanstalk). Everyone's wish is granted at the end of Act One, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later, with disastrous results. What begins a lively irreverent fantasy in the style of "The Princess Bride" becomes a moving lesson about community responsibility and the stories we tell our children. The Syracuse New Times is producing this musical in collaboration with Not Another Theater Company. Music Direction by Dan Williams, choreography by Meghan Pearson.

Starring Patrica Elise Catchouny, Alex Cupelo, Kathy Egloff, Gina Ferrelli, Liam Fitzpatrick, Lanny Freshman, Kimberly Grader, Lucas Greer, Rebecca Hall, Greg J. Hipius,Kyle Johnson, Harlow Kisselstein, Meghan Pearson, Baily Pfohl, Marissa Pizzuto, Kasey Richards, Crystal Roupas, Heather J. Roach, Michael Spinoso, Danan Tsan, Wendy Viggiano, Carmen Vivano-Crafts, and Ceara Windhausen.

Read a Review!

13 The Musical
Syracuse Children's Theatre

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

?For tickets or more information, phone 315-432-5437. Ages 12 and up.

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

13 The Musical
Syracuse Children's Theatre

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

?For tickets or more information, phone 315-432-5437. Ages 12 and up.

Take All My Loves
Gerard Moses, director
Featuring Mark Cole

Price: $12 regular, $10 seniors, $5 students
Studio 24
433 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A play based on the sonnets of William Shakespeare, conceived by Mark Cole and Patrick Murphy. A writer, alone in his studio confronts the contradictions and confusions of desire, lust, love, time and mortality. Mature subject matter.
 

Into the Woods
CNY Playhouse
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $25 regular, $20 student/senior, $10 children under 10
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, the Wolf, Jack, a Beanstalk, and Reality.
An ambivalent Cinderella? A blood-thirsty Little Red Ridinghood? A Prince Charming with a roving eye? A Witch...who raps? They're all among the cockeyed characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's fractured fairy tale. When a Baker and his Wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects required to break the spell, swindling, lying to and stealing from Cinderella, Little Red, Rapunzel, and Jack (the one who climbed the beanstalk). Everyone's wish is granted at the end of Act One, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later, with disastrous results. What begins a lively irreverent fantasy in the style of "The Princess Bride" becomes a moving lesson about community responsibility and the stories we tell our children. The Syracuse New Times is producing this musical in collaboration with Not Another Theater Company. Music Direction by Dan Williams, choreography by Meghan Pearson.

Starring Patrica Elise Catchouny, Alex Cupelo, Kathy Egloff, Gina Ferrelli, Liam Fitzpatrick, Lanny Freshman, Kimberly Grader, Lucas Greer, Rebecca Hall, Greg J. Hipius,Kyle Johnson, Harlow Kisselstein, Meghan Pearson, Baily Pfohl, Marissa Pizzuto, Kasey Richards, Crystal Roupas, Heather J. Roach, Michael Spinoso, Danan Tsan, Wendy Viggiano, Carmen Vivano-Crafts, and Ceara Windhausen.

Read a Review!

The Graduate
Covey Theatre Company
Garrett Heater, director

BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Mrs. Robinson will seduce the coming-of-age Benjamin in this stage adaptation of the classic 1967 Mike Nichols film. Please be advised -- this show contains nudity.

Starring Moe Harrington and Rob Fonda.

Finding Normal
Rarely Done Productions
Scott Austin, director

Price: $20
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

This play is a piece of interview theater about being gay and coming out in high school. Actors will be talking about their own experiences with being gay and being bullied at school. The cast has been able to input their own life experiences into an existing script. This is an exciting story about young people in our community, in our state and in our country.

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

Sunday, May 22, 2011

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

Read a review!

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

Faces & Figures
Szozda Gallery

Price: Free
Szozda Gallery
Delavan Center, 501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Artist Robert Glisson will be in attendance this afternoon 12:00-3:00.

A group show focusing solely on portraiture and figures. The six participating artists are Robert Glisson, Harry Freeman-Jones, Robert Niedzwiecki, Phil Parsons, Dona Flaherty, and Stephen Perrone.

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

In the Garden
Gandee Gallery

Gandee Gallery
7846 Main St., Fabius

In the Garden presents an eclectic mix of styles and art media, which all celebrate the joys of the garden. The paintings and photography in the show depict floral motifs and backyard vistas. Ceramic planters and sculptural forms complement and enhance any outdoor space. The jewelry and wearable pieces reflect the colors, patterns, and styles inspired by the gorgeous flowers that make us THINK SPRING!

Participating artists include: Jenny Pope, Lucie Wellner, Nancy Kramer, Rodger DeMuth, Zach Dunn, Melissa Montgomery, Kathy Barry, Jen Gandee. Sarah Panzarella, Lynn Yenkey, Lorna Meaden, Ron DeRutte, Lori Hawk, Amy Francher, and Errol Willett.?

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Orange Pulp: Works by Norman Saunders
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

A profile of pulp artist Norman Saunders (1907-1989), including 10 lush and dramatic Saunders paintings from the university collection.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds
Everson Museum of Art

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

The 2011 exhibition program will continue to highlight the talented artists of New York State through a series of focused exhibitions. The season opens with Reynolds Unwrapped: The Cartoon Art of Dan Reynolds, an exhibition featuring more than 100 original works of art that are seriously hilarious. The small-scale drawings depicting the comedic daily lives of humans and animals alike are all rendered by hand in a variety of media, an approach that is becoming increasing rare in a world of computer-generated images.

Dan Reynolds began drawing cartoons in 1989, when he was 30. As a youth center instructor, Reynolds was surrounded by youthful energy and creative minds. He was an avid follower of popular cartoons of the time, such as Gary Larson's Far Side and Bill Watterson's Calvin and Hobbes. A native of Brewerton, NY, Reynolds was inspired by his Central New York surroundings, a place where snow is abundant and cows can be found just minutes from anywhere. From the beginning, Reynolds has used farm animals as messengers of humor, particularly cows, pigs and chickens, a series that was immediately accepted by Reader's Digest in 1989. A new cartoon has appeared in every issue since then. Reynolds' cartoons have also appeared in thematic Reynolds Unwrapped book compilations featuring everything from sports to holiday special editions. American Greetings and Recycled Greeting Cards also feature Reynolds cartoons on greeting cards for every occasion.

In 2008, Reynolds was diagnosed with testicular cancer and subsequently received months of chemotherapy. While he was in treatment, he began drawing cartoons about cancer and his personal experience which he found was shared by his fellow patients. He shared the cartoons with the staff and patients at the facility and discovered the power of art to bring humor to an otherwise humorless situation.

Read a review!

Ah Leon: Memories of Elementary School
Everson Museum of Art

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

In 2008, Ah Leon envisioned a monumental ceramic installation showcasing dozens of stoneware desks and chairs in neat rows like the classrooms of our youth. It began with a small grouping called Memories of Elementary School first exhibited in August 2008 at The Taipei Gallery Exposition and in 2009 at the Phoenix Art Museum in conjunction with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) annual conference. Ah Leon continued to make more desks which were exhibited at the American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA) in 2010. Another year has passed and Ah Leon has completed the 20 sets of desks and chairs which will be showcased in this exhibition.

His original idea was to create a classroom environment that would “lead audiences to remember their childhood stories.” Ah Leon studied elementary school desks, determined that his creations would be authentic, revealing memories through carved initials, scratches and drawings on their worn surfaces. His classroom would preserve the stories of our childhood as if they were “frozen in the museum space.”

The first two rows of tables and chairs appear new. They become progressively more dilapidated--some broken, some leaning--until the last rows where the furniture is falling over and ultimately only chips and severed parts remain on the floor. In one area the desks are arranged as if a teacher reads to a group of children. The impact of the scene is immediate: viewers are taken back to their own childhood classroom and long forgotten memories drift to the surface.

Read a review!

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

Read a review!

Jon Seiger and the All-Stars
Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse

Price: $12
Stein's (formerly McNamara's Pub)
5600 Newport Rd., Camillus

Rochester sextet specializes in music of Louis Armstrong.

Pianist Bob Milne
Syracuse Wurlitzer

Price: $10 advance, $12 at the door; $5 children/students
First English Lutheran Church
Corner of James and Townsend Streets, Syracuse

Bob Milne is known as the top ragtime/boogie-woogie pianist around today. As a student in the 1960s at the Eastman School of Music, Bob began his musical career not as a pianist, but a French horn virtuoso. He performed in such symphonies as the Rochester Philharmonic and the Baltimore Symphony. Bob soon found himself at the piano, quickly learning how to accompany singers and entertaining. His favorite style as he later discovered was based on a type of off-the-beat, "ragged" time very similar to the styles of America's early ragtime era of the late 1800s and early 1900s.

As he continued performing night after night, he expanded his repertoire, adding early ragtime pieces, Scott Joplin rags, and John William "Blind" Boone pieces. As he continued to listen and study, he delved into the Dixieland and stride piano styles. Today, Bob enjoys a successful career as a concert pianist, entertaining audiences in concert halls, opera houses and arena stages from coast to coast. As a recording artist, he has produced ten collections of piano rags, blues, boogies and folk/traditional tunes, which are available on cassette and CD.

Spring Concert
Syracuse Youth Orchestras

Price: Free
Goldstein Auditorium, Schine Student Center
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The SSYO will perform under the direction of conductor James R. Tapia. The SSYO will perform the Sibelius Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 43.

The concert will also feature the Syracuse Symphony Youth String Orchestra (SSYSO) under the direction of conductor Muriel Bodley. The SSYSO will perform Dvorák’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major for String Orchestra, Fauré’s “Pavane” in F-sharp Minor and Miller’s “Finger Lakes Suite.” Violinist Vladimir Pritzker will appear as guest soloist on the Dvorák piece.

Free parking is available in Booth Garage and Marion and Waverly lots.

Into the Woods
CNY Playhouse
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $25 regular, $20 student/senior, $10 children under 10
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Cinderella, Little Red Ridinghood, the Wolf, Jack, a Beanstalk, and Reality.
An ambivalent Cinderella? A blood-thirsty Little Red Ridinghood? A Prince Charming with a roving eye? A Witch...who raps? They're all among the cockeyed characters in James Lapine and Stephen Sondheim's fractured fairy tale. When a Baker and his Wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects required to break the spell, swindling, lying to and stealing from Cinderella, Little Red, Rapunzel, and Jack (the one who climbed the beanstalk). Everyone's wish is granted at the end of Act One, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them later, with disastrous results. What begins a lively irreverent fantasy in the style of "The Princess Bride" becomes a moving lesson about community responsibility and the stories we tell our children. The Syracuse New Times is producing this musical in collaboration with Not Another Theater Company. Music Direction by Dan Williams, choreography by Meghan Pearson.

Starring Patrica Elise Catchouny, Alex Cupelo, Kathy Egloff, Gina Ferrelli, Liam Fitzpatrick, Lanny Freshman, Kimberly Grader, Lucas Greer, Rebecca Hall, Greg J. Hipius,Kyle Johnson, Harlow Kisselstein, Meghan Pearson, Baily Pfohl, Marissa Pizzuto, Kasey Richards, Crystal Roupas, Heather J. Roach, Michael Spinoso, Danan Tsan, Wendy Viggiano, Carmen Vivano-Crafts, and Ceara Windhausen.

Read a Review!

The Clean House
Syracuse Stage
Michael Barakiva, director

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

Matilde (pronounced Ma-chil-gee) has a problem: she's a cleaning lady who doesn’t like to clean. She'd rather think up the perfect joke. Now that her parents (once the funniest people in Brazil) are dead—her mother died laughing—she is the funniest person in her family. Mathilde works for a doctor named Lane, who has a problem: Lane's husband Charles, a surgeon, has found his soul mate, and it's not Lane. It's Ana, a vibrant Argentinean woman, who is dying, and that is Charles's problem. Sarah Ruhl is an exceptional playwright and MacArthur Foundation Fellow whose work has garnered Pulitzer nominations and justified recognition from Broadway to theatres across the country. The Clean House is one of her best, a compassionate, theatrically bold, and emotionally rich comedy. The perfect joke is worth the wait.

The Clean House won the 2004 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, awarded annually to the best English-language play written by a woman, and was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. At the end of 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine named the New York production one of the top ten theatrical attractions of the year.

Read a Review!

Take All My Loves
Gerard Moses, director
Featuring Mark Cole

Price: $12 regular, $10 seniors, $5 students
Studio 24
433 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

A play based on the sonnets of William Shakespeare, conceived by Mark Cole and Patrick Murphy. A writer, alone in his studio confronts the contradictions and confusions of desire, lust, love, time and mortality. Mature subject matter.
 

Monday, May 23, 2011

Approaches & Disclosures: Three Photographers

Price: Free
Empire State College CNY Center
6333 Route 298, East Syracuse

Approaches & Disclosures is a collection of work from three SUNY Empire State College faculty and staff members: Lee Herman, mentor at the Auburn Unit; Sue Orrell, director of academic support at the CNY Center; and Alan Stankiewicz, mentor at the CNY Center.

All three photographers approach photography from a different perspective, prompting the exhibition. The work ranges in content from urban street life, to local landscapes and constructed images of skies. As a single image or a studied series, each photograph reflects a deep rooted approach to photography based on personal experience and external influences.

The exhibition affords the Empire State College community the opportunity to view and celebrate a creative collaboration among colleagues, while broadening their own definition of photography.

For more information, contact Michael Mancini, 315-460-3176, michael.mancini@esc.edu.

Your Words Today /Tus palabras de hoy
Point of Contact Gallery

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

The Point of Contact Gallery presents the first exhibition by El Punto, a new contemporary arts program for young artists, created by Point of Contact and facilitated to local youths in collaboration with the Spanish Action League (La Liga) and La Casita Cultural Center.

Photography by Vincent Doody and Illustration by Aaron Lee
SUNY Oswego Metro Center at the Atrium

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

Gallery A: Vincent Doody's photographs portraying serene country landscapes, city scenes at twilight, and reflect the desolate life of Oswego's lighthouse in winter.
Gallery B highlights Aaron Lee's selection of comic illustrations from his witty, surreal and satirical series on Wesley the robot.

Orange Pulp: The Pulp Magazine & Contemporary Culture
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

On display will be pulp magazines, notably titles like Weird Tales and Amazing Stories; the typescript of Isaac Asimov's "Strange Playfellow," which introduced readers to one of science fiction's best known characters, Robbie the Robot; and correspondence with figures like Ray Bradbury.

Named for the cheap and abundant wood pulp that publishers after 1850 began using to print reading materials for a mass audience, pulp magazines sported eye-catching covers and included detective, adventure, western, horror, romance, and science fiction stories. According to co-curator Sean Quimby, director of SCRC, "This was literature tailored to specific tastes, intended to entertain in predictable ways." He notes that "even while the form of the pulp magazine died by 1960, the concept of pulp lives on in glossy photo-dense magazines, paperback novels, comic books, and film." Quimby maintains that pulp magazines, with their intensely involved readership, "helped make possible contemporary interactive media culture."

Human Nature Series: Works of Maria Janina Rizzo
Westcott Community Art Gallery

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

Emerging artist Maria Rizzo exhibits 15 paintings that depict the human nature in an explosive combination of color and symbolism.

Maria Janina Rizzo was born and raised in Italy where she lived until 2007. She received a diploma from the High School for the Arts, and was mentored by the eclectic painter Roberto Giussani, an essential figure for the growth of her artistic development. She then continued on with her studies of painting at Syracuse University. In 2010 she opened "ART IT: Modern & Unique Art with a touch of Italian class" with the desire to offer original paintings and customized artwork. Her paintings were recently featured at the Emerging Women Artists of CNY show at the Red House Gallery, and at the May Memorial Unitarian Universalist Society.

Jewelry Expo
Imagine

Imagine
38 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

Imagine will host a jewelry expo throughout May featuring works by seven contemporary silversmiths.

Jeffrey Henson Scales: That Year of Living
Light Work Gallery

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

That Year of Living features stunning black-and-white photographs by Jeffrey Henson Scales. Diagnosed with cancer in 2008, Scales was forced to, in his words, weigh the possibilities of his own demise, and whether he had achieved what he felt he was put here to do. It was this diagnosis and contemplation, along with the urging of his wife, Meg Henson Scales, which led him to return to making photographs on a daily basis.

The images in That Year of Living were made in the year following his cancer diagnosis and surgery. Scales photographed mainly in and around Times Square, depicting the part of New York City that he visited every day going to and from work at The New York Times. The images capture the certain hardness mixed with joy, sadness, determination and bewilderment that is found in the faces of young and old alike in New York City. Created in the months following his own experience with mortality, the photographs explore the journey of life and death found in the faces on the streets of New York.

Thilde Jensen: Canaries
Light Work Gallery

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

The images in Canaries, an exhibition of photographs by Thilde Jensen, are a personal account of the life Jensen has lived with multiple chemical sensitivity, and the people she has met who suffer from the same condition. People with this sensitivity have been dubbed "human canaries," and they are the casualties of what Jensen calls a "ubiquitous synthetic chemical culture."

Jensen became so sensitive to chemicals in the air that she could not sit in traffic, read a book or sit next to someone wearing perfume. She was forced to wear a gas mask when entering banks, supermarkets and doctor's offices. She left her life in New York City, her husband and her career, and moved to the country, where she lived in a tent away from the regular chemicals such as laundry detergents, pesticides and exhaust fumes.

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Works by Tina Zagyva: Themselves Has Been a Gathering
Redhouse

Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Exhibit open by appointment.

Light & Fire
Gallery 54

Gallery 54
54 E. Genesee St., Skaneateles

New works exploring the use of light and fire in the creation of pieces for the table, wall, and garden, featuring stained glass by Liz and Rich Micho and and pottery by Sallie Thompson.

John Freyer: The Dress Up Portrait Project
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Freyer's series of videos connects speaker to listener, performer to viewer. His 5-year-old daughter and her friends take turns posing for the camera for periods of several minutes without moving. At first, the static video images of little girls in Cinderella skirts or mom's high heels appear as cute clichés familiar from advertising and family photo albums. However, the children's mild discomfort at standing still and silent becomes increasingly unsettling over time. The children struggle not to fidget or speak, opening a space for a more complicated reading of their self-presentation. Their chosen objects of "dress up"--the clutter of pink hair curlers and ballerina frills--become a costume that liberates, rather than obscures, the personality beneath.

Freyer is an assistant professor of studio art in the School for Art and Art History at the University of Iowa, where he teaches advanced photography and digital imaging classes. He is currently a Fulbright Research Fellow in Stockholm, Sweden.

Jenny Holzer installation
Urban Video Project

Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

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

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

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"What If...?" Film Series: Stages
Gifford Foundation

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

Stages is a moving and surprisingly funny vérité exploration of the unexpected power of the simple act of storytelling. In New York City's oldest community center, a group of older Puerto Rican women and inner-city youth come together to create an original play out of the stories of their lives. Weaving together themes of immigration, identity, aging and coming of age, Stages offers an intimate portrait of an unlikely ensemble, transformed by the liberating power of their own stories -- first as they are spoken across generations, and later when they are performed for a sold-out show.

In response to a political climate that assigns little value to community arts initiatives, Stages offers an intimate portrait of an unlikely ensemble, transformed by the liberating power of their own stories.

The Red Shoes (1948)
Syracuse Cinephile Society

Price: $3 regular, $2.50 members
Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

In color! Directors: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Cast: Anton Walbrook, Marius Goring, Moira Shearer, Robert Helpmann, Leonide Massine, Albert Basserman. Legendary film which put ballet on the cinematic map. The 22-year-old Shearer is radiant in her screen debut as Vicki Page, protégé of powerful impresario Boris Lermontov (Walbrook) who tries to dominate all aspects of her life. Memorably choreographed by ballet masters Helpmann and Massine.