Thursday, June 18, 2009

Postcards to (and from!) the Past
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

This exhibit is a collaboration between the Arts Branch of the YMCA's after school arts program at Salem Hyde Elementary School, the Onondaga Historical Association, and Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. On display at the YMCA will be replications of over 100 century-old postcards mailed back and forth between students in the YMCA's program (asking questions of various historical figures from the Syracuse area), and staff members of the OHA (who responded to the students' questions in character). Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the kids' questions show an active engagement with their own history—and the postcards themselves are a delight to anyone interested in the area's past. The exhibit is continued across the street at the OHA, and guests are invited and encouraged to visit both galleries to see the complete show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Complete Works of Alexandra Crosby
Westcott Community Center

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

The artist will be in attendance for tonight's Th3 event, 5:00 - 8:00 pm.

The Curiosity of Change
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Anne Novado-Cappuccilli: Drawings and Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

(Shade/Light) Red Excursions
Redhouse

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

Patrick Blackburn's newest multimedia installation creates an environment which seduces visitors and subtly asks them to leave their preconception of viewing art aside. Instead, visitors are invited to experience the artwork in the present moment. Blackburn explores the use of familiar media objects as a means of experiencing audio and visual art.

Blackburn is an artist, musician, composer and producer of audio and visual landscapes. He has worked in the design and production of numerous gallery installation and limited editions music albums and sound artworks. In his own artwork, Blackburn uses emergent technologies and behavioral patterns such as music generated by a system that ostensibly has no inputs. Thus his artwork cannot be called a composition in the traditional sense but rather open-end soundscapes, designed to continue indefinitely, without a chance to ever repeat. His work continues to create itself even in the audience's absence.

All Forms: Studio Pottery '09
Gandee Gallery

Gandee Gallery
7846 Main St., Fabius

Featuring works by 13 artists.

Interdisciplinary
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Dinosaur aesthetics, Onondaga Lake and the creation of energy from body sweat are among the subjects addressed in "Interdisciplinary," an exhibition of projects by Syracuse University faculty who received 200809 grants from the College of Visual and Performing Arts Interdisciplinary Committee.

"Interdisciplinary" features the following projects:
* "Creative Collaborations," readings and songs from the class "Poetry and Music Composition," taught by Gregory Mertl, assistant professor of composition in the School of Music
* "Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!" an interactive display about dinosaur aesthetics by Chris Wildrick, assistant professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design
* "The Lake Project: Social Sculpture and the Urban Landscape," featuring photographs of Onondaga Lake by students of Sarah McCoubrey, associate professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design, and Marion Wilson, VPA director of community initiatives
* "Practicing in Public," featuring a video installation by students of Sam Van Aken, associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art and Design, and Laura Heyman, assistant professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia
* "Singing for an Inclusive Society," featuring photographs and video from a project led by Miso Suchy, associate professor of film in the Department of Transmedia; Lida Suchy; and the Syracuse Community Choir
* "Waste to Work," an exploration of how body sweat can be harnessed to create energy, led by Olivia Robinson, assistant professor of fiber arts/material studies in the School of Art and Design, and Daniela Kostova

For more information about the exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Wild Card Exhibit: Color Etchings from Florence by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna
Delavan Art Gallery

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

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Vicktory Dogs Exhibition
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Pit bulls victimized in the notorious dog-fighting ring of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick are the subject of the exhibition. "Vicktory Dogs" is the brainchild of Cyrus Mejia, who, along with his wife and a group of animal lovers, founded Best Friends Animal Society, the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals.

The exhibition features giclée prints of 22 dogs rescued by Best Friends after Vick's indictment. By depicting the dogs up close in his painting, Mejia hopes people will confront their own prejudices about pit bulls in general and will think twice about exploiting them or fearing them, or both.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

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

Works of Sarah Panzarella and Jeremy Randall
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

Special Th3 Event: New works of Sarah Panzarella, and recently highlighted "Emerging Artist" of Ceramics Monthly, Jeremy Randall. Opening reception.

Meet the Artist: Meg Conner
Eureka Crafts

Price: Free
Eureka Crafts
210 Walton St., Syracuse

Local ceramic artist showcases her stoneware pottery and tile work. The artist will be present and will open her studio to the public. Light refreshments.

Young Artist Exhibit
Museum of Young Art

Price: Free
Museum of Young Art
110 W. Fayette St., One Lincoln Center, Syracuse

View the works of talented young artists from the local Fabius-Pompey schools.

The Art of Giants Puppets
Open Hand Theater

Price: Free
International Mask and Puppet Museum
518 Prospect Ave., Syracuse

Mini Poetry Fest
Featuring Philip Memmer, Martin Walls, and Karen Swenson

Creekside Books
35 Fennell St., Skaneateles

Meet friends and enjoy a glass of wine, appetizers, coffee, and dessert while listening to three award-winning Upstate poets, who will read from newly released books:

Karen Swenson: poet, journalist, and travel writer, author of Pilgrim Into Silence (Tiger Bark, 2008)
Martin Walls: Library of Congress fellow, author of The Solvay Process (Tiger Bark, 2009).
Philip Memmer: Winner of the 2008 Adirondack Literary Award for Poetry for The Threat of Pleasure (Word Press, 2007) and author of Lucifer: A Hagiography (Lost Horse, 2009).

For more information about the reading, contact Erika Davis at erika@creeksidebooks.com.

Homestyle Homicide: The Freagan Family Reunion
Acme Mystery Company

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

Interactive comedy murder mystery.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Postcards to (and from!) the Past
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

This exhibit is a collaboration between the Arts Branch of the YMCA's after school arts program at Salem Hyde Elementary School, the Onondaga Historical Association, and Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. On display at the YMCA will be replications of over 100 century-old postcards mailed back and forth between students in the YMCA's program (asking questions of various historical figures from the Syracuse area), and staff members of the OHA (who responded to the students' questions in character). Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the kids' questions show an active engagement with their own history—and the postcards themselves are a delight to anyone interested in the area's past. The exhibit is continued across the street at the OHA, and guests are invited and encouraged to visit both galleries to see the complete show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Curiosity of Change
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Anne Novado-Cappuccilli: Drawings and Paintings
John Lombardi: Works in Stone

(Shade/Light) Red Excursions
Redhouse

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

Patrick Blackburn's newest multimedia installation creates an environment which seduces visitors and subtly asks them to leave their preconception of viewing art aside. Instead, visitors are invited to experience the artwork in the present moment. Blackburn explores the use of familiar media objects as a means of experiencing audio and visual art.

Blackburn is an artist, musician, composer and producer of audio and visual landscapes. He has worked in the design and production of numerous gallery installation and limited editions music albums and sound artworks. In his own artwork, Blackburn uses emergent technologies and behavioral patterns such as music generated by a system that ostensibly has no inputs. Thus his artwork cannot be called a composition in the traditional sense but rather open-end soundscapes, designed to continue indefinitely, without a chance to ever repeat. His work continues to create itself even in the audience's absence.

Interdisciplinary
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Dinosaur aesthetics, Onondaga Lake and the creation of energy from body sweat are among the subjects addressed in "Interdisciplinary," an exhibition of projects by Syracuse University faculty who received 200809 grants from the College of Visual and Performing Arts Interdisciplinary Committee.

"Interdisciplinary" features the following projects:
* "Creative Collaborations," readings and songs from the class "Poetry and Music Composition," taught by Gregory Mertl, assistant professor of composition in the School of Music
* "Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!" an interactive display about dinosaur aesthetics by Chris Wildrick, assistant professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design
* "The Lake Project: Social Sculpture and the Urban Landscape," featuring photographs of Onondaga Lake by students of Sarah McCoubrey, associate professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design, and Marion Wilson, VPA director of community initiatives
* "Practicing in Public," featuring a video installation by students of Sam Van Aken, associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art and Design, and Laura Heyman, assistant professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia
* "Singing for an Inclusive Society," featuring photographs and video from a project led by Miso Suchy, associate professor of film in the Department of Transmedia; Lida Suchy; and the Syracuse Community Choir
* "Waste to Work," an exploration of how body sweat can be harnessed to create energy, led by Olivia Robinson, assistant professor of fiber arts/material studies in the School of Art and Design, and Daniela Kostova

For more information about the exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Wild Card Exhibit: Color Etchings from Florence by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna
Delavan Art Gallery

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

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Vicktory Dogs Exhibition
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Pit bulls victimized in the notorious dog-fighting ring of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick are the subject of the exhibition. "Vicktory Dogs" is the brainchild of Cyrus Mejia, who, along with his wife and a group of animal lovers, founded Best Friends Animal Society, the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals.

The exhibition features giclée prints of 22 dogs rescued by Best Friends after Vick's indictment. By depicting the dogs up close in his painting, Mejia hopes people will confront their own prejudices about pit bulls in general and will think twice about exploiting them or fearing them, or both.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

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

60/60
Everson Museum of Art

Price: $30
Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

This event will combine live art, a great party, and the chance to win a work of art! The event will be held on the Everson Community Plaza under tents surrounding the reflecting pool.

Artists are invited to create or finish an original work of art in 60 minutes, between 5:30 and 6:30 pm. During this time, guests will enjoy an open bar and hors d'oeuvres while mingling and observing as the artists work. Guests will also have the chance to purchase raffle tickets to enter to win the art work of their choice.

At 6:30 pm, the raffle will be drawn and winners will be asked to take their prize home with them. Winners must be present to win.

The artworks are generously donated by local artists.

Raffle tickets are $5 each or $10 for three. Each admission ticket includes one complimentary raffle ticket.

Please call 315-474-6064 to make a reservation.

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

Perfomers include Fritz's Polka Band (Verona, NY), Jerry Darlak & the Touch (Grammy nominee, Buffalo), Little Poland Dance Ensemble (Utica), Al Piatkowski (Grammy winner, Cazenovia)

For more information, visit polishscholarship.com.

Friday (and Tuesday) FLICS: The Celluloid Closet
ArtRage Gallery

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

A comprehensive, compelling reflection of depictions of gays and lesbians in mainstream American movies, from Hollywood's earliest days. Best Documentary, Berlin International film Festival, Emmy, Outstanding Informational Special. (Directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein, narrated by Lily Tomlin, 1996)

On Golden Pond
Baldwinsville Theatre Guild
Bryan Allen Jones, director

Price: $15 adults; $12 students
First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville
64 Oswego St., Baldwinsville

This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th year. He is a retired professor, nearing 80, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant, and eager for life as ever. Ethel, 10 years younger and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist finacé, who then goes off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness-and slang-in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.

The cast includes Tom Minion as Norman Thayer Jr., BJ Newsome as Ethel Thayer, Aileen Kenneson as Chelsea Thayer Wayne, Jay Burris as Bill Ray, Alec Funiciello as Billy Ray, and Lee Lamanche as Charlie Martin.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Appleseed Productions
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $18 regular; $15 students/seniors
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

This musical takes comedy back to its roots, combining situations from time-tested, 2000-year-old comedies of Roman playwright Plautus with the infectious energy of classic vaudeville. The result is a non-stop laugh-fest in which a crafty slave (Pseudolus) struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan (Philia) for his young master (Hero), in exchange for freedom. Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

The show stars Greg J. Hipius as Pseudolus and Michael Spinoso as Hysterium, and also features Dan Williams as Hero, Danan Healy as Philia, Patricia Elise Catchouny as Domina, Lanny Freshman as Senex, Bill Ali as Miles Gloriousus, and Mark Allen Holt as Marcus Lycus.

Read a Review!

Bingo: The Musical
Rarely Done Productions
Dan Tursi, director

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

Bingo is a splashy, zippy, outrageously funny new musical. Come meet Vern, Honey and Patsy -- three pals that have driven through a terrible storm in the name of their weekly obsession. In between the number calling, strange rituals and fierce competitions, love blossoms and long-lost friends unite. Book by Michael Heitzman and Ilene Reid; music and lyrics by Michael Heitzman Ilene Reid and David Holcenberg.

Read a Review!

Improv Comedy Night
Saltine Warrior

Price: $13 regular, $10 students/seniors (cash only)
CFAC Black Box Theater
805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Saltine Warrior is an improv comedy troupe. A Saltine Warrior show is a hilarious blend of short-form games (think the best parts of the hit TV show, "Who's Line Is It, Anyway?"), with the long-form scene styles in the tradition of Second City and Upright Citizen's Brigade.

This is truly interactive, improv comedy at its best! The entire performance is totally unscripted and unrehearsed...with scenes and games based on audience suggestions and participation.

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Wild Card Exhibit: Color Etchings from Florence by Swietlan Nicholas Kraczyna
Delavan Art Gallery

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

Art on the Porches

Price: Free
Ruskin Avenue
Strathmore neighborhood, Syracuse

Over 40 neighborhood and local artists show and sell their original works on the front porches of the historic Ruskin Ave homes. More than 14 stage acts, plus street performance and poetry. Fun for all ages!

For more information, visit www.artontheporches.com

Interdisciplinary
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Dinosaur aesthetics, Onondaga Lake and the creation of energy from body sweat are among the subjects addressed in "Interdisciplinary," an exhibition of projects by Syracuse University faculty who received 200809 grants from the College of Visual and Performing Arts Interdisciplinary Committee.

"Interdisciplinary" features the following projects:
* "Creative Collaborations," readings and songs from the class "Poetry and Music Composition," taught by Gregory Mertl, assistant professor of composition in the School of Music
* "Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!" an interactive display about dinosaur aesthetics by Chris Wildrick, assistant professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design
* "The Lake Project: Social Sculpture and the Urban Landscape," featuring photographs of Onondaga Lake by students of Sarah McCoubrey, associate professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design, and Marion Wilson, VPA director of community initiatives
* "Practicing in Public," featuring a video installation by students of Sam Van Aken, associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art and Design, and Laura Heyman, assistant professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia
* "Singing for an Inclusive Society," featuring photographs and video from a project led by Miso Suchy, associate professor of film in the Department of Transmedia; Lida Suchy; and the Syracuse Community Choir
* "Waste to Work," an exploration of how body sweat can be harnessed to create energy, led by Olivia Robinson, assistant professor of fiber arts/material studies in the School of Art and Design, and Daniela Kostova

For more information about the exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

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

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

Performers include Salt City Brass, Ashley Cox (SAMMY-award winner), Tatry Polish Folklore Assemble, Figiel Brothers Band, Lechowia Dance Company, Dennis Polisky & The Maestro's Man (Grammy Nominee)

For more information, visit polishscholarship.com.

Fagbug the movie
ArtRage Gallery

Price: $10
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

On the 11th annual National Day of Silence (April 18, 2007), Erin Davies was victim to a hate crime in Albany, NY. Because of sporting a rainbow sticker on her VW Beetle, Erin's car was vandalized, left with the words fAg and u r gay placed on the hood and driver side of her car. Despite initial shock and embarassment, Erin's decided to embrace what happened and film a documentary about her 58-day cross country tour around the US and Canada in her car known worldwide as the fagbug. The film follows Erin's quest to drive her vandalized car over the course of one year.

Erin's mission is to raise awareness about hate crimes and homophobia in our society, to give a voice for those who are silent, to inspire others to take a stand against bullies and to be an example of how to overcome obstacles in bringing a creative project to life.

* January 2009 - Stick Shift Palme DOr for Best Gay Car Movie of 2009, Vanity Fair
* January 2009 - Official Finalist at the 2009 Canada International Film Festival
* December 2008 - Silver Lei Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the 2009 Honolulu International Film Festival

For more information, visit www.fagbug.com.

The Emperor's New Clothes
Magic Circle Children's Theatre

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

Interactive retelling of the classic story.

The Falsettos Murder
Without A Cue

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

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

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

On Golden Pond
Baldwinsville Theatre Guild
Bryan Allen Jones, director

Price: $15 adults; $12 students
First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville
64 Oswego St., Baldwinsville

This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th year. He is a retired professor, nearing 80, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant, and eager for life as ever. Ethel, 10 years younger and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist finacé, who then goes off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness-and slang-in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.

The cast includes Tom Minion as Norman Thayer Jr., BJ Newsome as Ethel Thayer, Aileen Kenneson as Chelsea Thayer Wayne, Jay Burris as Bill Ray, Alec Funiciello as Billy Ray, and Lee Lamanche as Charlie Martin.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Appleseed Productions
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $18 regular; $15 students/seniors
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

This musical takes comedy back to its roots, combining situations from time-tested, 2000-year-old comedies of Roman playwright Plautus with the infectious energy of classic vaudeville. The result is a non-stop laugh-fest in which a crafty slave (Pseudolus) struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan (Philia) for his young master (Hero), in exchange for freedom. Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

The show stars Greg J. Hipius as Pseudolus and Michael Spinoso as Hysterium, and also features Dan Williams as Hero, Danan Healy as Philia, Patricia Elise Catchouny as Domina, Lanny Freshman as Senex, Bill Ali as Miles Gloriousus, and Mark Allen Holt as Marcus Lycus.

Read a Review!

Bingo: The Musical
Rarely Done Productions
Dan Tursi, director

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

Bingo is a splashy, zippy, outrageously funny new musical. Come meet Vern, Honey and Patsy -- three pals that have driven through a terrible storm in the name of their weekly obsession. In between the number calling, strange rituals and fierce competitions, love blossoms and long-lost friends unite. Book by Michael Heitzman and Ilene Reid; music and lyrics by Michael Heitzman Ilene Reid and David Holcenberg.

Read a Review!

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Interdisciplinary
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Dinosaur aesthetics, Onondaga Lake and the creation of energy from body sweat are among the subjects addressed in "Interdisciplinary," an exhibition of projects by Syracuse University faculty who received 200809 grants from the College of Visual and Performing Arts Interdisciplinary Committee.

"Interdisciplinary" features the following projects:
* "Creative Collaborations," readings and songs from the class "Poetry and Music Composition," taught by Gregory Mertl, assistant professor of composition in the School of Music
* "Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!" an interactive display about dinosaur aesthetics by Chris Wildrick, assistant professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design
* "The Lake Project: Social Sculpture and the Urban Landscape," featuring photographs of Onondaga Lake by students of Sarah McCoubrey, associate professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design, and Marion Wilson, VPA director of community initiatives
* "Practicing in Public," featuring a video installation by students of Sam Van Aken, associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art and Design, and Laura Heyman, assistant professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia
* "Singing for an Inclusive Society," featuring photographs and video from a project led by Miso Suchy, associate professor of film in the Department of Transmedia; Lida Suchy; and the Syracuse Community Choir
* "Waste to Work," an exploration of how body sweat can be harnessed to create energy, led by Olivia Robinson, assistant professor of fiber arts/material studies in the School of Art and Design, and Daniela Kostova

For more information about the exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Polish Festival

Price: Free
Clinton Square
Downtown, Syracuse

Performers include Polish Dance Ensemble - Cracovia Dance Group, Lenny Gomulka & Chicago Push, Lechowia Dance Company

For more information, visit polishscholarship.com.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Appleseed Productions
Dustin M. Czarny, director

Price: $18 regular; $15 students/seniors
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

This musical takes comedy back to its roots, combining situations from time-tested, 2000-year-old comedies of Roman playwright Plautus with the infectious energy of classic vaudeville. The result is a non-stop laugh-fest in which a crafty slave (Pseudolus) struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan (Philia) for his young master (Hero), in exchange for freedom. Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.

The show stars Greg J. Hipius as Pseudolus and Michael Spinoso as Hysterium, and also features Dan Williams as Hero, Danan Healy as Philia, Patricia Elise Catchouny as Domina, Lanny Freshman as Senex, Bill Ali as Miles Gloriousus, and Mark Allen Holt as Marcus Lycus.

Read a Review!

On Golden Pond
Baldwinsville Theatre Guild
Bryan Allen Jones, director

Price: $15 regular; $12 students/seniors
First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville
64 Oswego St., Baldwinsville

This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the 48th year. He is a retired professor, nearing 80, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant, and eager for life as ever. Ethel, 10 years younger and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist finacé, who then goes off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness-and slang-in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.

The cast includes Tom Minion as Norman Thayer Jr., BJ Newsome as Ethel Thayer, Aileen Kenneson as Chelsea Thayer Wayne, Jay Burris as Bill Ray, Alec Funiciello as Billy Ray, and Lee Lamanche as Charlie Martin.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Postcards to (and from!) the Past
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

This exhibit is a collaboration between the Arts Branch of the YMCA's after school arts program at Salem Hyde Elementary School, the Onondaga Historical Association, and Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. On display at the YMCA will be replications of over 100 century-old postcards mailed back and forth between students in the YMCA's program (asking questions of various historical figures from the Syracuse area), and staff members of the OHA (who responded to the students' questions in character). Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the kids' questions show an active engagement with their own history—and the postcards themselves are a delight to anyone interested in the area's past. The exhibit is continued across the street at the OHA, and guests are invited and encouraged to visit both galleries to see the complete show.

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

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

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

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

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

Frenay & Lenin
Liverpool is the Place

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

Syracuse Area Music Hall of Famers Gary Frenay and Arty Lenin play a wide array of rock from oldies to British Invasion to power pop originals.
Rain Date: Tuesday, June 23

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

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Postcards to (and from!) the Past
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

This exhibit is a collaboration between the Arts Branch of the YMCA's after school arts program at Salem Hyde Elementary School, the Onondaga Historical Association, and Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. On display at the YMCA will be replications of over 100 century-old postcards mailed back and forth between students in the YMCA's program (asking questions of various historical figures from the Syracuse area), and staff members of the OHA (who responded to the students' questions in character). Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the kids' questions show an active engagement with their own history—and the postcards themselves are a delight to anyone interested in the area's past. The exhibit is continued across the street at the OHA, and guests are invited and encouraged to visit both galleries to see the complete show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Vicktory Dogs Exhibition
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Pit bulls victimized in the notorious dog-fighting ring of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick are the subject of the exhibition. "Vicktory Dogs" is the brainchild of Cyrus Mejia, who, along with his wife and a group of animal lovers, founded Best Friends Animal Society, the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals.

The exhibition features giclée prints of 22 dogs rescued by Best Friends after Vick's indictment. By depicting the dogs up close in his painting, Mejia hopes people will confront their own prejudices about pit bulls in general and will think twice about exploiting them or fearing them, or both.

Friday (and Tuesday) FLICS: The Wedding Banquet
ArtRage Gallery

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

A gay, Taiwanese-American man goes to some lengths to pull the wool over the traditional eyes of his family visiting from overseas. Oscar, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Film, Asia-Pacific Film Festival, GlAAD Media Award, Berlin Film Festival. (Directed by Ang Lee, 1993)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Postcards to (and from!) the Past
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

This exhibit is a collaboration between the Arts Branch of the YMCA's after school arts program at Salem Hyde Elementary School, the Onondaga Historical Association, and Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. On display at the YMCA will be replications of over 100 century-old postcards mailed back and forth between students in the YMCA's program (asking questions of various historical figures from the Syracuse area), and staff members of the OHA (who responded to the students' questions in character). Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the kids' questions show an active engagement with their own history—and the postcards themselves are a delight to anyone interested in the area's past. The exhibit is continued across the street at the OHA, and guests are invited and encouraged to visit both galleries to see the complete show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Shade/Light) Red Excursions
Redhouse

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

Patrick Blackburn's newest multimedia installation creates an environment which seduces visitors and subtly asks them to leave their preconception of viewing art aside. Instead, visitors are invited to experience the artwork in the present moment. Blackburn explores the use of familiar media objects as a means of experiencing audio and visual art.

Blackburn is an artist, musician, composer and producer of audio and visual landscapes. He has worked in the design and production of numerous gallery installation and limited editions music albums and sound artworks. In his own artwork, Blackburn uses emergent technologies and behavioral patterns such as music generated by a system that ostensibly has no inputs. Thus his artwork cannot be called a composition in the traditional sense but rather open-end soundscapes, designed to continue indefinitely, without a chance to ever repeat. His work continues to create itself even in the audience's absence.

Interdisciplinary
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Dinosaur aesthetics, Onondaga Lake and the creation of energy from body sweat are among the subjects addressed in "Interdisciplinary," an exhibition of projects by Syracuse University faculty who received 200809 grants from the College of Visual and Performing Arts Interdisciplinary Committee.

"Interdisciplinary" features the following projects:
* "Creative Collaborations," readings and songs from the class "Poetry and Music Composition," taught by Gregory Mertl, assistant professor of composition in the School of Music
* "Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!" an interactive display about dinosaur aesthetics by Chris Wildrick, assistant professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design
* "The Lake Project: Social Sculpture and the Urban Landscape," featuring photographs of Onondaga Lake by students of Sarah McCoubrey, associate professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design, and Marion Wilson, VPA director of community initiatives
* "Practicing in Public," featuring a video installation by students of Sam Van Aken, associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art and Design, and Laura Heyman, assistant professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia
* "Singing for an Inclusive Society," featuring photographs and video from a project led by Miso Suchy, associate professor of film in the Department of Transmedia; Lida Suchy; and the Syracuse Community Choir
* "Waste to Work," an exploration of how body sweat can be harnessed to create energy, led by Olivia Robinson, assistant professor of fiber arts/material studies in the School of Art and Design, and Daniela Kostova

For more information about the exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Vicktory Dogs Exhibition
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Pit bulls victimized in the notorious dog-fighting ring of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick are the subject of the exhibition. "Vicktory Dogs" is the brainchild of Cyrus Mejia, who, along with his wife and a group of animal lovers, founded Best Friends Animal Society, the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals.

The exhibition features giclée prints of 22 dogs rescued by Best Friends after Vick's indictment. By depicting the dogs up close in his painting, Mejia hopes people will confront their own prejudices about pit bulls in general and will think twice about exploiting them or fearing them, or both.

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

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

Lisa Gentile Band
Liverpool is the Place

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

The country-pop vocal stylings of Lisa Gentile.
Rain Date: Thursday, June 25

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

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Postcards to (and from!) the Past
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

This exhibit is a collaboration between the Arts Branch of the YMCA's after school arts program at Salem Hyde Elementary School, the Onondaga Historical Association, and Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts. On display at the YMCA will be replications of over 100 century-old postcards mailed back and forth between students in the YMCA's program (asking questions of various historical figures from the Syracuse area), and staff members of the OHA (who responded to the students' questions in character). Sometimes poignant, sometimes funny, the kids' questions show an active engagement with their own history—and the postcards themselves are a delight to anyone interested in the area's past. The exhibit is continued across the street at the OHA, and guests are invited and encouraged to visit both galleries to see the complete show.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Shade/Light) Red Excursions
Redhouse

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

Patrick Blackburn's newest multimedia installation creates an environment which seduces visitors and subtly asks them to leave their preconception of viewing art aside. Instead, visitors are invited to experience the artwork in the present moment. Blackburn explores the use of familiar media objects as a means of experiencing audio and visual art.

Blackburn is an artist, musician, composer and producer of audio and visual landscapes. He has worked in the design and production of numerous gallery installation and limited editions music albums and sound artworks. In his own artwork, Blackburn uses emergent technologies and behavioral patterns such as music generated by a system that ostensibly has no inputs. Thus his artwork cannot be called a composition in the traditional sense but rather open-end soundscapes, designed to continue indefinitely, without a chance to ever repeat. His work continues to create itself even in the audience's absence.

Interdisciplinary
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

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

Dinosaur aesthetics, Onondaga Lake and the creation of energy from body sweat are among the subjects addressed in "Interdisciplinary," an exhibition of projects by Syracuse University faculty who received 200809 grants from the College of Visual and Performing Arts Interdisciplinary Committee.

"Interdisciplinary" features the following projects:
* "Creative Collaborations," readings and songs from the class "Poetry and Music Composition," taught by Gregory Mertl, assistant professor of composition in the School of Music
* "Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth!" an interactive display about dinosaur aesthetics by Chris Wildrick, assistant professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design
* "The Lake Project: Social Sculpture and the Urban Landscape," featuring photographs of Onondaga Lake by students of Sarah McCoubrey, associate professor of foundation in the School of Art and Design, and Marion Wilson, VPA director of community initiatives
* "Practicing in Public," featuring a video installation by students of Sam Van Aken, associate professor of sculpture in the School of Art and Design, and Laura Heyman, assistant professor of art photography in the Department of Transmedia
* "Singing for an Inclusive Society," featuring photographs and video from a project led by Miso Suchy, associate professor of film in the Department of Transmedia; Lida Suchy; and the Syracuse Community Choir
* "Waste to Work," an exploration of how body sweat can be harnessed to create energy, led by Olivia Robinson, assistant professor of fiber arts/material studies in the School of Art and Design, and Daniela Kostova

For more information about the exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Sitting Still
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

PostSecret
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Xiaowen Chen: Spectacle and 100 Last Names
The Warehouse Gallery

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Vicktory Dogs Exhibition
The Warehouse Gallery

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

Pit bulls victimized in the notorious dog-fighting ring of former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick are the subject of the exhibition. "Vicktory Dogs" is the brainchild of Cyrus Mejia, who, along with his wife and a group of animal lovers, founded Best Friends Animal Society, the nation's largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals.

The exhibition features giclée prints of 22 dogs rescued by Best Friends after Vick's indictment. By depicting the dogs up close in his painting, Mejia hopes people will confront their own prejudices about pit bulls in general and will think twice about exploiting them or fearing them, or both.

The Power of Revolt: Grassroots Resistance in Oaxaca
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

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

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

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

Opening: Reflections
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

Homestyle Homicide: The Freagan Family Reunion
Acme Mystery Company

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

Interactive comedy murder mystery.