Friday, November 16, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Small Human Detail: Photographs by Philip MacCabe and Poems by Martin Walls
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The Eye of the FaithKeeper: The Haudenosaunee Art of Oren Lyons
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Gallery Exhibit: OCC Faculty Art Show
Onondaga Community College

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

A mixed media show with works from OCC's own faculty members.

Tango
Point of Contact Gallery

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

Tango, a large format folio published by Iris Editions in New York (1991) with eight intaglio prints by Nancy Graves and 13 pages of text by Pedro Cuperman that gaze at the aesthetics of this Latin American dance.

Tango proposes an evening of music, dance, and food transposed into videoa sort of "performance" projected into the space of the gallery where audience and art become intertwined in the field of representation.

"Graves conceived of the prints in the folio as a continued exploration of pattern in nature and as a tonal study of black and white," writes Thomas Padon in his book, Nancy Graves, Excavations in Print A Catalogue Raisonné (1996). "More than once the artist has asserted, 'There is nothing more challenging and meaningful than to make prints in black and white.' For an admitted colorist, it is ironic that the nine prints Graves has made in black and white are among her most powerful." The cryptic titles of the prints in the folio were selected by Graves from Cuperman's text for Tango. The poet speaks of the dance as a gradually unfolding ritual, stating near the conclusion, "Tango helps you find your own levels of proximity."

Annual Exhibition
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

The exhibition features abstract artwork from 16 New York State artists. Artists exhibiting: Anatoli Truskalo, Linda Bigness, Bob Gates, Amber Blanding, Hunter O'Reilly, Stan Bowman, Lynne Taetzsch, Paul McMillan, Cheyne Rood, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, Barbara Page, Barbara Mink, Len Fishman, Melissa Tiffany and Al D'Agostino. The show holds a number of different and unique mediums including paintings, sculptures, glass work, photographs, collage, drawings, and giclee prints on canvas.

The Never-Ending Wrong: The Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the execution for murder of two Italian anarchist laborers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a selection of period ephemera issued by the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee together with a plethora of books associated with the trial that have been published in the intervening years by Paul Avrich, Felix Frankfurter, and Eugene Lyons, among others. The exhibit features artistic expressions (cartoons, illustrations, novels, plays, poems, songs and music) inspired by the trial, including the work of Maxwell Anderson, John Dos Passos, Fred Ellis, Howard Fast, Woodie Guthrie, William Gropper, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rockwell Kent, Katherine Anne Porter, Pete Seeger, and Upton Sinclair. The story of the Sacco and Vanzetti mural by Ben Shahn on the east wall of H. B. Crouse will also be explored.

A Gala Holiday Art Exhibit
Westcott Community Center

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

Mary Stebbins Taitt: digital paintings
John "Jaw's" McGrath: pen and ink landscapes
Karen Tashkovski: paper collage
Amber Blanding: glass work
Mary Fragapane: pastel paintings and prints
Mick Mather: photographs
Kirsten Moore: acrylic and oil paintings
John Swank: photography

Four to the Fore
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

The exhibits highlights the varied work of four members, Barbara Emmons, Judith Jaquith, Elizabeth Pilbeam, and Clara Towell.

Gullah Lifestyles: A Culture Under Attack and Confederate Currency: The Color of Money
Community Folk Art Center

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

Paintings by John W. Jones and Leroy Campbell

The Art of George Mayocole
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Suggested donation $5
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

This exhibition features vibrant, abstract, mixed media works on paper by this New York City-based artist.

Newfoundland and Other Journeys
Fayetteville Free Library

Price: Free
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard St., Fayetteville

A showing of original pigment prints by Donal and Shel Little.

Artist Showcase: Images by Brian Arnold
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition is comprised of recent acquisitions to the Light Work Collection that come from multiple series that Ithaca-based photographer Brian Arnold has been working on. He utilizes traditional black-and-white processes, remaining committed to what he refers to as "the alchemy of photography." All of his photographs are unique silver gelatin prints, toned with a combination of selenium, sulfur, and gold chloride. Arnold also creates unique limited edition books, two of which are included in this exhibition. He teaches photography and electronic arts at the New York State College of Art and Engineering at Alfred University.

Angelika Rinnhofer: Sammelsurium
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition, featuring the work of German-born artist Angelika Rinnhofer, will feature her large-format color prints from three related series, Menschenkunde, Felsenfest, and Seelensucht. She describes her series Menschenkunde as portraits that combine facts, beauty, and irony in a Renaissance-style. Rinnhofer's series Felsenfest continues the same aesthetics in its re-interpretations of martyrs and saints into a modern context. Rinnhofer remembers being frightened as a child when viewing the horrific images of tortured saints commonly found in churches in her hometown Nürnberg, Germany. She now casts a critical eye, juxtaposing religious figures with modern-looking scientists. Seelensucht takes Rinnhofer back to the traditional single-figure portrait, also capturing the themes of martyrs.

Angelika lives in Beacon, NY. She is a commercial photographer and artist. She is the recipient of a Kodak European Gold Award and received a fellowship in photography from the Dutchess County Arts Council. She participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005.

Read a review!

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition features the work of five artists -- Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal, and Aaron Siskind -- all of whom generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints, and chromogenic prints.

Exploring History with Art -- Onondaga County on the Move: 200 Years of Transportation
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The exhibition will feature artwork from the OHA collection that depicts various modes of local transportation and how artists interpreted it over the last two centuries. Local teachers and students will find subjects meeting their document-based questions social studies standards within the exhibit.

Where I Live in Tuscany
Redhouse

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

An exhibition of landscapes by international artist Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna. The exhibition is curated by Daniela Mosko-Wozniak and signifies the first collaboration between the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the Redhouse gallery.

Where I Live in Tuscany shows recent landscapes, views from the artist's house revealing the unique beauty of the Italian landscape colored by the changing seasons. Kraczyna allows us a glimpse into his private world, a unique insight into his colorful palette, which marks all his series, whether he interprets themes of Icarus, Chinese Calligraphy, the Venice Carnival, or generally the labyrinths of life. The exhibit features the distinct multi-plate color etching technique that has earned Kraczyna notoriety not just in Italy, but also internationally.

Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He teaches printmaking and art-on-paper classes for the studio arts program at Syracuse University's Florence Center. He lives and works in his adopted country of Italy from his studio in the house of the Italian Master Domenico Ghirlandaio, the teacher of Michelangelo. Born on the Polish-Russian border in 1940, Kraczyna immigrated to the United States after WWII. Kraczyna first traveled to Italy 1961 on a scholarship from RISD, and after completing a Master's degree, returned to live and work there, allowing the particular character of the country to inform his work. In his studio, overlooking the city of Florence, he teaches Master Classes for advanced students in his own multi-plate color etching technique, in addition to his summer workshops in Barga.

He is the founder and former director of Il Bisonte International School of Advanced Printmaking in Florence, where he taught the techniques of color etching, and is co-author of I Segni Incisi, the first Italian textbook on the history and techniques of etching. He has directed "Studio for Color Etching" workshops in Barga, Lucca, and at the International Symposium for Color Etching at Palacky University, Czech Republic. His work has been shown in more than 139 solo exhibitions in the United States, Italy, Germany, England, Mexico, Columbia, the Czech Republic, and Japan, and is represented in the Uffizi Print Collection.

Free parking is conveniently located directly behind the Redhouse building.

Million Dollar Blocks: Justice and the City
ThINC

Company Gallery
110 W. Fayette St. (corner of Clinton), Syracuse

The United States currently has more than 2 million people locked up in jails and prisons. A disproportionate number of them come from a very few neighborhoods in the country's biggest cities. In many places, the concentration is so dense that states are spending in excess of a million dollars a year to incarcerate the residents of single census blocks. When these people are released and reenter their communities, roughly 40% do not stay more than three years before they are reincarcerated.

Using rarely accessible data from the criminal justice system, the Spatial Information Design Lab and the Justice Mapping Center have created maps of these "million dollar blocks" and of the city-prison-city-prison migration for of the nation's cities. The maps suggest that the criminal justice system has become the predominant government institution in these communities and that public investment in this system has resulted in significant costs to other elements of our civic infrastructure -- education, housing, health, and family.

The maps pose difficult ethical and political questions for policymakers and designers. When they are linked to other urban social and economic indicators of incarceration they also suggest new strategies for approaching urban design and criminal justice reform together.

Art Mart
Syracuse Allied Arts

Price: Free
City Hall Commons Atrium
201 East Washington St., Syracuse

Show and sale of original fine art and crafts.

For more information, phone 315-468-2616.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

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

Goya: The Disasters of War
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

For the first time ever in central New York, the SUArt Galleries will be presenting a complete, First Edition of Francisco de Goya's monumental graphic statement, The Disasters of War. Considered by many to be unrivaled in its graphic depiction of cruelty, terror, and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow man, the Disasters were not printed in their entirety during the artist's lifetime. Originally conceived and partially executed during the Peninsula War of 1808-1814 and the immediate post-war years, Goya dared not publish the series during his lifetime. The immediacy of the images, the bluntness of his approach to depicting the violence of war, and the fact that the post-war Spanish regime decreed that the War was to be forgotten made publication of the series impossible until 35 years after Goya's death.

Set against a backdrop of war, political turmoil, dictatorship, military occupation, and a growing sense of nationalism, the Disasters may be both the beginning and highlight of modern graphics. When the "fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices" (as it had been described by Goya and his son Javier) was published in 1863 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, it revolutionized the role of the artist as journalist and an observer of war. Goya, to a large extent, recorded what he saw and purposefully maintained the independence of the observed facts as distinct from his personal reactions to the cruelty, injustice, or whatever emotion the horror he witnessed might have engendered, in order to give greater clarity to the facts.

This series of prints has transcended the specific references to a Napoleonic era war that was borne of imperialist aspirations and has become synonymous with the gross brutality of war and its impact on the innocents of every conflict. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear contemporary war photographers pay homage to Goya and his brilliant concepts that abound in The Disasters of War.

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

Yves Saint Front
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

The exhibition contains 31 images primarily of Tahiti and Chausey, France, created between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

A descendant of mariners, St. Front preferred coastal scenes, often including boats at anchor, seaside villages and beaches. A number of his works include members of his family and the Tahitian natives, occasionally in an arrangement of small peripheral images around a central landscape. There are also a number of sensitively designed interiors; one that is particularly strong shows his wife Isabella standing at a telephone while their cat sleeps on a floor mat.

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

Wrapping Up the Season
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Featuring mixed media by Amy E. Bartell, monoprints and mixed media by Tara Hogan and works by the Syracuse Ceramic Guild.

Amy E. Bartell is showing a new series of mixed media works titled "Archeological Memoir." In her artist statement she describes the body of work as "a glimpse into memory and a quest for directional clues amidst the maps, signs, mysteries, scraps of writing and the compass of magnetic north." Bartell's artwork can be found in the collections of numerous individuals and organizations including Carleton College, California State University, Syracuse University and SUNY New York. She is known as a mural artist around the country and as the former Gallery Coordinator of Delavan Art Gallery. Currently, she is a faculty member of the art department at SUNY Oswego. Bartell's approach in her new series raises the question "What do we see when we scan the horizons of our lives? Where do we dig; does 'X' really mark the spot?"

Tara Hogan is exhibiting a collection of monoprints and mixed media from a new series of work titled "Conversations With Nature." The body of work conveys a dialogue between humans, animals and nature inspired by an interest in environmental consciousness. Hogan has been a graphic designer since earning her BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University eight years ago. Her art has been published in American Illustration, CMYK Magazine, Domino Magazine online and on the back of Bear Magazine. About her distinct style, Hogan explains, "I have a loving appreciation for nature's intricate beauty combined with modern urban style."

Syracuse Ceramic Guild's exhibition features ceramics by 10 its members. Selected works include eclectic ceramics by Lory and Walt Black, porcelain and stoneware by Sue Canizares, Raku sculpture by Dona Flaherty, Raku pottery by Dee Gage, abstract sculptural stoneware by Jane T. Gillett, ceramic story boxes by Amy Patricia Komar, "Biomorpheus," a body of abstract works by Ron Kalinoski, high-fired porcelain and stoneware by Bobbi Lamb and soda fired works by Steven Pilcher. The Syracuse Ceramic Guild, established in 1947, is a not-for-profit organization of potters dedicated to the promotion of awareness and understanding of the ceramic medium.

Under One Roof Reprise
Everson Museum of Art

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

Juxtapose artwork created by artists whose common thread is a shared studio/classroom space and expect the unexpected. This happened in 2004, when a group of women who work and teach at Syracuse University's ComArt building joined together for an exhibition entitled Under One Roof at SOHO20 Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This was the first time the artists - three generations of students/teachers - had shown together, yet their work spoke of seamless connections and closer ties than one might assume.

Nine artists have reunited for the current exhibition Under One Roof Reprise. Their situations have changed slightly but their work once again has come together in surprising and interesting ways. Abby Goodman and Kim Carr Valdez earned their MFA degrees and moved to Brooklyn, while Laura Ledbetter now lives in Philadelphia. Anne Beffel, Ann Clarke, Mary Giehl, Gail Hoffman, and Jude Lewis continue to teach in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, while Claire Harootunian, although officially retired, continues to teach, travel, and explore the art of found objects.

The artists' processes are diverse, including large-scale installations, found object collaboration, casting, kinetics, video, and hand-tooled objects. Emphasis is placed on the creative use of materials such as fibers, metals, wood, plastics, resin, and everyday products. Each artist translates and illuminates human experience through her unique visual language and conceptual sensibility. These artists address common themes such as play, gender, identity, time, place, and most of all, memories. Mary Giehl's Ivory combines happy childhood memories of bathing with her siblings - recalling the "toys, the fun, the soap floating and the smell of Ivory" - with "those of sad and heartbreaking stories" not uncommon in today's headlines.

Gail Hoffman, a sculptor immersed in the concept of time, presents "visual metaphorical narratives, freeze-framed in a state of suspended animation" through a variety of media including bronze, plastic toys, and other found objects. Plasco Ranch (Possible Outcomes) is a minature assemblage designed in the small scale to "invite the viewer to psychologically inhabit the space." A collection of disparate objects including a bronze sheep, Santa Claus, and military vehicles has been arranged to suggest a story that is left to the viewer's imagination. A journal placed nearby offers visitors the opportunity to record their stories and suggest possible outcomes for the scene as they see it unfold. Based on viewers' comments, Hoffman will return periodically to rearrange, add, or remove objects, providing photographic documentation of the ever changing Plasco Ranch as part of the exhibit.

This group exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Genetic Self-Portrait: Works by Gary Schneider
The Warehouse Gallery

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

The show includes 55 photo-based works that South African-born, NYC-based artist Gary Schneider produced when he was offered a chance to create a new body of work inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP, a scientific race to uncover the mysteries of DNA, began formally in the 1990s and was completed in 2003. During that period, Schneider was able to collaborate with a number of scientists and was given access to advanced imaging systems from electron microscopes to x-ray machines.

The work in the exhibition ranges from images of his individual chromosomes made by a light microscope to panoramic dental x-rays. Schneider is known as a master photographic printer, and by combining his skill as a craftsman and selecting specimens for their aesthetic qualities, he moved beyond scientific descriptions to produce a personal portrait that asks us to consider how we are unique and where we stand on common ground.

Schneider had always been interested in alternative imaging techniques, and previous to this project he had been making images by imprinting his hands onto film emulsions. When he decided to include these prints along with the images he had been making with scientists, he realized that what he had been creating was a new kind of portrait. Ann Thomas, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, described it as a new approach that "challenges the traditional definition of the portrait, and revises our understanding of what it means to be revealed before the camera's lens."

By merging scientific accuracy with poetic resonance, Schneider has created a very personal illumination of how our individual identity is so closely linked to our broader understanding and use of the information contained in the human building blocks of our DNA. Through the personal exploration that went into creating genetic self-portrait, Schneider reveals that while we may always want to think of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, our real promise might be found in looking at the 99 percent of ourselves we have in common with everyone else.

Read a review!

A Look of Portrait
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Price: Free
Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Image installations by Jinwoo Lee. Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition

Recital by the Vocal Repertory Class of Professor Loftus
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Folkus Project
Ryan Fitzsimmons with Greg Klyma and Tom Bianchi

Price: $10
May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Songs rich in imagery and emotion, buoyed by inspired guitar playing.

Classics Series: The Pines of Rome
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Cello: Julie Albers, Priscilla Lee, Caroline Stinson, Laura Bontrager
Daniel Hege, conductor

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

Brahms Symphony No. 3
Waggoner Stretched on the Beauty
Respighi The Pines of Rome

Read a review!

An Aria Evening
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Featuring soprano Sharon Cheng, with pianist Kyle Davies

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

Program includes arias by Handel, Mozart, Weber, Donizetti, Verdi, Offenbach, Massenet, Dvorak, Puccini, and Moore.

**SOLD OUT** Poet Claudia Emerson
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: $8 general public; $5 DWC/YMCA members
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Claudia Emerson was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her book Late Wife: Poems (LSU Press, 2005). She is also the author of the poetry collections Pharaoh, Pharaoh, and Pinion: An Elegy. Her many awards include a Witter Bynner Fellowship from the Library of Congress, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

PLEASE NOTE: Tickets from Claudia Emerson's postponed spring reading WILL be honored at this rescheduled event.

Memorandum
Redhouse
W.h.A.t. (The Warehouse Architecture Theatre)

Price: $8 adult; $4 students
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

The Warehouse Architecture Theatre is returning to Redhouse to produce "Memorandum" by Vaclav Havel and directed by Morgan Shaw. They will also present a short performance of "Fresh Air (of Expectaton)" by Alex Coulombe.

Endgame
Simply New Theatre

Price: $25 regular; $20 students/seniors
BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Syracuse University Drama Department
Gerardine Clark, director

Price: $15 regular, $13 students/seniors
Storch Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a drama about a Southern family in crisis and the turbulent relationship between husband and wife Brick Pollitt and Maggie "The Cat" Pollitt. The childless Pollitts arrive at a gathering of the family on their Mississippi Delta estate unaware that patriarch Big Daddy has cancer, which revelation puts them in competition with their relatives for a substantial serving from Big Daddy's will. Originating on Broadway in 1955, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was revived four times, and has been adapted for both film and television.

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New Play Workshop: The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information
Syracuse University Drama Department

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

Questions like "Who am I?" and "What is the meaning of life?" can catch us when we're least expecting them, stifling us with their scope and depth. We can be staring peacefully at the night sky or stumbling through our morning routine and suddenly realize how small our lives -- and even planet -- are. "What is the meaning of life?" we wonder. "Why am I here? And why do I force myself out of bed and through the day? What's the point?"

In his new play, The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information, 2004 SU Drama grad Matte O'Brien begs a slightly different, but profound question: If life does have meaning beyond the immediate and discernible -- does it even matter? Or is the meaning of life actually just a useless piece of information?

Workshopping is a crucial, but seldom-seen-by-the-public part of the playwriting process. Plays are three-dimensional works of art meant to be seen and heard. In order to truly understand how a moment or character or scene will work, playwrights often need to physically see the play. A group of student actors will actually stage The Meaning of Life and O'Brien will attend rehearsals and performances, reworking and rewriting parts based on what he sees and hears.

The performances are intended to be sketches to give the author a feel of the whole work. The performances will have only a minimal set, no lights or costumes; actors will only use rough props. Audiences will have the rare and fascinating opportunity to watch not just a cast of characters grow and change, but a new work of drama itself as well.

All matinee performances are followed by talk-back sessions with the cast and director.

For seating availability, phone 315-443-2102 or e-mail meaningoflifesu@hotmail.com.

Footloose
The Talent Company
Bob Durkin, director

Price: $25 regular; $22 seniors/students; $16 children 12 and under
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Based on the motion picture hit about a young man who comes to town and changes the lives of everyone there, Footloose is propelled by the rockin' rhythm of its Oscar-nominated Top 40 score, with music by Tom Snow and lyrics by Dean Pitchford. The soundtrack album spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts featuring such popular '80s tunes as "Let's Hear It For The Boy," "Almost Paradise," "The Girl Gets Around," "Holding Out For A Hero," and the title song, "Footloose." When the film was released in 1984, there were at least 65 communities in the United States that had some sort of law on the books outlawing dancing. One such town was Elmore City, OK, the original inspiration for the unbelievable story of Footloose. Ever since the town's inception in 1861, dancing had been illegal. In 1980, when Elmore City teens protested the ordinance at City Hall, a firestorm of controversy followed; when it was all over, the town saw its first dance in over 100 years.

Read a Review!

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Small Human Detail: Photographs by Philip MacCabe and Poems by Martin Walls
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Off the Wall Show and Sale
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Unlike most gallery shows, this Associated Artists sale allows everyone the opportunity to purchase fine original artwork that can be taken home immediately, and so it's "Off The Wall". A portion of each sale helps support the Manlius Library general fund and the remainder subsidizes various community activities and educational programs of Associated Artists. Please join us and enjoy the creations of the many talented and well-known members of this group. This is a wonderful chance to find one-of-a-kind gifts!

Wrapping Up the Season
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Featuring mixed media by Amy E. Bartell, monoprints and mixed media by Tara Hogan and works by the Syracuse Ceramic Guild.

Amy E. Bartell is showing a new series of mixed media works titled "Archeological Memoir." In her artist statement she describes the body of work as "a glimpse into memory and a quest for directional clues amidst the maps, signs, mysteries, scraps of writing and the compass of magnetic north." Bartell's artwork can be found in the collections of numerous individuals and organizations including Carleton College, California State University, Syracuse University and SUNY New York. She is known as a mural artist around the country and as the former Gallery Coordinator of Delavan Art Gallery. Currently, she is a faculty member of the art department at SUNY Oswego. Bartell's approach in her new series raises the question "What do we see when we scan the horizons of our lives? Where do we dig; does 'X' really mark the spot?"

Tara Hogan is exhibiting a collection of monoprints and mixed media from a new series of work titled "Conversations With Nature." The body of work conveys a dialogue between humans, animals and nature inspired by an interest in environmental consciousness. Hogan has been a graphic designer since earning her BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University eight years ago. Her art has been published in American Illustration, CMYK Magazine, Domino Magazine online and on the back of Bear Magazine. About her distinct style, Hogan explains, "I have a loving appreciation for nature's intricate beauty combined with modern urban style."

Syracuse Ceramic Guild's exhibition features ceramics by 10 its members. Selected works include eclectic ceramics by Lory and Walt Black, porcelain and stoneware by Sue Canizares, Raku sculpture by Dona Flaherty, Raku pottery by Dee Gage, abstract sculptural stoneware by Jane T. Gillett, ceramic story boxes by Amy Patricia Komar, "Biomorpheus," a body of abstract works by Ron Kalinoski, high-fired porcelain and stoneware by Bobbi Lamb and soda fired works by Steven Pilcher. The Syracuse Ceramic Guild, established in 1947, is a not-for-profit organization of potters dedicated to the promotion of awareness and understanding of the ceramic medium.

Under One Roof Reprise
Everson Museum of Art

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

Juxtapose artwork created by artists whose common thread is a shared studio/classroom space and expect the unexpected. This happened in 2004, when a group of women who work and teach at Syracuse University's ComArt building joined together for an exhibition entitled Under One Roof at SOHO20 Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This was the first time the artists - three generations of students/teachers - had shown together, yet their work spoke of seamless connections and closer ties than one might assume.

Nine artists have reunited for the current exhibition Under One Roof Reprise. Their situations have changed slightly but their work once again has come together in surprising and interesting ways. Abby Goodman and Kim Carr Valdez earned their MFA degrees and moved to Brooklyn, while Laura Ledbetter now lives in Philadelphia. Anne Beffel, Ann Clarke, Mary Giehl, Gail Hoffman, and Jude Lewis continue to teach in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, while Claire Harootunian, although officially retired, continues to teach, travel, and explore the art of found objects.

The artists' processes are diverse, including large-scale installations, found object collaboration, casting, kinetics, video, and hand-tooled objects. Emphasis is placed on the creative use of materials such as fibers, metals, wood, plastics, resin, and everyday products. Each artist translates and illuminates human experience through her unique visual language and conceptual sensibility. These artists address common themes such as play, gender, identity, time, place, and most of all, memories. Mary Giehl's Ivory combines happy childhood memories of bathing with her siblings - recalling the "toys, the fun, the soap floating and the smell of Ivory" - with "those of sad and heartbreaking stories" not uncommon in today's headlines.

Gail Hoffman, a sculptor immersed in the concept of time, presents "visual metaphorical narratives, freeze-framed in a state of suspended animation" through a variety of media including bronze, plastic toys, and other found objects. Plasco Ranch (Possible Outcomes) is a minature assemblage designed in the small scale to "invite the viewer to psychologically inhabit the space." A collection of disparate objects including a bronze sheep, Santa Claus, and military vehicles has been arranged to suggest a story that is left to the viewer's imagination. A journal placed nearby offers visitors the opportunity to record their stories and suggest possible outcomes for the scene as they see it unfold. Based on viewers' comments, Hoffman will return periodically to rearrange, add, or remove objects, providing photographic documentation of the ever changing Plasco Ranch as part of the exhibit.

This group exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Newfoundland and Other Journeys
Fayetteville Free Library

Price: Free
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard St., Fayetteville

A showing of original pigment prints by Donal and Shel Little.

Million Dollar Blocks: Justice and the City
ThINC

Company Gallery
110 W. Fayette St. (corner of Clinton), Syracuse

The United States currently has more than 2 million people locked up in jails and prisons. A disproportionate number of them come from a very few neighborhoods in the country's biggest cities. In many places, the concentration is so dense that states are spending in excess of a million dollars a year to incarcerate the residents of single census blocks. When these people are released and reenter their communities, roughly 40% do not stay more than three years before they are reincarcerated.

Using rarely accessible data from the criminal justice system, the Spatial Information Design Lab and the Justice Mapping Center have created maps of these "million dollar blocks" and of the city-prison-city-prison migration for of the nation's cities. The maps suggest that the criminal justice system has become the predominant government institution in these communities and that public investment in this system has resulted in significant costs to other elements of our civic infrastructure -- education, housing, health, and family.

The maps pose difficult ethical and political questions for policymakers and designers. When they are linked to other urban social and economic indicators of incarceration they also suggest new strategies for approaching urban design and criminal justice reform together.

Gullah Lifestyles: A Culture Under Attack and Confederate Currency: The Color of Money
Community Folk Art Center

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

Paintings by John W. Jones and Leroy Campbell

The Art of George Mayocole
Community Folk Art Center

Price: Suggested donation $5
Community Folk Art Center
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

This exhibition features vibrant, abstract, mixed media works on paper by this New York City-based artist.

Art Mart
Syracuse Allied Arts

Price: Free
City Hall Commons Atrium
201 East Washington St., Syracuse

Show and sale of original fine art and crafts.

For more information, phone 315-468-2616.

Exploring History with Art -- Onondaga County on the Move: 200 Years of Transportation
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The exhibition will feature artwork from the OHA collection that depicts various modes of local transportation and how artists interpreted it over the last two centuries. Local teachers and students will find subjects meeting their document-based questions social studies standards within the exhibit.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

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

Yves Saint Front
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

The exhibition contains 31 images primarily of Tahiti and Chausey, France, created between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

A descendant of mariners, St. Front preferred coastal scenes, often including boats at anchor, seaside villages and beaches. A number of his works include members of his family and the Tahitian natives, occasionally in an arrangement of small peripheral images around a central landscape. There are also a number of sensitively designed interiors; one that is particularly strong shows his wife Isabella standing at a telephone while their cat sleeps on a floor mat.

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

Goya: The Disasters of War
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

For the first time ever in central New York, the SUArt Galleries will be presenting a complete, First Edition of Francisco de Goya's monumental graphic statement, The Disasters of War. Considered by many to be unrivaled in its graphic depiction of cruelty, terror, and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow man, the Disasters were not printed in their entirety during the artist's lifetime. Originally conceived and partially executed during the Peninsula War of 1808-1814 and the immediate post-war years, Goya dared not publish the series during his lifetime. The immediacy of the images, the bluntness of his approach to depicting the violence of war, and the fact that the post-war Spanish regime decreed that the War was to be forgotten made publication of the series impossible until 35 years after Goya's death.

Set against a backdrop of war, political turmoil, dictatorship, military occupation, and a growing sense of nationalism, the Disasters may be both the beginning and highlight of modern graphics. When the "fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices" (as it had been described by Goya and his son Javier) was published in 1863 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, it revolutionized the role of the artist as journalist and an observer of war. Goya, to a large extent, recorded what he saw and purposefully maintained the independence of the observed facts as distinct from his personal reactions to the cruelty, injustice, or whatever emotion the horror he witnessed might have engendered, in order to give greater clarity to the facts.

This series of prints has transcended the specific references to a Napoleonic era war that was borne of imperialist aspirations and has become synonymous with the gross brutality of war and its impact on the innocents of every conflict. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear contemporary war photographers pay homage to Goya and his brilliant concepts that abound in The Disasters of War.

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

Genetic Self-Portrait: Works by Gary Schneider
The Warehouse Gallery

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

The show includes 55 photo-based works that South African-born, NYC-based artist Gary Schneider produced when he was offered a chance to create a new body of work inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP, a scientific race to uncover the mysteries of DNA, began formally in the 1990s and was completed in 2003. During that period, Schneider was able to collaborate with a number of scientists and was given access to advanced imaging systems from electron microscopes to x-ray machines.

The work in the exhibition ranges from images of his individual chromosomes made by a light microscope to panoramic dental x-rays. Schneider is known as a master photographic printer, and by combining his skill as a craftsman and selecting specimens for their aesthetic qualities, he moved beyond scientific descriptions to produce a personal portrait that asks us to consider how we are unique and where we stand on common ground.

Schneider had always been interested in alternative imaging techniques, and previous to this project he had been making images by imprinting his hands onto film emulsions. When he decided to include these prints along with the images he had been making with scientists, he realized that what he had been creating was a new kind of portrait. Ann Thomas, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, described it as a new approach that "challenges the traditional definition of the portrait, and revises our understanding of what it means to be revealed before the camera's lens."

By merging scientific accuracy with poetic resonance, Schneider has created a very personal illumination of how our individual identity is so closely linked to our broader understanding and use of the information contained in the human building blocks of our DNA. Through the personal exploration that went into creating genetic self-portrait, Schneider reveals that while we may always want to think of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, our real promise might be found in looking at the 99 percent of ourselves we have in common with everyone else.

Read a review!

A Look of Portrait
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Price: Free
Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Image installations by Jinwoo Lee. Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition

Scholastic Jazz Jam
CNY Jazz Arts Foundation

Price: $6 adult; $3 with student ID
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

Aspiring jazz instrumentalists "learn the ropes" of public performance, backed by the area's finest jazz professionals. Play tunes of your choice in a supportive atmosphere. All experience levels welcome! Call 315-479-5299 for more information.

Action Music
Society for New Music
Cindi Johnston Turner, conductor

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors
Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Rob Smith Sprint, 2006
Nicholas Omiccioli Waves, 2006
Dan Trueman Triptick, 2006
Robert Morris Society Sounds, 2006
Jeffrey Nytch ... and the wind spoke, 2005

...so many pleasures
Quintessential Vocal Ensemble

Price: $10 regular; $5 students/seniors
Syracuse Center for the Performing Arts
728 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

A concert of music spanning 500 years of agony and ecstasy in song, featuring works by William Cornysh, Juan Vasquez, John Morley, Hans Leo Hassler, Josquin DesPres, Michael McGlynn, J. W. Hobbs, Arthur Sullivan, and Sergei Rachmaninov.

Quintessential is made up of five singers from the Syracuse area who met while singing with the Syracuse Vocal Ensemble. Their shared passion for choral music brought them together in 2006 to form a vocal consort whose format, while not unique, is unusual: their singing explores the use of men's voices only, performing music which spans the full range of vocal writing  including the range usually covered by female singers or unchanged voices. This use of all male voices produces a characteristically dense and colorful sound, richer in overtones and more uniform in texture than an ensemble with both men and women. It has been made famous in our time by groups such as The King's Singers and Chanticleer.

Quintessential members are Stephen Stewart and Roderick Etzel, countertenors; Stephen Zumchak and Thomas Sauvé, tenors; Michael Chellis, bass.

Classics Series: The Pines of Rome
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Cello: Julie Albers, Priscilla Lee, Caroline Stinson, Laura Bontrager
Daniel Hege, conductor

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

Brahms Symphony No. 3
Waggoner Stretched on the Beauty
Respighi The Pines of Rome

Read a review!

Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Syracuse University Woodwind Quintet

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

Larry Hoyt's Acoustic Showcase
Westcott Community Center

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

Program features Dana "Short Order" Cooke, Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers, the a capella duo Glass of Water, and Michael Gordon. For more information, phone 315-428-9909.

Sleeping Beauty
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

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

Interactive version of the children's classic.

New Play Workshop: The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information
Syracuse University Drama Department

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

Questions like "Who am I?" and "What is the meaning of life?" can catch us when we're least expecting them, stifling us with their scope and depth. We can be staring peacefully at the night sky or stumbling through our morning routine and suddenly realize how small our lives -- and even planet -- are. "What is the meaning of life?" we wonder. "Why am I here? And why do I force myself out of bed and through the day? What's the point?"

In his new play, The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information, 2004 SU Drama grad Matte O'Brien begs a slightly different, but profound question: If life does have meaning beyond the immediate and discernible -- does it even matter? Or is the meaning of life actually just a useless piece of information?

Workshopping is a crucial, but seldom-seen-by-the-public part of the playwriting process. Plays are three-dimensional works of art meant to be seen and heard. In order to truly understand how a moment or character or scene will work, playwrights often need to physically see the play. A group of student actors will actually stage The Meaning of Life and O'Brien will attend rehearsals and performances, reworking and rewriting parts based on what he sees and hears.

The performances are intended to be sketches to give the author a feel of the whole work. The performances will have only a minimal set, no lights or costumes; actors will only use rough props. Audiences will have the rare and fascinating opportunity to watch not just a cast of characters grow and change, but a new work of drama itself as well.

All matinee performances are followed by talk-back sessions with the cast and director.

For seating availability, phone 315-443-2102 or e-mail meaningoflifesu@hotmail.com.

Of Mice and Men
Syracuse Civic Theatre

Price: $20 regular, $18 students/seniors, $16 children 12 and under
Carrier Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Read a review!

Memorandum
Redhouse
W.h.A.t. (The Warehouse Architecture Theatre)

Price: $8 adult; $4 students
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

The Warehouse Architecture Theatre is returning to Redhouse to produce "Memorandum" by Vaclav Havel and directed by Morgan Shaw. They will also present a short performance of "Fresh Air (of Expectaton)" by Alex Coulombe.

Endgame
Simply New Theatre

Price: $25 regular; $20 students/seniors
BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

New Play Workshop: The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information
Syracuse University Drama Department

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

Questions like "Who am I?" and "What is the meaning of life?" can catch us when we're least expecting them, stifling us with their scope and depth. We can be staring peacefully at the night sky or stumbling through our morning routine and suddenly realize how small our lives -- and even planet -- are. "What is the meaning of life?" we wonder. "Why am I here? And why do I force myself out of bed and through the day? What's the point?"

In his new play, The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information, 2004 SU Drama grad Matte O'Brien begs a slightly different, but profound question: If life does have meaning beyond the immediate and discernible -- does it even matter? Or is the meaning of life actually just a useless piece of information?

Workshopping is a crucial, but seldom-seen-by-the-public part of the playwriting process. Plays are three-dimensional works of art meant to be seen and heard. In order to truly understand how a moment or character or scene will work, playwrights often need to physically see the play. A group of student actors will actually stage The Meaning of Life and O'Brien will attend rehearsals and performances, reworking and rewriting parts based on what he sees and hears.

The performances are intended to be sketches to give the author a feel of the whole work. The performances will have only a minimal set, no lights or costumes; actors will only use rough props. Audiences will have the rare and fascinating opportunity to watch not just a cast of characters grow and change, but a new work of drama itself as well.

All matinee performances are followed by talk-back sessions with the cast and director.

For seating availability, phone 315-443-2102 or e-mail meaningoflifesu@hotmail.com.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Syracuse University Drama Department
Gerardine Clark, director

Price: $15 regular, $13 students/seniors
Storch Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a drama about a Southern family in crisis and the turbulent relationship between husband and wife Brick Pollitt and Maggie "The Cat" Pollitt. The childless Pollitts arrive at a gathering of the family on their Mississippi Delta estate unaware that patriarch Big Daddy has cancer, which revelation puts them in competition with their relatives for a substantial serving from Big Daddy's will. Originating on Broadway in 1955, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was revived four times, and has been adapted for both film and television.

Read a Review!

Footloose
The Talent Company
Bob Durkin, director

Price: $25 regular; $22 seniors/students; $16 children 12 and under
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Based on the motion picture hit about a young man who comes to town and changes the lives of everyone there, Footloose is propelled by the rockin' rhythm of its Oscar-nominated Top 40 score, with music by Tom Snow and lyrics by Dean Pitchford. The soundtrack album spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts featuring such popular '80s tunes as "Let's Hear It For The Boy," "Almost Paradise," "The Girl Gets Around," "Holding Out For A Hero," and the title song, "Footloose." When the film was released in 1984, there were at least 65 communities in the United States that had some sort of law on the books outlawing dancing. One such town was Elmore City, OK, the original inspiration for the unbelievable story of Footloose. Ever since the town's inception in 1861, dancing had been illegal. In 1980, when Elmore City teens protested the ordinance at City Hall, a firestorm of controversy followed; when it was all over, the town saw its first dance in over 100 years.

Read a Review!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition features the work of five artists -- Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal, and Aaron Siskind -- all of whom generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints, and chromogenic prints.

Angelika Rinnhofer: Sammelsurium
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition, featuring the work of German-born artist Angelika Rinnhofer, will feature her large-format color prints from three related series, Menschenkunde, Felsenfest, and Seelensucht. She describes her series Menschenkunde as portraits that combine facts, beauty, and irony in a Renaissance-style. Rinnhofer's series Felsenfest continues the same aesthetics in its re-interpretations of martyrs and saints into a modern context. Rinnhofer remembers being frightened as a child when viewing the horrific images of tortured saints commonly found in churches in her hometown Nürnberg, Germany. She now casts a critical eye, juxtaposing religious figures with modern-looking scientists. Seelensucht takes Rinnhofer back to the traditional single-figure portrait, also capturing the themes of martyrs.

Angelika lives in Beacon, NY. She is a commercial photographer and artist. She is the recipient of a Kodak European Gold Award and received a fellowship in photography from the Dutchess County Arts Council. She participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005.

Read a review!

Artist Showcase: Images by Brian Arnold
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition is comprised of recent acquisitions to the Light Work Collection that come from multiple series that Ithaca-based photographer Brian Arnold has been working on. He utilizes traditional black-and-white processes, remaining committed to what he refers to as "the alchemy of photography." All of his photographs are unique silver gelatin prints, toned with a combination of selenium, sulfur, and gold chloride. Arnold also creates unique limited edition books, two of which are included in this exhibition. He teaches photography and electronic arts at the New York State College of Art and Engineering at Alfred University.

Exploring History with Art -- Onondaga County on the Move: 200 Years of Transportation
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The exhibition will feature artwork from the OHA collection that depicts various modes of local transportation and how artists interpreted it over the last two centuries. Local teachers and students will find subjects meeting their document-based questions social studies standards within the exhibit.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

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

Goya: The Disasters of War
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

For the first time ever in central New York, the SUArt Galleries will be presenting a complete, First Edition of Francisco de Goya's monumental graphic statement, The Disasters of War. Considered by many to be unrivaled in its graphic depiction of cruelty, terror, and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow man, the Disasters were not printed in their entirety during the artist's lifetime. Originally conceived and partially executed during the Peninsula War of 1808-1814 and the immediate post-war years, Goya dared not publish the series during his lifetime. The immediacy of the images, the bluntness of his approach to depicting the violence of war, and the fact that the post-war Spanish regime decreed that the War was to be forgotten made publication of the series impossible until 35 years after Goya's death.

Set against a backdrop of war, political turmoil, dictatorship, military occupation, and a growing sense of nationalism, the Disasters may be both the beginning and highlight of modern graphics. When the "fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices" (as it had been described by Goya and his son Javier) was published in 1863 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, it revolutionized the role of the artist as journalist and an observer of war. Goya, to a large extent, recorded what he saw and purposefully maintained the independence of the observed facts as distinct from his personal reactions to the cruelty, injustice, or whatever emotion the horror he witnessed might have engendered, in order to give greater clarity to the facts.

This series of prints has transcended the specific references to a Napoleonic era war that was borne of imperialist aspirations and has become synonymous with the gross brutality of war and its impact on the innocents of every conflict. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear contemporary war photographers pay homage to Goya and his brilliant concepts that abound in The Disasters of War.

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

Yves Saint Front
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

The exhibition contains 31 images primarily of Tahiti and Chausey, France, created between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

A descendant of mariners, St. Front preferred coastal scenes, often including boats at anchor, seaside villages and beaches. A number of his works include members of his family and the Tahitian natives, occasionally in an arrangement of small peripheral images around a central landscape. There are also a number of sensitively designed interiors; one that is particularly strong shows his wife Isabella standing at a telephone while their cat sleeps on a floor mat.

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

Under One Roof Reprise
Everson Museum of Art

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

Juxtapose artwork created by artists whose common thread is a shared studio/classroom space and expect the unexpected. This happened in 2004, when a group of women who work and teach at Syracuse University's ComArt building joined together for an exhibition entitled Under One Roof at SOHO20 Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This was the first time the artists - three generations of students/teachers - had shown together, yet their work spoke of seamless connections and closer ties than one might assume.

Nine artists have reunited for the current exhibition Under One Roof Reprise. Their situations have changed slightly but their work once again has come together in surprising and interesting ways. Abby Goodman and Kim Carr Valdez earned their MFA degrees and moved to Brooklyn, while Laura Ledbetter now lives in Philadelphia. Anne Beffel, Ann Clarke, Mary Giehl, Gail Hoffman, and Jude Lewis continue to teach in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, while Claire Harootunian, although officially retired, continues to teach, travel, and explore the art of found objects.

The artists' processes are diverse, including large-scale installations, found object collaboration, casting, kinetics, video, and hand-tooled objects. Emphasis is placed on the creative use of materials such as fibers, metals, wood, plastics, resin, and everyday products. Each artist translates and illuminates human experience through her unique visual language and conceptual sensibility. These artists address common themes such as play, gender, identity, time, place, and most of all, memories. Mary Giehl's Ivory combines happy childhood memories of bathing with her siblings - recalling the "toys, the fun, the soap floating and the smell of Ivory" - with "those of sad and heartbreaking stories" not uncommon in today's headlines.

Gail Hoffman, a sculptor immersed in the concept of time, presents "visual metaphorical narratives, freeze-framed in a state of suspended animation" through a variety of media including bronze, plastic toys, and other found objects. Plasco Ranch (Possible Outcomes) is a minature assemblage designed in the small scale to "invite the viewer to psychologically inhabit the space." A collection of disparate objects including a bronze sheep, Santa Claus, and military vehicles has been arranged to suggest a story that is left to the viewer's imagination. A journal placed nearby offers visitors the opportunity to record their stories and suggest possible outcomes for the scene as they see it unfold. Based on viewers' comments, Hoffman will return periodically to rearrange, add, or remove objects, providing photographic documentation of the ever changing Plasco Ranch as part of the exhibit.

This group exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Off the Wall Show and Sale
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Unlike most gallery shows, this Associated Artists sale allows everyone the opportunity to purchase fine original artwork that can be taken home immediately, and so it's "Off The Wall". A portion of each sale helps support the Manlius Library general fund and the remainder subsidizes various community activities and educational programs of Associated Artists. Please join us and enjoy the creations of the many talented and well-known members of this group. This is a wonderful chance to find one-of-a-kind gifts!

Newfoundland and Other Journeys
Fayetteville Free Library

Price: Free
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard St., Fayetteville

A showing of original pigment prints by Donal and Shel Little.

A Look of Portrait
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Price: Free
Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Image installations by Jinwoo Lee. Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition

Liverpool Schools Faculty Concert
Arts Alive in Liverpool

Price: Free
Liverpool Public Library
310 Tulip St., Liverpool

Annual Fesko concert.

Hollywood for the Holidays
Spirit of Syracuse Chorus
Nancy Field, conductor

Price: $15 regular; $10 students/seniors
Fayetteville-Manlius High School
8201 E. Seneca Tpke., Manlius

Jazz Appreciation Society of Syracuse
The Jon Seiger All-Stars

Price: $12 regular; $10 JASS members
LeMoyne Manor
629 Old Liverpool Rd., Liverpool

Syracuse University Symphony Orchestra
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
James R. Tapia, conductor

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

The orchestra will perform the Scherzo in d minor of Eduard Lalo; the Opus 60, No. 4 of Carl Maria von Weber arranged by John M. Laverty, faculty member in the Setnor School of Music; and the Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 43 of Jean Sibelius.

Free parking is available in Irving Garage.

Theatre Pipe Organ Concert
Syracuse Wurlitzer
Featuring Jonathan Ortloff

Price: $15 adults; $2 children
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Jonathan Ortloff is an undergraduate organ student of David Higgs at Eastman and is simultaneously pursuing a degree in interdepartmental engineering at the University of Rochester. A graduate of Phillips Exeter Academy, he plans to build pipe organs upon graduation. Over the past six years, Jon has worked for renowned organ builders and restorers in the United States including C.B. Fisk, Russell & Company, Paul Fritts & Company, and Jonathan Ambrosino. In 2006, he was awarded a grant from the Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City to stay an additional year at the university to plan for the restoration of the 1937 G. Donald Harrison Aeolian-Skinner organ in Strong Auditorium on the university's River Campus. Currently, he is a member of the OHS committee rewriting the guidelines for conservation and documentation and is the organist for the First Church of Christ, Scientist in Rochester. He is also directing the restoration of an 8-rank Wurlitzer theatre organ in his hometown of Plattsburgh, NY. This is Jonathan's debut theatre organ performance in Syracuse.

Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Syracuse University Saxophone Ensemble

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

What We Hold Onto
Armory Square Playwrights

Price: $5 regular, $4 students/seniors
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Armory Square Playhouse will present a script-in-hand reading of What We Hold Onto, a full length, edgy, modern, urban comedy with dramatic underpinnings by Craig Thornton. It tells the story of five characters who all want something they are likely to never have. What We Hold Onto centers on the gay couple apartment-mates of an attractive women who is frustrated in her search for the right man. The five characters scheme, deceive, and generally hold on too tight, when letting go could set them free. Identities, relationships, secrets and desires change and unfold as a "simple plan" goes hysterically and drastically wrong.

What We Hold Onto deals with adult situations and contains graphic language.

Since 1990, Craig Thornton's plays have been produced in New York City, Los Angeles, Watertown and Sackets Harbor, NY. The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble production of Happy Birthday, Tina Marie was chosen as pick of the week by the LA Reader and hailed as "brilliant and witty" by the Los Angeles Times. The play was also given a reading by Armory Square Playhouse and was chosen by A.S.K. as one of the best produced plays of the year. It is now permanently housed in the Central Los Angeles Library. In August 2007 his The Sweet Life was a finalist in the Christopher Brian Wolk Playwriting Award and was given a reading at the Abingdon Theatre Co. in New York City. What We Hold Onto was a finalist in three major playwriting contests and was written with the help of a Ragdale Foundation Grant.

A talkback discussion with the playwright will follow the reading.

Endgame
Simply New Theatre

Price: $25 regular; $20 students/seniors
BeVard Room, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Syracuse University Drama Department
Gerardine Clark, director

Price: $15 regular, $13 students/seniors
Storch Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a drama about a Southern family in crisis and the turbulent relationship between husband and wife Brick Pollitt and Maggie "The Cat" Pollitt. The childless Pollitts arrive at a gathering of the family on their Mississippi Delta estate unaware that patriarch Big Daddy has cancer, which revelation puts them in competition with their relatives for a substantial serving from Big Daddy's will. Originating on Broadway in 1955, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof was revived four times, and has been adapted for both film and television.

Read a Review!

New Play Workshop: The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information
Syracuse University Drama Department

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

Questions like "Who am I?" and "What is the meaning of life?" can catch us when we're least expecting them, stifling us with their scope and depth. We can be staring peacefully at the night sky or stumbling through our morning routine and suddenly realize how small our lives -- and even planet -- are. "What is the meaning of life?" we wonder. "Why am I here? And why do I force myself out of bed and through the day? What's the point?"

In his new play, The Meaning of Life and Other Useless Pieces of Information, 2004 SU Drama grad Matte O'Brien begs a slightly different, but profound question: If life does have meaning beyond the immediate and discernible -- does it even matter? Or is the meaning of life actually just a useless piece of information?

Workshopping is a crucial, but seldom-seen-by-the-public part of the playwriting process. Plays are three-dimensional works of art meant to be seen and heard. In order to truly understand how a moment or character or scene will work, playwrights often need to physically see the play. A group of student actors will actually stage The Meaning of Life and O'Brien will attend rehearsals and performances, reworking and rewriting parts based on what he sees and hears.

The performances are intended to be sketches to give the author a feel of the whole work. The performances will have only a minimal set, no lights or costumes; actors will only use rough props. Audiences will have the rare and fascinating opportunity to watch not just a cast of characters grow and change, but a new work of drama itself as well.

All matinee performances are followed by talk-back sessions with the cast and director.

For seating availability, phone 315-443-2102 or e-mail meaningoflifesu@hotmail.com.

Footloose
The Talent Company
Bob Durkin, director

Price: $25 regular; $22 seniors/students; $16 children 12 and under
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Based on the motion picture hit about a young man who comes to town and changes the lives of everyone there, Footloose is propelled by the rockin' rhythm of its Oscar-nominated Top 40 score, with music by Tom Snow and lyrics by Dean Pitchford. The soundtrack album spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts featuring such popular '80s tunes as "Let's Hear It For The Boy," "Almost Paradise," "The Girl Gets Around," "Holding Out For A Hero," and the title song, "Footloose." When the film was released in 1984, there were at least 65 communities in the United States that had some sort of law on the books outlawing dancing. One such town was Elmore City, OK, the original inspiration for the unbelievable story of Footloose. Ever since the town's inception in 1861, dancing had been illegal. In 1980, when Elmore City teens protested the ordinance at City Hall, a firestorm of controversy followed; when it was all over, the town saw its first dance in over 100 years.

Read a Review!

Monday, November 19, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Small Human Detail: Photographs by Philip MacCabe and Poems by Martin Walls
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Newfoundland and Other Journeys
Fayetteville Free Library

Price: Free
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard St., Fayetteville

A showing of original pigment prints by Donal and Shel Little.

Gallery Exhibit: OCC Faculty Art Show
Onondaga Community College

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

A mixed media show with works from OCC's own faculty members.

Tango
Point of Contact Gallery

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

Tango, a large format folio published by Iris Editions in New York (1991) with eight intaglio prints by Nancy Graves and 13 pages of text by Pedro Cuperman that gaze at the aesthetics of this Latin American dance.

Tango proposes an evening of music, dance, and food transposed into videoa sort of "performance" projected into the space of the gallery where audience and art become intertwined in the field of representation.

"Graves conceived of the prints in the folio as a continued exploration of pattern in nature and as a tonal study of black and white," writes Thomas Padon in his book, Nancy Graves, Excavations in Print A Catalogue Raisonné (1996). "More than once the artist has asserted, 'There is nothing more challenging and meaningful than to make prints in black and white.' For an admitted colorist, it is ironic that the nine prints Graves has made in black and white are among her most powerful." The cryptic titles of the prints in the folio were selected by Graves from Cuperman's text for Tango. The poet speaks of the dance as a gradually unfolding ritual, stating near the conclusion, "Tango helps you find your own levels of proximity."

Annual Exhibition
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

The exhibition features abstract artwork from 16 New York State artists. Artists exhibiting: Anatoli Truskalo, Linda Bigness, Bob Gates, Amber Blanding, Hunter O'Reilly, Stan Bowman, Lynne Taetzsch, Paul McMillan, Cheyne Rood, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, Barbara Page, Barbara Mink, Len Fishman, Melissa Tiffany and Al D'Agostino. The show holds a number of different and unique mediums including paintings, sculptures, glass work, photographs, collage, drawings, and giclee prints on canvas.

The Never-Ending Wrong: The Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the execution for murder of two Italian anarchist laborers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a selection of period ephemera issued by the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee together with a plethora of books associated with the trial that have been published in the intervening years by Paul Avrich, Felix Frankfurter, and Eugene Lyons, among others. The exhibit features artistic expressions (cartoons, illustrations, novels, plays, poems, songs and music) inspired by the trial, including the work of Maxwell Anderson, John Dos Passos, Fred Ellis, Howard Fast, Woodie Guthrie, William Gropper, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rockwell Kent, Katherine Anne Porter, Pete Seeger, and Upton Sinclair. The story of the Sacco and Vanzetti mural by Ben Shahn on the east wall of H. B. Crouse will also be explored.

A Gala Holiday Art Exhibit
Westcott Community Center

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

Mary Stebbins Taitt: digital paintings
John "Jaw's" McGrath: pen and ink landscapes
Karen Tashkovski: paper collage
Amber Blanding: glass work
Mary Fragapane: pastel paintings and prints
Mick Mather: photographs
Kirsten Moore: acrylic and oil paintings
John Swank: photography

Off the Wall Show and Sale
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Unlike most gallery shows, this Associated Artists sale allows everyone the opportunity to purchase fine original artwork that can be taken home immediately, and so it's "Off The Wall". A portion of each sale helps support the Manlius Library general fund and the remainder subsidizes various community activities and educational programs of Associated Artists. Please join us and enjoy the creations of the many talented and well-known members of this group. This is a wonderful chance to find one-of-a-kind gifts!

Artist Showcase: Images by Brian Arnold
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition is comprised of recent acquisitions to the Light Work Collection that come from multiple series that Ithaca-based photographer Brian Arnold has been working on. He utilizes traditional black-and-white processes, remaining committed to what he refers to as "the alchemy of photography." All of his photographs are unique silver gelatin prints, toned with a combination of selenium, sulfur, and gold chloride. Arnold also creates unique limited edition books, two of which are included in this exhibition. He teaches photography and electronic arts at the New York State College of Art and Engineering at Alfred University.

Angelika Rinnhofer: Sammelsurium
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition, featuring the work of German-born artist Angelika Rinnhofer, will feature her large-format color prints from three related series, Menschenkunde, Felsenfest, and Seelensucht. She describes her series Menschenkunde as portraits that combine facts, beauty, and irony in a Renaissance-style. Rinnhofer's series Felsenfest continues the same aesthetics in its re-interpretations of martyrs and saints into a modern context. Rinnhofer remembers being frightened as a child when viewing the horrific images of tortured saints commonly found in churches in her hometown Nürnberg, Germany. She now casts a critical eye, juxtaposing religious figures with modern-looking scientists. Seelensucht takes Rinnhofer back to the traditional single-figure portrait, also capturing the themes of martyrs.

Angelika lives in Beacon, NY. She is a commercial photographer and artist. She is the recipient of a Kodak European Gold Award and received a fellowship in photography from the Dutchess County Arts Council. She participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005.

Read a review!

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition features the work of five artists -- Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal, and Aaron Siskind -- all of whom generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints, and chromogenic prints.

Art Mart
Syracuse Allied Arts

Price: Free
City Hall Commons Atrium
201 East Washington St., Syracuse

Show and sale of original fine art and crafts.

For more information, phone 315-468-2616.

A Look of Portrait
Spark Contemporary Art Space

Price: Free
Spark Contemporary Art Space
1005 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Image installations by Jinwoo Lee. Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition

The Four Feathers
Syracuse Cinephile Society

Spaghetti Warehouse
689 N. Clinton St., Syracuse

This classic 1939 adventure about a British officer (John Clements) accused of cowardice features sumptuous production values.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Small Human Detail: Photographs by Philip MacCabe and Poems by Martin Walls
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Newfoundland and Other Journeys
Fayetteville Free Library

Price: Free
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard St., Fayetteville

A showing of original pigment prints by Donal and Shel Little.

Gallery Exhibit: OCC Faculty Art Show
Onondaga Community College

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

A mixed media show with works from OCC's own faculty members.

Tango
Point of Contact Gallery

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

Tango, a large format folio published by Iris Editions in New York (1991) with eight intaglio prints by Nancy Graves and 13 pages of text by Pedro Cuperman that gaze at the aesthetics of this Latin American dance.

Tango proposes an evening of music, dance, and food transposed into videoa sort of "performance" projected into the space of the gallery where audience and art become intertwined in the field of representation.

"Graves conceived of the prints in the folio as a continued exploration of pattern in nature and as a tonal study of black and white," writes Thomas Padon in his book, Nancy Graves, Excavations in Print A Catalogue Raisonné (1996). "More than once the artist has asserted, 'There is nothing more challenging and meaningful than to make prints in black and white.' For an admitted colorist, it is ironic that the nine prints Graves has made in black and white are among her most powerful." The cryptic titles of the prints in the folio were selected by Graves from Cuperman's text for Tango. The poet speaks of the dance as a gradually unfolding ritual, stating near the conclusion, "Tango helps you find your own levels of proximity."

Annual Exhibition
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

The exhibition features abstract artwork from 16 New York State artists. Artists exhibiting: Anatoli Truskalo, Linda Bigness, Bob Gates, Amber Blanding, Hunter O'Reilly, Stan Bowman, Lynne Taetzsch, Paul McMillan, Cheyne Rood, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, Barbara Page, Barbara Mink, Len Fishman, Melissa Tiffany and Al D'Agostino. The show holds a number of different and unique mediums including paintings, sculptures, glass work, photographs, collage, drawings, and giclee prints on canvas.

The Never-Ending Wrong: The Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the execution for murder of two Italian anarchist laborers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a selection of period ephemera issued by the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee together with a plethora of books associated with the trial that have been published in the intervening years by Paul Avrich, Felix Frankfurter, and Eugene Lyons, among others. The exhibit features artistic expressions (cartoons, illustrations, novels, plays, poems, songs and music) inspired by the trial, including the work of Maxwell Anderson, John Dos Passos, Fred Ellis, Howard Fast, Woodie Guthrie, William Gropper, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rockwell Kent, Katherine Anne Porter, Pete Seeger, and Upton Sinclair. The story of the Sacco and Vanzetti mural by Ben Shahn on the east wall of H. B. Crouse will also be explored.

A Gala Holiday Art Exhibit
Westcott Community Center

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

Mary Stebbins Taitt: digital paintings
John "Jaw's" McGrath: pen and ink landscapes
Karen Tashkovski: paper collage
Amber Blanding: glass work
Mary Fragapane: pastel paintings and prints
Mick Mather: photographs
Kirsten Moore: acrylic and oil paintings
John Swank: photography

Off the Wall Show and Sale
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Unlike most gallery shows, this Associated Artists sale allows everyone the opportunity to purchase fine original artwork that can be taken home immediately, and so it's "Off The Wall". A portion of each sale helps support the Manlius Library general fund and the remainder subsidizes various community activities and educational programs of Associated Artists. Please join us and enjoy the creations of the many talented and well-known members of this group. This is a wonderful chance to find one-of-a-kind gifts!

Artist Showcase: Images by Brian Arnold
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition is comprised of recent acquisitions to the Light Work Collection that come from multiple series that Ithaca-based photographer Brian Arnold has been working on. He utilizes traditional black-and-white processes, remaining committed to what he refers to as "the alchemy of photography." All of his photographs are unique silver gelatin prints, toned with a combination of selenium, sulfur, and gold chloride. Arnold also creates unique limited edition books, two of which are included in this exhibition. He teaches photography and electronic arts at the New York State College of Art and Engineering at Alfred University.

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition features the work of five artists -- Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal, and Aaron Siskind -- all of whom generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints, and chromogenic prints.

Angelika Rinnhofer: Sammelsurium
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition, featuring the work of German-born artist Angelika Rinnhofer, will feature her large-format color prints from three related series, Menschenkunde, Felsenfest, and Seelensucht. She describes her series Menschenkunde as portraits that combine facts, beauty, and irony in a Renaissance-style. Rinnhofer's series Felsenfest continues the same aesthetics in its re-interpretations of martyrs and saints into a modern context. Rinnhofer remembers being frightened as a child when viewing the horrific images of tortured saints commonly found in churches in her hometown Nürnberg, Germany. She now casts a critical eye, juxtaposing religious figures with modern-looking scientists. Seelensucht takes Rinnhofer back to the traditional single-figure portrait, also capturing the themes of martyrs.

Angelika lives in Beacon, NY. She is a commercial photographer and artist. She is the recipient of a Kodak European Gold Award and received a fellowship in photography from the Dutchess County Arts Council. She participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005.

Read a review!

Art Mart
Syracuse Allied Arts

Price: Free
City Hall Commons Atrium
201 East Washington St., Syracuse

Show and sale of original fine art and crafts.

For more information, phone 315-468-2616.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

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

Yves Saint Front
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

The exhibition contains 31 images primarily of Tahiti and Chausey, France, created between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

A descendant of mariners, St. Front preferred coastal scenes, often including boats at anchor, seaside villages and beaches. A number of his works include members of his family and the Tahitian natives, occasionally in an arrangement of small peripheral images around a central landscape. There are also a number of sensitively designed interiors; one that is particularly strong shows his wife Isabella standing at a telephone while their cat sleeps on a floor mat.

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

Goya: The Disasters of War
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

For the first time ever in central New York, the SUArt Galleries will be presenting a complete, First Edition of Francisco de Goya's monumental graphic statement, The Disasters of War. Considered by many to be unrivaled in its graphic depiction of cruelty, terror, and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow man, the Disasters were not printed in their entirety during the artist's lifetime. Originally conceived and partially executed during the Peninsula War of 1808-1814 and the immediate post-war years, Goya dared not publish the series during his lifetime. The immediacy of the images, the bluntness of his approach to depicting the violence of war, and the fact that the post-war Spanish regime decreed that the War was to be forgotten made publication of the series impossible until 35 years after Goya's death.

Set against a backdrop of war, political turmoil, dictatorship, military occupation, and a growing sense of nationalism, the Disasters may be both the beginning and highlight of modern graphics. When the "fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices" (as it had been described by Goya and his son Javier) was published in 1863 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, it revolutionized the role of the artist as journalist and an observer of war. Goya, to a large extent, recorded what he saw and purposefully maintained the independence of the observed facts as distinct from his personal reactions to the cruelty, injustice, or whatever emotion the horror he witnessed might have engendered, in order to give greater clarity to the facts.

This series of prints has transcended the specific references to a Napoleonic era war that was borne of imperialist aspirations and has become synonymous with the gross brutality of war and its impact on the innocents of every conflict. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear contemporary war photographers pay homage to Goya and his brilliant concepts that abound in The Disasters of War.

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

Under One Roof Reprise
Everson Museum of Art

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

Juxtapose artwork created by artists whose common thread is a shared studio/classroom space and expect the unexpected. This happened in 2004, when a group of women who work and teach at Syracuse University's ComArt building joined together for an exhibition entitled Under One Roof at SOHO20 Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This was the first time the artists - three generations of students/teachers - had shown together, yet their work spoke of seamless connections and closer ties than one might assume.

Nine artists have reunited for the current exhibition Under One Roof Reprise. Their situations have changed slightly but their work once again has come together in surprising and interesting ways. Abby Goodman and Kim Carr Valdez earned their MFA degrees and moved to Brooklyn, while Laura Ledbetter now lives in Philadelphia. Anne Beffel, Ann Clarke, Mary Giehl, Gail Hoffman, and Jude Lewis continue to teach in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, while Claire Harootunian, although officially retired, continues to teach, travel, and explore the art of found objects.

The artists' processes are diverse, including large-scale installations, found object collaboration, casting, kinetics, video, and hand-tooled objects. Emphasis is placed on the creative use of materials such as fibers, metals, wood, plastics, resin, and everyday products. Each artist translates and illuminates human experience through her unique visual language and conceptual sensibility. These artists address common themes such as play, gender, identity, time, place, and most of all, memories. Mary Giehl's Ivory combines happy childhood memories of bathing with her siblings - recalling the "toys, the fun, the soap floating and the smell of Ivory" - with "those of sad and heartbreaking stories" not uncommon in today's headlines.

Gail Hoffman, a sculptor immersed in the concept of time, presents "visual metaphorical narratives, freeze-framed in a state of suspended animation" through a variety of media including bronze, plastic toys, and other found objects. Plasco Ranch (Possible Outcomes) is a minature assemblage designed in the small scale to "invite the viewer to psychologically inhabit the space." A collection of disparate objects including a bronze sheep, Santa Claus, and military vehicles has been arranged to suggest a story that is left to the viewer's imagination. A journal placed nearby offers visitors the opportunity to record their stories and suggest possible outcomes for the scene as they see it unfold. Based on viewers' comments, Hoffman will return periodically to rearrange, add, or remove objects, providing photographic documentation of the ever changing Plasco Ranch as part of the exhibit.

This group exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Genetic Self-Portrait: Works by Gary Schneider
The Warehouse Gallery

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

The show includes 55 photo-based works that South African-born, NYC-based artist Gary Schneider produced when he was offered a chance to create a new body of work inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP, a scientific race to uncover the mysteries of DNA, began formally in the 1990s and was completed in 2003. During that period, Schneider was able to collaborate with a number of scientists and was given access to advanced imaging systems from electron microscopes to x-ray machines.

The work in the exhibition ranges from images of his individual chromosomes made by a light microscope to panoramic dental x-rays. Schneider is known as a master photographic printer, and by combining his skill as a craftsman and selecting specimens for their aesthetic qualities, he moved beyond scientific descriptions to produce a personal portrait that asks us to consider how we are unique and where we stand on common ground.

Schneider had always been interested in alternative imaging techniques, and previous to this project he had been making images by imprinting his hands onto film emulsions. When he decided to include these prints along with the images he had been making with scientists, he realized that what he had been creating was a new kind of portrait. Ann Thomas, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, described it as a new approach that "challenges the traditional definition of the portrait, and revises our understanding of what it means to be revealed before the camera's lens."

By merging scientific accuracy with poetic resonance, Schneider has created a very personal illumination of how our individual identity is so closely linked to our broader understanding and use of the information contained in the human building blocks of our DNA. Through the personal exploration that went into creating genetic self-portrait, Schneider reveals that while we may always want to think of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, our real promise might be found in looking at the 99 percent of ourselves we have in common with everyone else.

Read a review!

The Day I Stole the Sun
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Link Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

As the culminating event to the Partnership for Better Education's yearlong Art, Literacy and Technology (ALT) program, the photographic and written work of 50 Henninger High School students is on display in this exhibit. The partnership's ALT program links art, literacy and technology through photography and poetry to improve the writing and reading skills of students in the Syracuse City School District (SCSD). Representatives from SU, the Verizon Foundation and the SCSD will be in attendance at the reception, which will include a guided exhibition walk-through for the public and selected student poetry readings.

The student work on display is the visual and narrative result of the students' opportunity for expression using photography and writing. Students strengthened both literacy skills and conceptual abilities as they explored ideas such as "stealing" something that could not be literally stolen. "The Day I Stole the Sun" was chosen from the students' writings as the title for the anthology of work on display. The photographs and poems by each of the students who participated in the project will also be showcased in a special, full-color catalog.

SU graduate students in the Creative Writing Program and upper-level undergraduates worked with the Henninger students in the 2007 spring and fall semesters, helping them connect picture making with writing and critical thinking. Photographer and VPA instructor Stephen Mahan and SU creative writing professor and poet Michael Burkard co-taught a special course for these 25 SU students that included instruction on how to best work with high school students. The program promoted an expansive use of photography and creative writing across curricula and disciplines, building on the skills that students naturally possess while attempting to improve ninth-graders' verbalization skills in relating images and events, and encouraging their creativity.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Small Human Detail: Photographs by Philip MacCabe and Poems by Martin Walls
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Newfoundland and Other Journeys
Fayetteville Free Library

Price: Free
Fayetteville Free Library
300 Orchard St., Fayetteville

A showing of original pigment prints by Donal and Shel Little.

Gallery Exhibit: OCC Faculty Art Show
Onondaga Community College

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

A mixed media show with works from OCC's own faculty members.

Tango
Point of Contact Gallery

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

Tango, a large format folio published by Iris Editions in New York (1991) with eight intaglio prints by Nancy Graves and 13 pages of text by Pedro Cuperman that gaze at the aesthetics of this Latin American dance.

Tango proposes an evening of music, dance, and food transposed into videoa sort of "performance" projected into the space of the gallery where audience and art become intertwined in the field of representation.

"Graves conceived of the prints in the folio as a continued exploration of pattern in nature and as a tonal study of black and white," writes Thomas Padon in his book, Nancy Graves, Excavations in Print A Catalogue Raisonné (1996). "More than once the artist has asserted, 'There is nothing more challenging and meaningful than to make prints in black and white.' For an admitted colorist, it is ironic that the nine prints Graves has made in black and white are among her most powerful." The cryptic titles of the prints in the folio were selected by Graves from Cuperman's text for Tango. The poet speaks of the dance as a gradually unfolding ritual, stating near the conclusion, "Tango helps you find your own levels of proximity."

Annual Exhibition
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

The exhibition features abstract artwork from 16 New York State artists. Artists exhibiting: Anatoli Truskalo, Linda Bigness, Bob Gates, Amber Blanding, Hunter O'Reilly, Stan Bowman, Lynne Taetzsch, Paul McMillan, Cheyne Rood, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, Barbara Page, Barbara Mink, Len Fishman, Melissa Tiffany and Al D'Agostino. The show holds a number of different and unique mediums including paintings, sculptures, glass work, photographs, collage, drawings, and giclee prints on canvas.

The Never-Ending Wrong: The Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the execution for murder of two Italian anarchist laborers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a selection of period ephemera issued by the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee together with a plethora of books associated with the trial that have been published in the intervening years by Paul Avrich, Felix Frankfurter, and Eugene Lyons, among others. The exhibit features artistic expressions (cartoons, illustrations, novels, plays, poems, songs and music) inspired by the trial, including the work of Maxwell Anderson, John Dos Passos, Fred Ellis, Howard Fast, Woodie Guthrie, William Gropper, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rockwell Kent, Katherine Anne Porter, Pete Seeger, and Upton Sinclair. The story of the Sacco and Vanzetti mural by Ben Shahn on the east wall of H. B. Crouse will also be explored.

A Gala Holiday Art Exhibit
Westcott Community Center

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

Mary Stebbins Taitt: digital paintings
John "Jaw's" McGrath: pen and ink landscapes
Karen Tashkovski: paper collage
Amber Blanding: glass work
Mary Fragapane: pastel paintings and prints
Mick Mather: photographs
Kirsten Moore: acrylic and oil paintings
John Swank: photography

Off the Wall Show and Sale
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Unlike most gallery shows, this Associated Artists sale allows everyone the opportunity to purchase fine original artwork that can be taken home immediately, and so it's "Off The Wall". A portion of each sale helps support the Manlius Library general fund and the remainder subsidizes various community activities and educational programs of Associated Artists. Please join us and enjoy the creations of the many talented and well-known members of this group. This is a wonderful chance to find one-of-a-kind gifts!

Artist Showcase: Images by Brian Arnold
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition is comprised of recent acquisitions to the Light Work Collection that come from multiple series that Ithaca-based photographer Brian Arnold has been working on. He utilizes traditional black-and-white processes, remaining committed to what he refers to as "the alchemy of photography." All of his photographs are unique silver gelatin prints, toned with a combination of selenium, sulfur, and gold chloride. Arnold also creates unique limited edition books, two of which are included in this exhibition. He teaches photography and electronic arts at the New York State College of Art and Engineering at Alfred University.

Angelika Rinnhofer: Sammelsurium
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition, featuring the work of German-born artist Angelika Rinnhofer, will feature her large-format color prints from three related series, Menschenkunde, Felsenfest, and Seelensucht. She describes her series Menschenkunde as portraits that combine facts, beauty, and irony in a Renaissance-style. Rinnhofer's series Felsenfest continues the same aesthetics in its re-interpretations of martyrs and saints into a modern context. Rinnhofer remembers being frightened as a child when viewing the horrific images of tortured saints commonly found in churches in her hometown Nürnberg, Germany. She now casts a critical eye, juxtaposing religious figures with modern-looking scientists. Seelensucht takes Rinnhofer back to the traditional single-figure portrait, also capturing the themes of martyrs.

Angelika lives in Beacon, NY. She is a commercial photographer and artist. She is the recipient of a Kodak European Gold Award and received a fellowship in photography from the Dutchess County Arts Council. She participated in Light Work's Artist-in-Residence program in 2005.

Read a review!

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition features the work of five artists -- Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal, and Aaron Siskind -- all of whom generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints, and chromogenic prints.

Exploring History with Art -- Onondaga County on the Move: 200 Years of Transportation
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The exhibition will feature artwork from the OHA collection that depicts various modes of local transportation and how artists interpreted it over the last two centuries. Local teachers and students will find subjects meeting their document-based questions social studies standards within the exhibit.

Where I Live in Tuscany
Redhouse

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

An exhibition of landscapes by international artist Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna. The exhibition is curated by Daniela Mosko-Wozniak and signifies the first collaboration between the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the Redhouse gallery.

Where I Live in Tuscany shows recent landscapes, views from the artist's house revealing the unique beauty of the Italian landscape colored by the changing seasons. Kraczyna allows us a glimpse into his private world, a unique insight into his colorful palette, which marks all his series, whether he interprets themes of Icarus, Chinese Calligraphy, the Venice Carnival, or generally the labyrinths of life. The exhibit features the distinct multi-plate color etching technique that has earned Kraczyna notoriety not just in Italy, but also internationally.

Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He teaches printmaking and art-on-paper classes for the studio arts program at Syracuse University's Florence Center. He lives and works in his adopted country of Italy from his studio in the house of the Italian Master Domenico Ghirlandaio, the teacher of Michelangelo. Born on the Polish-Russian border in 1940, Kraczyna immigrated to the United States after WWII. Kraczyna first traveled to Italy 1961 on a scholarship from RISD, and after completing a Master's degree, returned to live and work there, allowing the particular character of the country to inform his work. In his studio, overlooking the city of Florence, he teaches Master Classes for advanced students in his own multi-plate color etching technique, in addition to his summer workshops in Barga.

He is the founder and former director of Il Bisonte International School of Advanced Printmaking in Florence, where he taught the techniques of color etching, and is co-author of I Segni Incisi, the first Italian textbook on the history and techniques of etching. He has directed "Studio for Color Etching" workshops in Barga, Lucca, and at the International Symposium for Color Etching at Palacky University, Czech Republic. His work has been shown in more than 139 solo exhibitions in the United States, Italy, Germany, England, Mexico, Columbia, the Czech Republic, and Japan, and is represented in the Uffizi Print Collection.

Free parking is conveniently located directly behind the Redhouse building.

Art Mart
Syracuse Allied Arts

Price: Free
City Hall Commons Atrium
201 East Washington St., Syracuse

Show and sale of original fine art and crafts.

For more information, phone 315-468-2616.

Water and Light: The Etchings and Drypoints of James MacNeill Whistler
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

Water and Light is a focused examination of two of James MacNeill Whistler's favorite subjects. The American expatriate was fascinated with water and the effects of light. A highlight of his career as a printmaker were his famous Venetian "nocturnes" that so effectively captured the mood and atmosphere of Italy's famous floating city.

The strength of these images is Whistler's unique talent at blending the reflections of the water in the canals with the natural light that suffused the city. Later in his career he journeyed to Amsterdam where he again combined water and light into images that captured that city's particular flavor.

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

Goya: The Disasters of War
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

For the first time ever in central New York, the SUArt Galleries will be presenting a complete, First Edition of Francisco de Goya's monumental graphic statement, The Disasters of War. Considered by many to be unrivaled in its graphic depiction of cruelty, terror, and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow man, the Disasters were not printed in their entirety during the artist's lifetime. Originally conceived and partially executed during the Peninsula War of 1808-1814 and the immediate post-war years, Goya dared not publish the series during his lifetime. The immediacy of the images, the bluntness of his approach to depicting the violence of war, and the fact that the post-war Spanish regime decreed that the War was to be forgotten made publication of the series impossible until 35 years after Goya's death.

Set against a backdrop of war, political turmoil, dictatorship, military occupation, and a growing sense of nationalism, the Disasters may be both the beginning and highlight of modern graphics. When the "fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices" (as it had been described by Goya and his son Javier) was published in 1863 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, it revolutionized the role of the artist as journalist and an observer of war. Goya, to a large extent, recorded what he saw and purposefully maintained the independence of the observed facts as distinct from his personal reactions to the cruelty, injustice, or whatever emotion the horror he witnessed might have engendered, in order to give greater clarity to the facts.

This series of prints has transcended the specific references to a Napoleonic era war that was borne of imperialist aspirations and has become synonymous with the gross brutality of war and its impact on the innocents of every conflict. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear contemporary war photographers pay homage to Goya and his brilliant concepts that abound in The Disasters of War.

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

Yves Saint Front
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

The exhibition contains 31 images primarily of Tahiti and Chausey, France, created between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

A descendant of mariners, St. Front preferred coastal scenes, often including boats at anchor, seaside villages and beaches. A number of his works include members of his family and the Tahitian natives, occasionally in an arrangement of small peripheral images around a central landscape. There are also a number of sensitively designed interiors; one that is particularly strong shows his wife Isabella standing at a telephone while their cat sleeps on a floor mat.

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

Under One Roof Reprise
Everson Museum of Art

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

Juxtapose artwork created by artists whose common thread is a shared studio/classroom space and expect the unexpected. This happened in 2004, when a group of women who work and teach at Syracuse University's ComArt building joined together for an exhibition entitled Under One Roof at SOHO20 Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This was the first time the artists - three generations of students/teachers - had shown together, yet their work spoke of seamless connections and closer ties than one might assume.

Nine artists have reunited for the current exhibition Under One Roof Reprise. Their situations have changed slightly but their work once again has come together in surprising and interesting ways. Abby Goodman and Kim Carr Valdez earned their MFA degrees and moved to Brooklyn, while Laura Ledbetter now lives in Philadelphia. Anne Beffel, Ann Clarke, Mary Giehl, Gail Hoffman, and Jude Lewis continue to teach in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, while Claire Harootunian, although officially retired, continues to teach, travel, and explore the art of found objects.

The artists' processes are diverse, including large-scale installations, found object collaboration, casting, kinetics, video, and hand-tooled objects. Emphasis is placed on the creative use of materials such as fibers, metals, wood, plastics, resin, and everyday products. Each artist translates and illuminates human experience through her unique visual language and conceptual sensibility. These artists address common themes such as play, gender, identity, time, place, and most of all, memories. Mary Giehl's Ivory combines happy childhood memories of bathing with her siblings - recalling the "toys, the fun, the soap floating and the smell of Ivory" - with "those of sad and heartbreaking stories" not uncommon in today's headlines.

Gail Hoffman, a sculptor immersed in the concept of time, presents "visual metaphorical narratives, freeze-framed in a state of suspended animation" through a variety of media including bronze, plastic toys, and other found objects. Plasco Ranch (Possible Outcomes) is a minature assemblage designed in the small scale to "invite the viewer to psychologically inhabit the space." A collection of disparate objects including a bronze sheep, Santa Claus, and military vehicles has been arranged to suggest a story that is left to the viewer's imagination. A journal placed nearby offers visitors the opportunity to record their stories and suggest possible outcomes for the scene as they see it unfold. Based on viewers' comments, Hoffman will return periodically to rearrange, add, or remove objects, providing photographic documentation of the ever changing Plasco Ranch as part of the exhibit.

This group exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Genetic Self-Portrait: Works by Gary Schneider
The Warehouse Gallery

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

The show includes 55 photo-based works that South African-born, NYC-based artist Gary Schneider produced when he was offered a chance to create a new body of work inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP, a scientific race to uncover the mysteries of DNA, began formally in the 1990s and was completed in 2003. During that period, Schneider was able to collaborate with a number of scientists and was given access to advanced imaging systems from electron microscopes to x-ray machines.

The work in the exhibition ranges from images of his individual chromosomes made by a light microscope to panoramic dental x-rays. Schneider is known as a master photographic printer, and by combining his skill as a craftsman and selecting specimens for their aesthetic qualities, he moved beyond scientific descriptions to produce a personal portrait that asks us to consider how we are unique and where we stand on common ground.

Schneider had always been interested in alternative imaging techniques, and previous to this project he had been making images by imprinting his hands onto film emulsions. When he decided to include these prints along with the images he had been making with scientists, he realized that what he had been creating was a new kind of portrait. Ann Thomas, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, described it as a new approach that "challenges the traditional definition of the portrait, and revises our understanding of what it means to be revealed before the camera's lens."

By merging scientific accuracy with poetic resonance, Schneider has created a very personal illumination of how our individual identity is so closely linked to our broader understanding and use of the information contained in the human building blocks of our DNA. Through the personal exploration that went into creating genetic self-portrait, Schneider reveals that while we may always want to think of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, our real promise might be found in looking at the 99 percent of ourselves we have in common with everyone else.

Read a review!

The Day I Stole the Sun
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Link Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

As the culminating event to the Partnership for Better Education's yearlong Art, Literacy and Technology (ALT) program, the photographic and written work of 50 Henninger High School students is on display in this exhibit. The partnership's ALT program links art, literacy and technology through photography and poetry to improve the writing and reading skills of students in the Syracuse City School District (SCSD). Representatives from SU, the Verizon Foundation and the SCSD will be in attendance at the reception, which will include a guided exhibition walk-through for the public and selected student poetry readings.

The student work on display is the visual and narrative result of the students' opportunity for expression using photography and writing. Students strengthened both literacy skills and conceptual abilities as they explored ideas such as "stealing" something that could not be literally stolen. "The Day I Stole the Sun" was chosen from the students' writings as the title for the anthology of work on display. The photographs and poems by each of the students who participated in the project will also be showcased in a special, full-color catalog.

SU graduate students in the Creative Writing Program and upper-level undergraduates worked with the Henninger students in the 2007 spring and fall semesters, helping them connect picture making with writing and critical thinking. Photographer and VPA instructor Stephen Mahan and SU creative writing professor and poet Michael Burkard co-taught a special course for these 25 SU students that included instruction on how to best work with high school students. The program promoted an expansive use of photography and creative writing across curricula and disciplines, building on the skills that students naturally possess while attempting to improve ninth-graders' verbalization skills in relating images and events, and encouraging their creativity.

Friday, November 23, 2007

Syracuse Builds: After the Master Plan
Syracuse University School of Architecture

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

The exhibition presents 13 architectural and landscape projects currently in development for the Syracuse University campus and the city of Syracuse, including a new residence hall on the main campus by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the Syracuse Center of Excellence in Environmental and Energy Systems headquarters designed by Toshiko Mori Architect, and a community InfoCenter for the Near Westside Initiative project in Syracuse designed by Syracuse Architecture professors Tim Stenson and Scott Ruff.

Small Human Detail: Photographs by Philip MacCabe and Poems by Martin Walls
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Gallery Exhibit: OCC Faculty Art Show
Onondaga Community College

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

A mixed media show with works from OCC's own faculty members.

Annual Exhibition
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

The exhibition features abstract artwork from 16 New York State artists. Artists exhibiting: Anatoli Truskalo, Linda Bigness, Bob Gates, Amber Blanding, Hunter O'Reilly, Stan Bowman, Lynne Taetzsch, Paul McMillan, Cheyne Rood, Fred Wellner, Laura Wellner, Barbara Page, Barbara Mink, Len Fishman, Melissa Tiffany and Al D'Agostino. The show holds a number of different and unique mediums including paintings, sculptures, glass work, photographs, collage, drawings, and giclee prints on canvas.

The Never-Ending Wrong: The Execution of Sacco and Vanzetti
Syracuse University Library Special Collections Research Center

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

In commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the execution for murder of two Italian anarchist laborers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a selection of period ephemera issued by the Sacco-Vanzetti Defense Committee together with a plethora of books associated with the trial that have been published in the intervening years by Paul Avrich, Felix Frankfurter, and Eugene Lyons, among others. The exhibit features artistic expressions (cartoons, illustrations, novels, plays, poems, songs and music) inspired by the trial, including the work of Maxwell Anderson, John Dos Passos, Fred Ellis, Howard Fast, Woodie Guthrie, William Gropper, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Rockwell Kent, Katherine Anne Porter, Pete Seeger, and Upton Sinclair. The story of the Sacco and Vanzetti mural by Ben Shahn on the east wall of H. B. Crouse will also be explored.

A Gala Holiday Art Exhibit
Westcott Community Center

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

Mary Stebbins Taitt: digital paintings
John "Jaw's" McGrath: pen and ink landscapes
Karen Tashkovski: paper collage
Amber Blanding: glass work
Mary Fragapane: pastel paintings and prints
Mick Mather: photographs
Kirsten Moore: acrylic and oil paintings
John Swank: photography

Paying Attention
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Pastels and oils by Nicora Gangi and glass works by Alex Andreani.

Read a review!

Off the Wall Show and Sale
Associated Artists of Central New York

Price: Free
Manlius Village Library
Manlius Village Center, 1 Arkie Albanese Dr., Manlius

Unlike most gallery shows, this Associated Artists sale allows everyone the opportunity to purchase fine original artwork that can be taken home immediately, and so it's "Off The Wall". A portion of each sale helps support the Manlius Library general fund and the remainder subsidizes various community activities and educational programs of Associated Artists. Please join us and enjoy the creations of the many talented and well-known members of this group. This is a wonderful chance to find one-of-a-kind gifts!

Train of Thought: Serial Images from the Light Work Collection
Light Work Gallery

Price: Free
Robert B. Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition features the work of five artists -- Hollis Frampton, Arnold Gassan, Peter Max Kandhola, Judy Natal, and Aaron Siskind -- all of whom generously donated either a series of prints or a portfolio of prints to the Light Work Collection. This exhibition provides us with an opportunity to investigate the artists' use of duplication and repetition to explore a single subject or idea. The images in this exhibition are produced using a variety of techniques, including photogravures, ektacolor, silver gelatin prints, and chromogenic prints.

Exploring History with Art -- Onondaga County on the Move: 200 Years of Transportation
Onondaga Historical Association

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

The exhibition will feature artwork from the OHA collection that depicts various modes of local transportation and how artists interpreted it over the last two centuries. Local teachers and students will find subjects meeting their document-based questions social studies standards within the exhibit.

Where I Live in Tuscany
Redhouse

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

An exhibition of landscapes by international artist Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna. The exhibition is curated by Daniela Mosko-Wozniak and signifies the first collaboration between the College of Visual and Performing Arts and the Redhouse gallery.

Where I Live in Tuscany shows recent landscapes, views from the artist's house revealing the unique beauty of the Italian landscape colored by the changing seasons. Kraczyna allows us a glimpse into his private world, a unique insight into his colorful palette, which marks all his series, whether he interprets themes of Icarus, Chinese Calligraphy, the Venice Carnival, or generally the labyrinths of life. The exhibit features the distinct multi-plate color etching technique that has earned Kraczyna notoriety not just in Italy, but also internationally.

Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna holds an MFA from Southern Illinois University and a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. He teaches printmaking and art-on-paper classes for the studio arts program at Syracuse University's Florence Center. He lives and works in his adopted country of Italy from his studio in the house of the Italian Master Domenico Ghirlandaio, the teacher of Michelangelo. Born on the Polish-Russian border in 1940, Kraczyna immigrated to the United States after WWII. Kraczyna first traveled to Italy 1961 on a scholarship from RISD, and after completing a Master's degree, returned to live and work there, allowing the particular character of the country to inform his work. In his studio, overlooking the city of Florence, he teaches Master Classes for advanced students in his own multi-plate color etching technique, in addition to his summer workshops in Barga.

He is the founder and former director of Il Bisonte International School of Advanced Printmaking in Florence, where he taught the techniques of color etching, and is co-author of I Segni Incisi, the first Italian textbook on the history and techniques of etching. He has directed "Studio for Color Etching" workshops in Barga, Lucca, and at the International Symposium for Color Etching at Palacky University, Czech Republic. His work has been shown in more than 139 solo exhibitions in the United States, Italy, Germany, England, Mexico, Columbia, the Czech Republic, and Japan, and is represented in the Uffizi Print Collection.

Free parking is conveniently located directly behind the Redhouse building.

Art Mart
Syracuse Allied Arts

Price: Free
City Hall Commons Atrium
201 East Washington St., Syracuse

Show and sale of original fine art and crafts.

For more information, phone 315-468-2616.

Yves Saint Front
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

The exhibition contains 31 images primarily of Tahiti and Chausey, France, created between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s.

A descendant of mariners, St. Front preferred coastal scenes, often including boats at anchor, seaside villages and beaches. A number of his works include members of his family and the Tahitian natives, occasionally in an arrangement of small peripheral images around a central landscape. There are also a number of sensitively designed interiors; one that is particularly strong shows his wife Isabella standing at a telephone while their cat sleeps on a floor mat.

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

Goya: The Disasters of War
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

For the first time ever in central New York, the SUArt Galleries will be presenting a complete, First Edition of Francisco de Goya's monumental graphic statement, The Disasters of War. Considered by many to be unrivaled in its graphic depiction of cruelty, terror, and the inhumanity of man toward his fellow man, the Disasters were not printed in their entirety during the artist's lifetime. Originally conceived and partially executed during the Peninsula War of 1808-1814 and the immediate post-war years, Goya dared not publish the series during his lifetime. The immediacy of the images, the bluntness of his approach to depicting the violence of war, and the fact that the post-war Spanish regime decreed that the War was to be forgotten made publication of the series impossible until 35 years after Goya's death.

Set against a backdrop of war, political turmoil, dictatorship, military occupation, and a growing sense of nationalism, the Disasters may be both the beginning and highlight of modern graphics. When the "fatal consequences of the bloody war in Spain with Bonaparte and other emphatic caprices" (as it had been described by Goya and his son Javier) was published in 1863 by the Royal Academy of San Fernando, it revolutionized the role of the artist as journalist and an observer of war. Goya, to a large extent, recorded what he saw and purposefully maintained the independence of the observed facts as distinct from his personal reactions to the cruelty, injustice, or whatever emotion the horror he witnessed might have engendered, in order to give greater clarity to the facts.

This series of prints has transcended the specific references to a Napoleonic era war that was borne of imperialist aspirations and has become synonymous with the gross brutality of war and its impact on the innocents of every conflict. In fact, it is not uncommon to hear contemporary war photographers pay homage to Goya and his brilliant concepts that abound in The Disasters of War.

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

Wrapping Up the Season
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

Featuring mixed media by Amy E. Bartell, monoprints and mixed media by Tara Hogan and works by the Syracuse Ceramic Guild.

Amy E. Bartell is showing a new series of mixed media works titled "Archeological Memoir." In her artist statement she describes the body of work as "a glimpse into memory and a quest for directional clues amidst the maps, signs, mysteries, scraps of writing and the compass of magnetic north." Bartell's artwork can be found in the collections of numerous individuals and organizations including Carleton College, California State University, Syracuse University and SUNY New York. She is known as a mural artist around the country and as the former Gallery Coordinator of Delavan Art Gallery. Currently, she is a faculty member of the art department at SUNY Oswego. Bartell's approach in her new series raises the question "What do we see when we scan the horizons of our lives? Where do we dig; does 'X' really mark the spot?"

Tara Hogan is exhibiting a collection of monoprints and mixed media from a new series of work titled "Conversations With Nature." The body of work conveys a dialogue between humans, animals and nature inspired by an interest in environmental consciousness. Hogan has been a graphic designer since earning her BFA in Illustration from Syracuse University eight years ago. Her art has been published in American Illustration, CMYK Magazine, Domino Magazine online and on the back of Bear Magazine. About her distinct style, Hogan explains, "I have a loving appreciation for nature's intricate beauty combined with modern urban style."

Syracuse Ceramic Guild's exhibition features ceramics by 10 its members. Selected works include eclectic ceramics by Lory and Walt Black, porcelain and stoneware by Sue Canizares, Raku sculpture by Dona Flaherty, Raku pottery by Dee Gage, abstract sculptural stoneware by Jane T. Gillett, ceramic story boxes by Amy Patricia Komar, "Biomorpheus," a body of abstract works by Ron Kalinoski, high-fired porcelain and stoneware by Bobbi Lamb and soda fired works by Steven Pilcher. The Syracuse Ceramic Guild, established in 1947, is a not-for-profit organization of potters dedicated to the promotion of awareness and understanding of the ceramic medium.

Under One Roof Reprise
Everson Museum of Art

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

Juxtapose artwork created by artists whose common thread is a shared studio/classroom space and expect the unexpected. This happened in 2004, when a group of women who work and teach at Syracuse University's ComArt building joined together for an exhibition entitled Under One Roof at SOHO20 Gallery in Chelsea, NY. This was the first time the artists - three generations of students/teachers - had shown together, yet their work spoke of seamless connections and closer ties than one might assume.

Nine artists have reunited for the current exhibition Under One Roof Reprise. Their situations have changed slightly but their work once again has come together in surprising and interesting ways. Abby Goodman and Kim Carr Valdez earned their MFA degrees and moved to Brooklyn, while Laura Ledbetter now lives in Philadelphia. Anne Beffel, Ann Clarke, Mary Giehl, Gail Hoffman, and Jude Lewis continue to teach in the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, while Claire Harootunian, although officially retired, continues to teach, travel, and explore the art of found objects.

The artists' processes are diverse, including large-scale installations, found object collaboration, casting, kinetics, video, and hand-tooled objects. Emphasis is placed on the creative use of materials such as fibers, metals, wood, plastics, resin, and everyday products. Each artist translates and illuminates human experience through her unique visual language and conceptual sensibility. These artists address common themes such as play, gender, identity, time, place, and most of all, memories. Mary Giehl's Ivory combines happy childhood memories of bathing with her siblings - recalling the "toys, the fun, the soap floating and the smell of Ivory" - with "those of sad and heartbreaking stories" not uncommon in today's headlines.

Gail Hoffman, a sculptor immersed in the concept of time, presents "visual metaphorical narratives, freeze-framed in a state of suspended animation" through a variety of media including bronze, plastic toys, and other found objects. Plasco Ranch (Possible Outcomes) is a minature assemblage designed in the small scale to "invite the viewer to psychologically inhabit the space." A collection of disparate objects including a bronze sheep, Santa Claus, and military vehicles has been arranged to suggest a story that is left to the viewer's imagination. A journal placed nearby offers visitors the opportunity to record their stories and suggest possible outcomes for the scene as they see it unfold. Based on viewers' comments, Hoffman will return periodically to rearrange, add, or remove objects, providing photographic documentation of the ever changing Plasco Ranch as part of the exhibit.

This group exhibition is presented in conjunction with the Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Genetic Self-Portrait: Works by Gary Schneider
The Warehouse Gallery

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

The show includes 55 photo-based works that South African-born, NYC-based artist Gary Schneider produced when he was offered a chance to create a new body of work inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP). The HGP, a scientific race to uncover the mysteries of DNA, began formally in the 1990s and was completed in 2003. During that period, Schneider was able to collaborate with a number of scientists and was given access to advanced imaging systems from electron microscopes to x-ray machines.

The work in the exhibition ranges from images of his individual chromosomes made by a light microscope to panoramic dental x-rays. Schneider is known as a master photographic printer, and by combining his skill as a craftsman and selecting specimens for their aesthetic qualities, he moved beyond scientific descriptions to produce a personal portrait that asks us to consider how we are unique and where we stand on common ground.

Schneider had always been interested in alternative imaging techniques, and previous to this project he had been making images by imprinting his hands onto film emulsions. When he decided to include these prints along with the images he had been making with scientists, he realized that what he had been creating was a new kind of portrait. Ann Thomas, curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Canada, described it as a new approach that "challenges the traditional definition of the portrait, and revises our understanding of what it means to be revealed before the camera's lens."

By merging scientific accuracy with poetic resonance, Schneider has created a very personal illumination of how our individual identity is so closely linked to our broader understanding and use of the information contained in the human building blocks of our DNA. Through the personal exploration that went into creating genetic self-portrait, Schneider reveals that while we may always want to think of ourselves as more than the sum of our parts, our real promise might be found in looking at the 99 percent of ourselves we have in common with everyone else.

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The Day I Stole the Sun
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Link Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

As the culminating event to the Partnership for Better Education's yearlong Art, Literacy and Technology (ALT) program, the photographic and written work of 50 Henninger High School students is on display in this exhibit. The partnership's ALT program links art, literacy and technology through photography and poetry to improve the writing and reading skills of students in the Syracuse City School District (SCSD). Representatives from SU, the Verizon Foundation and the SCSD will be in attendance at the reception, which will include a guided exhibition walk-through for the public and selected student poetry readings.

The student work on display is the visual and narrative result of the students' opportunity for expression using photography and writing. Students strengthened both literacy skills and conceptual abilities as they explored ideas such as "stealing" something that could not be literally stolen. "The Day I Stole the Sun" was chosen from the students' writings as the title for the anthology of work on display. The photographs and poems by each of the students who participated in the project will also be showcased in a special, full-color catalog.

SU graduate students in the Creative Writing Program and upper-level undergraduates worked with the Henninger students in the 2007 spring and fall semesters, helping them connect picture making with writing and critical thinking. Photographer and VPA instructor Stephen Mahan and SU creative writing professor and poet Michael Burkard co-taught a special course for these 25 SU students that included instruction on how to best work with high school students. The program promoted an expansive use of photography and creative writing across curricula and disciplines, building on the skills that students naturally possess while attempting to improve ninth-graders' verbalization skills in relating images and events, and encouraging their creativity.

Christmas Around the World

Ste. Marie Among the Iroquois
106 Lake Dr., Liverpool

The museum will be filled with a magnificent collection of international Santas, while fully decorated trees will add to the holiday atmosphere celebrating the traditions of the season in the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia and more. In addition, visitors will enjoy an enhanced display of model trains, and various local celebrities will be reading holiday stories for children. The program will feature nightly holiday entertainment with hot beverages available and the mission site may be open weather permitting. A gift shop offering unique holiday items will be open throughout the program.

Holiday Magic in the Square

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

Annual holiday tree lighting with a variety of performances.

Footloose
The Talent Company
Bob Durkin, director

Price: $25 regular; $22 seniors/students; $16 children 12 and under
Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

Based on the motion picture hit about a young man who comes to town and changes the lives of everyone there, Footloose is propelled by the rockin' rhythm of its Oscar-nominated Top 40 score, with music by Tom Snow and lyrics by Dean Pitchford. The soundtrack album spent 10 weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts featuring such popular '80s tunes as "Let's Hear It For The Boy," "Almost Paradise," "The Girl Gets Around," "Holding Out For A Hero," and the title song, "Footloose." When the film was released in 1984, there were at least 65 communities in the United States that had some sort of law on the books outlawing dancing. One such town was Elmore City, OK, the original inspiration for the unbelievable story of Footloose. Ever since the town's inception in 1861, dancing had been illegal. In 1980, when Elmore City teens protested the ordinance at City Hall, a firestorm of controversy followed; when it was all over, the town saw its first dance in over 100 years.

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