Tuesday, March 31, 2009

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

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

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nature of Being
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Works based on nature and the figure by John Fitzsimmons (oil paintings) and Patrice Fitzsimmons (ceramic sculpture).

Read a review!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

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

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Observations East and West: Artists' Views of the Historic Erie Canal
Erie Canal Museum
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts

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

The exhibition will feature student work from professor Sarah McCoubrey's fall 2008 landscape painting class and will be matted, framed and installed by students in the Museum Studies program. The subject of the works is an exploration of the changing environment as impacted by the Erie Canal. To accomplish this, the class met weekly at a variety of locations along the Erie Canal including the more rural areas, through the suburbs, into the city, and at the Erie Canal Museum.

The choice of these sites represents more than 200 years of transition in the surrounding Syracuse community and illustrates the change in the living environment as the community evolved from a casual based transportation center into a major modern metropolitan city.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Change: From Slavery to the Presidency
Museum of Young Art

Price: Suggested donation: $4 adults, $3 students
Museum of Young Art
110 W. Fayette St., One Lincoln Center, Syracuse

If you could become an inspirational historical figure, who would you choose? How would becoming that person, even for a few moments, affect you?

In this show, students take on the personae of inspirational historical and current figures to truly immerse themselves in history.

The project, "American Change: from Slavery to the Presidency," features written, spoken and photographic illustrations of key figures and events in US history created by 4th grade students at Van Duyn Elementary. The work was inspired by and created in collaboration with CNY photographer Brantley Carroll.

Carroll worked with the students in a similar process to the one he used for his acclaimed project "The Whipping Post," which examined the slave trade by casting contemporary Americans in portraits of historical figures.

The partnership with Mr. Carroll is just one of the many arts-based learning projects that are happening this year at Van Duyn, which is one of six Syracuse City School District (SCSD) schools participating in the Arts in Mind initiative. Arts in Mind is a collaboration between schools, cultural organizations and funders that is working to make it easier for teachers in all SCSD schools to bring the arts into their classrooms as a way to strengthen student engagement and achievement. You can read more about Arts in Mind at www.artsinmind.net.

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

From HardWare to SoftForm
Syracuse University School of Architecture
Featuring Winka Dubbeldam

Price: Free
Slocum Hall Auditorium
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Winka Dubbeldam is principal and founder of Archi-Tectonics, NYC. Archi-Tectonics is created as an open network; a team of highly qualified architects and designers, with a close connection to her team of engineers and consultants. Dubbeldam's role as Professor of Practice and the Director of the Post-Professional Program at the University of Pennsylvania and her teaching at Columbia university and Harvard further assist in the constant innovation the office strives for.

Friends of the Central Library Author Series
Featuring Marjane Satrapi

Price: $25
Crouse Hinds Concert Theater, Mulroy Civic Center
411 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Michael Burritt Concert and Clinic
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Having performed on four continents and nearly 40 states, Michael Burritt is one of the world's leading percussion soloists. He is in frequent demand performing concert tours and master classes throughout the United States, Europe, Asia, Australia and Canada. Mr. Burritt has recently been appointed to the faculty of the Eastman School of Music where he will begin his position as Professor of Percussion in the fall of 2008. Michael is only the third percussion professor in the history of the Eastman School.

Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Syracuse University Singers

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

Parking is available in Irving Garage. For more information, phone 315-443-2191.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

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

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nature of Being
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Works based on nature and the figure by John Fitzsimmons (oil paintings) and Patrice Fitzsimmons (ceramic sculpture).

Read a review!

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

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

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Observations East and West: Artists' Views of the Historic Erie Canal
Erie Canal Museum
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts

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

The exhibition will feature student work from professor Sarah McCoubrey's fall 2008 landscape painting class and will be matted, framed and installed by students in the Museum Studies program. The subject of the works is an exploration of the changing environment as impacted by the Erie Canal. To accomplish this, the class met weekly at a variety of locations along the Erie Canal including the more rural areas, through the suburbs, into the city, and at the Erie Canal Museum.

The choice of these sites represents more than 200 years of transition in the surrounding Syracuse community and illustrates the change in the living environment as the community evolved from a casual based transportation center into a major modern metropolitan city.

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

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

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

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

American Change: From Slavery to the Presidency
Museum of Young Art

Price: Suggested donation: $4 adults, $3 students
Museum of Young Art
110 W. Fayette St., One Lincoln Center, Syracuse

If you could become an inspirational historical figure, who would you choose? How would becoming that person, even for a few moments, affect you?

In this show, students take on the personae of inspirational historical and current figures to truly immerse themselves in history.

The project, "American Change: from Slavery to the Presidency," features written, spoken and photographic illustrations of key figures and events in US history created by 4th grade students at Van Duyn Elementary. The work was inspired by and created in collaboration with CNY photographer Brantley Carroll.

Carroll worked with the students in a similar process to the one he used for his acclaimed project "The Whipping Post," which examined the slave trade by casting contemporary Americans in portraits of historical figures.

The partnership with Mr. Carroll is just one of the many arts-based learning projects that are happening this year at Van Duyn, which is one of six Syracuse City School District (SCSD) schools participating in the Arts in Mind initiative. Arts in Mind is a collaboration between schools, cultural organizations and funders that is working to make it easier for teachers in all SCSD schools to bring the arts into their classrooms as a way to strengthen student engagement and achievement. You can read more about Arts in Mind at www.artsinmind.net.

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

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth! Works of Chris Wildrick
Redhouse

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drawing: VPA Students and Faculty Exhibit
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

For more information on XL Projects and the "Drawing" exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand, VPA program exhibitions coordinator, at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

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

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

British Music for Winds
Civic Morning Musicals
Lake Effect Winds

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

Holst Quintet, Malcom Arnold Three Shanties for Wind Quintet, Adrian Cruft Three Bagatelles, performed by Beth Scott, flute; Kathryn Dimmel, oboe; Tom McKay, clarinet; Don Milmore, horn; and Jennifer Groth, bassoon.

Little Women Book Club
Syracuse Opera
Featuring Joanie Mahoney

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

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

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

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

Read a Review!

Home: An MFA Thesis Production
Syracuse University Drama Department
Sonita Surratt, director

Price: Free (reservations recommended)
Loft Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Cephus Miles is on a journey, but not the journey he anticipated as a boy working on his grandfather's farm in Cross Roads, North Carolina. Life had other plans, taking him to the fast-paced and volatile world of New York City. A classic story of the African American experience, Samm-Art Williams' 1979 Tony-nominated Home is poetic and forceful, capturing the turbulence of the '50s, '60s and '70s while celebrating the inherent personal dignity in struggling to overcome misfortune.

With themes of salvation, acceptance and anti-war sentiment, Home takes its audience on a transformational journey from the plantations of North Carolina to hectic New York City and back again to the South. While many African Americans traveled North with hopes of prosperity, Home exposes the desire held by many to go back to the South.

Free seating can be reserved by calling 315-443-3275, or in person at the Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Read a review!

Thursday, April 2, 2009

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

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

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

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

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

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

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nature of Being
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Works based on nature and the figure by John Fitzsimmons (oil paintings) and Patrice Fitzsimmons (ceramic sculpture).

Read a review!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

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

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

Observations East and West: Artists' Views of the Historic Erie Canal
Erie Canal Museum
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts

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

The exhibition will feature student work from professor Sarah McCoubrey's fall 2008 landscape painting class and will be matted, framed and installed by students in the Museum Studies program. The subject of the works is an exploration of the changing environment as impacted by the Erie Canal. To accomplish this, the class met weekly at a variety of locations along the Erie Canal including the more rural areas, through the suburbs, into the city, and at the Erie Canal Museum.

The choice of these sites represents more than 200 years of transition in the surrounding Syracuse community and illustrates the change in the living environment as the community evolved from a casual based transportation center into a major modern metropolitan city.

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

American Change: From Slavery to the Presidency
Museum of Young Art

Price: Suggested donation: $4 adults, $3 students
Museum of Young Art
110 W. Fayette St., One Lincoln Center, Syracuse

If you could become an inspirational historical figure, who would you choose? How would becoming that person, even for a few moments, affect you?

In this show, students take on the personae of inspirational historical and current figures to truly immerse themselves in history.

The project, "American Change: from Slavery to the Presidency," features written, spoken and photographic illustrations of key figures and events in US history created by 4th grade students at Van Duyn Elementary. The work was inspired by and created in collaboration with CNY photographer Brantley Carroll.

Carroll worked with the students in a similar process to the one he used for his acclaimed project "The Whipping Post," which examined the slave trade by casting contemporary Americans in portraits of historical figures.

The partnership with Mr. Carroll is just one of the many arts-based learning projects that are happening this year at Van Duyn, which is one of six Syracuse City School District (SCSD) schools participating in the Arts in Mind initiative. Arts in Mind is a collaboration between schools, cultural organizations and funders that is working to make it easier for teachers in all SCSD schools to bring the arts into their classrooms as a way to strengthen student engagement and achievement. You can read more about Arts in Mind at www.artsinmind.net.

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

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth! Works of Chris Wildrick
Redhouse

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

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

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

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

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

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

Drawing: VPA Students and Faculty Exhibit
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

For more information on XL Projects and the "Drawing" exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand, VPA program exhibitions coordinator, at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Fiber Art
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

A public reception for the exhibition will be held from 5:00-8:00 pm, with a lecture by the artists in the Warehouse Auditorium at 6:00 pm.

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

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

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Concert Version
LeMoyne College
LeMoyne College Singers

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors, $4 students and members of the LeMoyne community
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Join the Le Moyne College Singers, a full orchestra, and a children's chorus for a concert version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's first musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Newly re-orchestrated and with fresh vocal arrangements, this production will feature music direction by Travis Newton and staging by William Morris and Lawrence Crabtree.

For additional information and ticket reservations, please call 315-445-4523.

Poetry Reading: Saúl Yurkievich -- Letters Between a Poet and his Translator
Point of Contact Gallery

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

The new bilingual issue of the Point of Contact book series focuses on the work of the late poet laureate from Argentina, Saúl Yurkievich. Yurkievich and his translator, Cola Franzen, share an intimate dialogue about words, meanings and resonance.

Aside from the letters, the book includes 15 original, unpublished poems by Yurkievich, all of which were translated to Spanish for this issue of Point of Contact. This significant compendium also includes essays by Julio Ortega and Pierre Lartigue, both accomplished scholars and poets. Visual texts are also intertwined in the publication featuring works by Karin Schneider, Ricardo Lanzarini, Luis Roldán, Karin Waisman and Sarah Kipp.

The Point of Contact Gallery will host a poetry reading and reception for the official presentation of this new publication. Special guests in attendance include translator Cola Franzen, and Gladis Yurkievich, widow of Saúl Yurkievich. The poetry featured in this new edition, will be read in English and Spanish by Kathy Everly, Jose Miguel Hernández, Colleen Kattau, Lourdes Rojas-Paiewonsky, Katya Soll and Damian Yurkievich, followed by a musical performance also by Colleen Kattau.

Death Warmed Over
Acme Mystery Company

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

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

Fiddler on the Roof

Price: $8
Liverpool High School Auditorium
4338 Wetzel Rd., Liverpool

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

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

Read a Review!

Urinetown
First Year Players

Price: $7 general public, $4 with SU ID
Goldstein Auditorium, Schine Student Center
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Urinetown is a high-energy, comedic tale of greed, corruption, love and revolution. The musical is set in a large urban city during a severe water shortage, where citizens must pay to use the restrooms or face the consequences of being sent to Urinetown -- a place about which these citizens know very little.

The hero, Bobby Strong, leads a revolution against Urine Good Company (UGC), the corporation governing the public amenities. Along the way, he falls in love with the UGC President's daughter, Hope Cladwell. Though torn, Bobby continues with his revolution. As the city spirals into chaos, secret love affairs and the truth about Urinetown are revealed.

A musical about corporate greed, societal inequality, love vs. personal desire, and realism vs. ambitious dreams, Urinetown prides itself on not being a "happy" musical, but a hilariously satirical one. It subtly parodies well-known shows such as Les Miserables, Evita, Annie, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof with flair. This off-Broadway sensation won three Tony Awards in 2002.

Parking will be available on Thursday for $3.50 in the Booth lot or in the Lehman and Harrison parking lots at no charge. On Friday and Saturday parking will be available in the Waverly and Marion parking lots at no charge.

Home: An MFA Thesis Production
Syracuse University Drama Department
Sonita Surratt, director

Price: Free (reservations recommended)
Loft Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Cephus Miles is on a journey, but not the journey he anticipated as a boy working on his grandfather's farm in Cross Roads, North Carolina. Life had other plans, taking him to the fast-paced and volatile world of New York City. A classic story of the African American experience, Samm-Art Williams' 1979 Tony-nominated Home is poetic and forceful, capturing the turbulence of the '50s, '60s and '70s while celebrating the inherent personal dignity in struggling to overcome misfortune.

With themes of salvation, acceptance and anti-war sentiment, Home takes its audience on a transformational journey from the plantations of North Carolina to hectic New York City and back again to the South. While many African Americans traveled North with hopes of prosperity, Home exposes the desire held by many to go back to the South.

Free seating can be reserved by calling 315-443-3275, or in person at the Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Read a review!

Friday, April 3, 2009

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

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

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

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

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

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

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Nature of Being
Edgewood Gallery

Price: Free
Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Works based on nature and the figure by John Fitzsimmons (oil paintings) and Patrice Fitzsimmons (ceramic sculpture).

Read a review!

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

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

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Observations East and West: Artists' Views of the Historic Erie Canal
Erie Canal Museum
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts

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

The exhibition will feature student work from professor Sarah McCoubrey's fall 2008 landscape painting class and will be matted, framed and installed by students in the Museum Studies program. The subject of the works is an exploration of the changing environment as impacted by the Erie Canal. To accomplish this, the class met weekly at a variety of locations along the Erie Canal including the more rural areas, through the suburbs, into the city, and at the Erie Canal Museum.

The choice of these sites represents more than 200 years of transition in the surrounding Syracuse community and illustrates the change in the living environment as the community evolved from a casual based transportation center into a major modern metropolitan city.

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

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

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

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

American Change: From Slavery to the Presidency
Museum of Young Art

Price: Suggested donation: $4 adults, $3 students
Museum of Young Art
110 W. Fayette St., One Lincoln Center, Syracuse

If you could become an inspirational historical figure, who would you choose? How would becoming that person, even for a few moments, affect you?

In this show, students take on the personae of inspirational historical and current figures to truly immerse themselves in history.

The project, "American Change: from Slavery to the Presidency," features written, spoken and photographic illustrations of key figures and events in US history created by 4th grade students at Van Duyn Elementary. The work was inspired by and created in collaboration with CNY photographer Brantley Carroll.

Carroll worked with the students in a similar process to the one he used for his acclaimed project "The Whipping Post," which examined the slave trade by casting contemporary Americans in portraits of historical figures.

The partnership with Mr. Carroll is just one of the many arts-based learning projects that are happening this year at Van Duyn, which is one of six Syracuse City School District (SCSD) schools participating in the Arts in Mind initiative. Arts in Mind is a collaboration between schools, cultural organizations and funders that is working to make it easier for teachers in all SCSD schools to bring the arts into their classrooms as a way to strengthen student engagement and achievement. You can read more about Arts in Mind at www.artsinmind.net.

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

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Dinosaurs Had Sharp Teeth! Works of Chris Wildrick
Redhouse

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

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

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

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

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

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

First Friday Opening: Works of Tim Etter, Gretchen Hamlin, and Lisa Noviasky
Skaneateles Artisans

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

An opening reception will be held 6:00-9:00 pm featuring jazz pianist Larry Campanelli.

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

Drawing: VPA Students and Faculty Exhibit
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

For more information on XL Projects and the "Drawing" exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand, VPA program exhibitions coordinator, at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

Fiber Art
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

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

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

Cathedral Scan v.2: Work of Blake Carrington
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Hendricks Chapel
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Blake Carrington, a graduate computer art student in the Department of Transmedia, will present "Cathedral Scan v.2," a live audiovisual performance. The piece, which is Carrington's master of fine arts degree thesis project, will feature immersive sound and large-scale video projection. Architectural plans of Gothic cathedrals are scanned with custom software, creating unique rhythms and timbres for each structure.

Carrington is an artist who explores the spaces between geography, architecture and perception. He recently completed a residency at Atlantic Center for the Arts and will soon undertake residencies at HIAP (Helsinki International Artist-in-Residence Programme) in Finland and Rustines Lab in Montreal.

The Revolution is Now! Fashion Communications Fashion Show
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Price: Free
Newhouse I
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Students from Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) will present the fashion show "The Revolution is Now!: Media in a time of utter transformation expressed through fashion."

The show is co-sponsored by Newhouse and VPA's Fashion Communications Milestone, and produced by VPA's fashion design program. The show will feature more than 100 designs from fashion design students.

The Fashion Communications Milestone is a concentration that explores fashion and beauty as communication. Course work, which is drawn from both Newhouse and VPA, covers such topics as the history of fashion; contemporary fashion in popular culture; visual communications; fashion advertising and promotion; fashion photography; beauty and fashion journalism; and other topics. The milestone is open to students in Newhouse or in VPA's fashion design program.

Refreshments will be served. Parking is available in SU pay lots.

Be Like Others
2009 Reel Queer Film Festival

Price: Free
Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

While homosexuality is punished harshly in Iran, changing one's gender is legal and perfectly acceptable under Islamic law. This creates a unique intersection between gender and sexuality for those who opt for or against sex-reassignment procedures. A Sundance favorite, this film follows several patients on their journey to a new life. Directed by Tanaz Eshaghian.

Several short films will also be shown.

FridayFLICS: Dr. Strangelove
ArtRage Gallery

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

An insane general paves the way to nuclear holocaust even as a passel of politicians and generals frantically try to stop him. With Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden. Directed by Stanley Kubrick, 1964.

Syracuse Symphony Orchestra String Quartet
Onondaga Community College

Price: Free
Storer Auditorium
Onondaga Community College, Syracuse

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Concert Version
LeMoyne College
LeMoyne College Singers

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors, $4 students and members of the LeMoyne community
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Join the Le Moyne College Singers, a full orchestra, and a children's chorus for a concert version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's first musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Newly re-orchestrated and with fresh vocal arrangements, this production will feature music direction by Travis Newton and staging by William Morris and Lawrence Crabtree.

For additional information and ticket reservations, please call 315-445-4523.

Dana and Susan Robinson
Folkus Project

May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Dana and Susan Robinson make music that is a perfect blend of old and new, bringing a traditional feel to their contemporary songwriting. They are consummate multi-instrumentalists (guitar, banjo, fiddle, and mandolin), integrating musical styles from the Appalachian, Celtic, and African traditions to create a unique, fresh sound. They bring a joyful energy to their performances, along with an acute understanding of Americas musical heritage and its significance to our culture today.

Spring Concert
Syracuse Chorale
Warren Ottey, conductor

Price: $15 regular, $12 students/seniors, $8 children
St. Joseph the Worker Church
1001 Tulip St., Liverpool

Maurice Duruflé Requiem
Gabriel Fauré The Palms
Stephen Adams The Holy City

Classics Series: The Planets
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Peter Bay, conductor
Featuring Deborah Coble, flute

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

Elgar Cockaigne, Op. 40 (in London Town)
Jacob Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
Holst The Planets

Poet Gary Copeland Lilley
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Gary Copeland Lilley is a graduate of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. He has received the Washington, DC, Commission of the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. He is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Alpha Zulu from Ausable Press (now an imprint of Copper Canyon). He lives in Swannanoa, NC, and teaches poetry in The Great Smokies Writing Program at the University of North Carolina-Asheville.

StoryFest II: A Family Storytelling Event
CNY Arts

Price: $10 adults; $5 K-12 students; children under 5 free
Corcoran High School
919 Glenwood Ave., Syracuse

Featured storytellers include Dave Knittel, Jacquelyn Grace-Rasheed, Tasneem Grace-Tewogbola, Jhadi Grace, Omanii Abdullah-Grace, and Vanessa Johnson.

Tickets can be purchased at the Cultural Resources Council offices, 411 Montgomery St., Syracuse, or 200 Huntington Hall at Syracuse University, or by calling 315-383-4018, or by email to tedgracereadinggrove@gmail.com.

Once Upon a Mattress
Christian Brothers Academy

Price: $8
Nottingham High School
3100 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

All in the Timing
Manlius Pebble Hill School

Price: $10
Manlius Pebble Hill School
5300 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt

Fiddler on the Roof

Price: $8
Liverpool High School Auditorium
4338 Wetzel Rd., Liverpool

Don't Feed The Actors Improv Show
Appleseed Productions

Price: $10
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

The not-so-starving Don't Feed The Actor's Improv troupe is back on the Appleseed stage for their first anniversary show! Get your comedic stimulus package as the group displays their unique audience interactive show. There is no bailing out as the DFTA crew needs you and your suggestions to have a show.

Urinetown
First Year Players

Price: $7 general public, $4 with SU ID
Goldstein Auditorium, Schine Student Center
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Urinetown is a high-energy, comedic tale of greed, corruption, love and revolution. The musical is set in a large urban city during a severe water shortage, where citizens must pay to use the restrooms or face the consequences of being sent to Urinetown -- a place about which these citizens know very little.

The hero, Bobby Strong, leads a revolution against Urine Good Company (UGC), the corporation governing the public amenities. Along the way, he falls in love with the UGC President's daughter, Hope Cladwell. Though torn, Bobby continues with his revolution. As the city spirals into chaos, secret love affairs and the truth about Urinetown are revealed.

A musical about corporate greed, societal inequality, love vs. personal desire, and realism vs. ambitious dreams, Urinetown prides itself on not being a "happy" musical, but a hilariously satirical one. It subtly parodies well-known shows such as Les Miserables, Evita, Annie, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof with flair. This off-Broadway sensation won three Tony Awards in 2002.

Parking will be available on Thursday for $3.50 in the Booth lot or in the Lehman and Harrison parking lots at no charge. On Friday and Saturday parking will be available in the Waverly and Marion parking lots at no charge.

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

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

Read a Review!

Home: An MFA Thesis Production
Syracuse University Drama Department
Sonita Surratt, director

Price: Free (reservations recommended)
Loft Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Cephus Miles is on a journey, but not the journey he anticipated as a boy working on his grandfather's farm in Cross Roads, North Carolina. Life had other plans, taking him to the fast-paced and volatile world of New York City. A classic story of the African American experience, Samm-Art Williams' 1979 Tony-nominated Home is poetic and forceful, capturing the turbulence of the '50s, '60s and '70s while celebrating the inherent personal dignity in struggling to overcome misfortune.

With themes of salvation, acceptance and anti-war sentiment, Home takes its audience on a transformational journey from the plantations of North Carolina to hectic New York City and back again to the South. While many African Americans traveled North with hopes of prosperity, Home exposes the desire held by many to go back to the South.

Free seating can be reserved by calling 315-443-3275, or in person at the Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Read a review!

Ruthless! The Musical
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

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

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

Read a Review!

Saturday, April 4, 2009

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

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

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

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

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

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

Fiber Art
Delavan Art Gallery

Delavan Art Gallery
501 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

American Change: From Slavery to the Presidency
Museum of Young Art

Price: Suggested donation: $4 adults, $3 students
Museum of Young Art
110 W. Fayette St., One Lincoln Center, Syracuse

If you could become an inspirational historical figure, who would you choose? How would becoming that person, even for a few moments, affect you?

In this show, students take on the personae of inspirational historical and current figures to truly immerse themselves in history.

The project, "American Change: from Slavery to the Presidency," features written, spoken and photographic illustrations of key figures and events in US history created by 4th grade students at Van Duyn Elementary. The work was inspired by and created in collaboration with CNY photographer Brantley Carroll.

Carroll worked with the students in a similar process to the one he used for his acclaimed project "The Whipping Post," which examined the slave trade by casting contemporary Americans in portraits of historical figures.

The partnership with Mr. Carroll is just one of the many arts-based learning projects that are happening this year at Van Duyn, which is one of six Syracuse City School District (SCSD) schools participating in the Arts in Mind initiative. Arts in Mind is a collaboration between schools, cultural organizations and funders that is working to make it easier for teachers in all SCSD schools to bring the arts into their classrooms as a way to strengthen student engagement and achievement. You can read more about Arts in Mind at www.artsinmind.net.

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

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

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

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

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

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Drawing: VPA Students and Faculty Exhibit
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

For more information on XL Projects and the "Drawing" exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand, VPA program exhibitions coordinator, at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

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

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

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

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

The Warehouse Gallery
350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse

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

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

The Big Show: Student Work from Skytop Art Workshops for Children
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

Price: Free
Panasci Lounge, Schine Student Center
Syracuse University, Syracuse

An exhibit of student works from the Skytop Art Workshops for Children, an offering of the art education program in Syracuse University's College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA). The semester-long Skytop Art Workshops are taught by art education students. Nine workshops in two different time sessions are offered each semester for children ages 514, with "The Big Show" as the culminating exhibition.

For more information about the exhibition or the workshops, contact Patti Gavigan at 315-443-2355 or pagaviga@syr.edu.

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

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

There will be an opening reception at 7:00 pm to celebrate this milestone of understanding through art. In attendance will be representatives from the sponsoring organizations, Laura Reeder from Partners for Arts Education and Claudia Lefkow from the Iraqi Childrens' Art Exchange; as well as third-grade students from Van Duyn Elementary School and their art teacher, Ilene Layow.

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

Were the World Mine
2009 Reel Queer Film Festival

Price: Free
Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

If you had a love-potion, who would you make fall madly in love with you? Find out how Timothy, cast as Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, responds when he is able to harness the power of the play's magical love-pansy in this vibrant musical romp that won the LA Outfest Grand Jury Award. Directed by Tom Gustafson.

Several short films will also be shown.

Syracuse One-Take Super-8 Film Festival

Funk 'n Waffles University
727 S. Crouse Ave. (Campus Plaza, behind Marshall , Syracuse

Once again, it's time for the Syracuse One-Take Super-8 film festival. Each filmmaker shoots a single reel of Super 8 film, which is then premiered to an audience without the filmmaker seeing the work beforehand. All the films are shown as shot -- no cuts, no splices. This year's festival features 21 films from 28 local filmmakers. For more information, visit super8syracuse.blogspot.com.

Family Series: The Planets
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Peter Bay, conductor

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

Hear Gustav Holst's timeless suite, The Planets, performed by the SSO, while real-time interactive 3-D animation of our solar system is projected on a giant screen!

Romantic Gens for String Quartet
First Unitarian Universalist Society Music Series
Candlelight String Quartet

Price: $10-$15 suggested donation
First Unitarian Universalist Society of Syracuse
109 Waring Rd. (at the corner of Nottingham Rd.), Dewitt

Dvorak American String Quartet
Puccini Chrysanthemums
Borodin String Quartet No. 2

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat Concert Version
LeMoyne College
LeMoyne College Singers

Price: $15 regular, $10 seniors, $4 students and members of the LeMoyne community
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

Join the Le Moyne College Singers, a full orchestra, and a children's chorus for a concert version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's first musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Newly re-orchestrated and with fresh vocal arrangements, this production will feature music direction by Travis Newton and staging by William Morris and Lawrence Crabtree.

For additional information and ticket reservations, please call 315-445-4523.

Billy Bang Sextet

Price: Free
Jazz Central
441 E. Washington St., Syracuse

An Evening of Songs and the Stories Behind Them
Redhouse
Featuring Laura Austin and Scott Allyn

Price: $15 adults; $12 students
Former Redhouse Theater
219 S. West St., Syracuse

Syracuse husband and wife duo, Laura Austin and Scott Allyn, will perform a concert featuring songs from their most recent release entitled "BitterSweetHeart" as well as their debut album, "I Could Be Anyone." Both albums were produced by the legendary Mark Doyle and feature finely crafted folk/pop tunes with lovely vocals. The band will include Cathy LaManna on drums, Michael P. Ryan on bass and vocals, Peg Newell on guitar and vocals, John Goodwin on keyboards and vocals, and Mark Doyle as musical director, also on guitar and keyboards. Both albums will be available for purchase at the concert and all proceeds will go to benefit Redhouse.

Syracuse Friends of Chamber Music
Claremont Piano Trio

Price: $20 regular, $15 senior, $10 student
Lincoln Middle School
1613 James St., Syracuse

Formed in 1999, the Claremont Trio was the first recipient of the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International Trio Award. Their performances of Beethoven's triple concerto with several symphony orchestras, their cycle of Beethoven's complete works for piano trio at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and their many other concerts have won praise around the country.

Beethoven Piano Trio in B-flat Major, Op.11
Kirchner Trio No. 1 (1954)
Kirchner Trio No. 2 (1993)
Beethoven Trio in E-flat Major, Op. 70, No. 2

The concert will open with a short performance of the first two movements of DvoYák's "Dumky" Trio, played by the Vesna Trio, the student ensemble that won this year's SFCM Youth Chamber Music Competition.

Read a review!

Classics Series: The Planets
Syracuse Symphony Orchestra
Peter Bay, conductor
Featuring Deborah Coble, flute

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

Elgar Cockaigne, Op. 40 (in London Town)
Jacob Concerto for Flute and Orchestra
Holst The Planets

Monkey King: Superhero of China
Open Hand Theater
Featuring Puppets with Pizazz

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

Just as every American child recognizes Bugs Bunny or Tweety Bird, so do Chinese children root for Sun Wukong, the magical flying Monkey King. No child can resist the prankster monkey as he cleverly outwits the "bad guys" in his journey west, and finally earns his freedom. Nancy Sanders produces lots of giggles her hilarious puppets.

All in the Timing
Manlius Pebble Hill School

Price: $10
Manlius Pebble Hill School
5300 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt

Home: An MFA Thesis Production
Syracuse University Drama Department
Sonita Surratt, director

Price: Free (reservations recommended)
Loft Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Cephus Miles is on a journey, but not the journey he anticipated as a boy working on his grandfather's farm in Cross Roads, North Carolina. Life had other plans, taking him to the fast-paced and volatile world of New York City. A classic story of the African American experience, Samm-Art Williams' 1979 Tony-nominated Home is poetic and forceful, capturing the turbulence of the '50s, '60s and '70s while celebrating the inherent personal dignity in struggling to overcome misfortune.

With themes of salvation, acceptance and anti-war sentiment, Home takes its audience on a transformational journey from the plantations of North Carolina to hectic New York City and back again to the South. While many African Americans traveled North with hopes of prosperity, Home exposes the desire held by many to go back to the South.

Free seating can be reserved by calling 315-443-3275, or in person at the Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Read a review!

All in the Timing
Manlius Pebble Hill School

Price: $10
Manlius Pebble Hill School
5300 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt

Once Upon a Mattress
Christian Brothers Academy

Price: $8
Nottingham High School
3100 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Fiddler on the Roof

Price: $8
Liverpool High School Auditorium
4338 Wetzel Rd., Liverpool

Don't Feed The Actors Improv Show
Appleseed Productions

Price: $10
Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

The not-so-starving Don't Feed The Actor's Improv troupe is back on the Appleseed stage for their first anniversary show! Get your comedic stimulus package as the group displays their unique audience interactive show. There is no bailing out as the DFTA crew needs you and your suggestions to have a show.

Urinetown
First Year Players

Price: $7 general public, $4 with SU ID
Goldstein Auditorium, Schine Student Center
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Urinetown is a high-energy, comedic tale of greed, corruption, love and revolution. The musical is set in a large urban city during a severe water shortage, where citizens must pay to use the restrooms or face the consequences of being sent to Urinetown -- a place about which these citizens know very little.

The hero, Bobby Strong, leads a revolution against Urine Good Company (UGC), the corporation governing the public amenities. Along the way, he falls in love with the UGC President's daughter, Hope Cladwell. Though torn, Bobby continues with his revolution. As the city spirals into chaos, secret love affairs and the truth about Urinetown are revealed.

A musical about corporate greed, societal inequality, love vs. personal desire, and realism vs. ambitious dreams, Urinetown prides itself on not being a "happy" musical, but a hilariously satirical one. It subtly parodies well-known shows such as Les Miserables, Evita, Annie, West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof with flair. This off-Broadway sensation won three Tony Awards in 2002.

Parking will be available on Thursday for $3.50 in the Booth lot or in the Lehman and Harrison parking lots at no charge. On Friday and Saturday parking will be available in the Waverly and Marion parking lots at no charge.

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

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

Read a Review!

Home: An MFA Thesis Production
Syracuse University Drama Department
Sonita Surratt, director

Price: Free (reservations recommended)
Loft Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Cephus Miles is on a journey, but not the journey he anticipated as a boy working on his grandfather's farm in Cross Roads, North Carolina. Life had other plans, taking him to the fast-paced and volatile world of New York City. A classic story of the African American experience, Samm-Art Williams' 1979 Tony-nominated Home is poetic and forceful, capturing the turbulence of the '50s, '60s and '70s while celebrating the inherent personal dignity in struggling to overcome misfortune.

With themes of salvation, acceptance and anti-war sentiment, Home takes its audience on a transformational journey from the plantations of North Carolina to hectic New York City and back again to the South. While many African Americans traveled North with hopes of prosperity, Home exposes the desire held by many to go back to the South.

Free seating can be reserved by calling 315-443-3275, or in person at the Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Read a review!

Ruthless! The Musical
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

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

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

Read a Review!

Sunday, April 5, 2009

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

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

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

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

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Onondaga Historical Association
321 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Paintings from OHA's permanent collection

Drawing: VPA Students and Faculty Exhibit
Syracuse University School of Art and Design

XL Projects
307-313 S. Clinton St., Syracuse

For more information on XL Projects and the "Drawing" exhibition, contact Andrew Havenhand, VPA program exhibitions coordinator, at 315-474-1217 or ahavenhand@yahoo.com.

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

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

Anne Cofer: Concealed Objects
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

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

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

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

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

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

Maria De Santis and Friends
Fayetteville Free Library

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

A George Gershwin and Irving Berlin Gala
Arts Alive in Liverpool

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

Gayle Ross, soprano; Phil Eisenman, bass; Jerry Exline, piano

Graduate Piano Recital
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Featuring Benjamin Woodard

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

The program includes works by W.A. Mozart, Gustav Mahler, and Cesar Franck. The concert will also feature mezzo-soprano Carolyn Weber, a Setnor faculty member, as well as pianist Nathan Sumrall and violinist Juan Velasquez, both graduate students at the Setnor School.

Parking is available in Irving Garage.

Spring Concert
Syracuse Chorale
Warren Ottey, conductor

Price: $15 regular, $12 students/seniors, $8 children
St. Paul's Syracuse
220 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

Maurice Duruflé Requiem
Gabriel Fauré The Palms
Stephen Adams The Holy City

Senior Voice Recital
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music
Featuring Rachel Dudley

Price: Free
Hendricks Chapel
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The program includes a selection of Jewish and biblical music by Ned Rorem, G.F Handel, Felix Mendelssohn, and Darius Milhaud, as well as Israeli and Judeo-Spanish folk songs. The concert will also feature Nathan Sumrall on piano and soprano Emily Gibson, both graduate students at the Setnor School.

Parking is available in Irving Garage.

Graduate Composition Recital: Eric Merten
Syracuse University Setnor School of Music

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

A variety of works from a flute/clarinet duo to a chamber orchestra piece:
Theme and Variation for Flute and Piano
Chain for String Quartet
Duo for Flute and Clarinet
Prime for Violin, Percussion, Piano
Pots for electronic medium
Insistence for Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Russo

The Good Things About America Poetry Reading
Downtown Writer's Center
Featuring Rick Lupert and CNY poets

Price: Free
YMCA Downtown
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Rick Lupert is a Los Angeles poet whose family hails from Syracuse. He is the author of 11 collections of poetry, most recently "A Man With No Teeth Serves Us Breakfast," and the recently re-released "I Am My Own Orange County." He recently edited "A Poet's Haggadah—Passover Through the Eyes of Poets." Rick created and maintains the Poetry Super Highway, a major online resource for poets.

The Good Things About America, edited by Derrick Brown and Kevin Staniec, is a book that, above all else, celebrates the enduring awesomeness of the United States of America. This is not meant to sound glib, ironic, or superior. Rather, is implied is that despite every blind, deaf, and dumb thing America has done in its long and strange history—every misstep, unpunished crime, and lingering bias—there is still something honest, beautiful and hopeful about who we are as a country and as a people. This book serves as a historical document that uses poetry and prose to explore some of the visions for change, the modern glory, albeit broken or majestic, of this unbeatable rising landscape.

Fiddler on the Roof

Price: $8
Liverpool High School Auditorium
4338 Wetzel Rd., Liverpool

The Diary of Anne Frank
Syracuse Stage
Timothy Bond, director

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

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

Read a Review!

Home: An MFA Thesis Production
Syracuse University Drama Department
Sonita Surratt, director

Price: Free (reservations recommended)
Loft Theater, Syracuse Stage
820 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Cephus Miles is on a journey, but not the journey he anticipated as a boy working on his grandfather's farm in Cross Roads, North Carolina. Life had other plans, taking him to the fast-paced and volatile world of New York City. A classic story of the African American experience, Samm-Art Williams' 1979 Tony-nominated Home is poetic and forceful, capturing the turbulence of the '50s, '60s and '70s while celebrating the inherent personal dignity in struggling to overcome misfortune.

With themes of salvation, acceptance and anti-war sentiment, Home takes its audience on a transformational journey from the plantations of North Carolina to hectic New York City and back again to the South. While many African Americans traveled North with hopes of prosperity, Home exposes the desire held by many to go back to the South.

Free seating can be reserved by calling 315-443-3275, or in person at the Box Office, 820 East Genesee Street.

Read a review!

Ruthless! The Musical
The Talent Company
Dan Tursi, director

Empire Theater
New York State Fairgrounds, Geddes

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

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

Read a Review!

Monday, April 6, 2009

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

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

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

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

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

Skaneateles Artisans
11 Fennell St., Skaneateles

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

Murder in Black and White: Unsolved Civil Rights Murders
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts
Featuring Keith Beauchamp, filmmaker

Price: Free
Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

The Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies presents the discussion "Murder in Black and White: Unsolved Civil Rights Murders" with award-winning filmmaker and producer Keith Beauchamp. The discussion will include a documentary screening.

Beauchamp is the executive producer and director of Murder in Black and White, a four-part documentary series designed to examine and help solve civil rights murders from the 1940s and 1950s while aging, long-silent witnesses and perpetrators might still be alive. Beauchamp worked closely with the FBI, which recommended the cases, and the information uncovered during the filmmaking process was shared with the FBI's cold case unit. The series premiered in October 2008 on TV One and was hosted by the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Beauchamp is also the filmmaker behind the award-winning 2005 documentary "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," an investigation into the 1955 abduction and brutal murder of Till, a 14-year-old African American male in Mississippi. Till, who was from Chicago, was visiting relatives and allegedly whistled at a white woman in public the day of his murder. The acquittal of the suspects by an all-male, all-white jury and the suspects' subsequent confession and lack of punishment outraged many Americans and helped ignite the Civil Rights Movement.

Beauchamp studied criminal justice at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., before deciding to move to New York City to become a filmmaker and address issues of racial and social injustice. He is the founder of Till Freedom Come Productions, a company devoted to socially significant projects that can both teach and entertain. His numerous awards include the Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association, the ImageNation Revolution Award and the Freedom of Expression Award from the National Board of Review. He has been nominated for an Emmy Award and an NAACP Image Award.

Parking is available in SU pay lots.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

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

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

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

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

BFA Ceramics 2009 Exhibit
Clayscapes Pottery Gallery

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

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

Gallery Exhibition: Works of Anne Novado Cappuccilli
Onondaga Community College

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Arena Art Group Exhibit
Syracuse Technology Garden Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Passage: Latino Direction in CNY
Community Folk Art Center

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

Works by Alejandro Betancourt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Limbo: Works of Admas Habteslasie
Light Work Gallery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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