The Syracuse University Art Museum will host a day of free programming on Nov. 9 celebrating prominent photographer, composer, author, poet and film director Gordon Parks.

The community is invited to spend the day learning about Gordon Parks through both the exhibition and the accompanying family guide. Additionally, among the featured programs is an artist talk with contemporary photographer Jarod Lew at 1 p.m., and a screening of the 2021 documentary, “A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks,” at 2:30 p.m.

Throughout the day, the museum will also host a Community Arts Fair featuring local artists, community organizations and vendors in the galleria just outside the museum entrance. Local vendor Black Citizens Brigade will be hosting a pop-up store featuring a selection of books, magazines and records highlighting the work of Gordon Parks and his contemporaries.

Additionally, artist and educator Evan Starling-Davis will host a zine-making workshop where visitors can create their own eight-page zine (or booklet) based on personal photographs and archival and found images and text. Registration is required for the workshop. Interested participants can expect to spend at least 90 minutes creating their zine. .

Nicholas Mueller, “Untitled, Marseille,” 2022. Courtesy of the artist

In this exhibition, Muellner offers up photographs depicting people pantomiming in a verdant landscape made complex with surreal lighting; these images are paired with an issue of Contact Sheet that serves as a guidebook to the exhibition. The text in Contact Sheet is wryly poetic and succinct, and loosely leads us from picture to picture. “Asea” takes us somewhere without making its destination specific, setting a tone and mood that guides our desire for meaning but refuses to precisely locate it.

The exhibition conveys a type of suspended drama via an installation that divides the gallery into two rooms, creating an atmosphere in which viewers float, both in space and time. The majority of the portraits are of people connected to the maritime economy and all of the photographs were made in a landscape or setting that the subjects live in: Marseille, Odesa, Milan, Long Beach. The subjects gesture toward the camera, holding the invisible tools of their respective trades, and suggesting an estrangement from their concrete identities.

With “Asea,” Muellner projects a state of limbo and a search for personal meaning within photography’s inevitable narrative limits. We are asked to ponder alone, in a subjective state that is not fixed but which hovers within the parameters established by the photographs and text. Ultimately, we engage with “Asea” because it is at once thoughtful, beautiful and curious.

Artist Bio

Muellner is an artist and writer whose books include “Lacuna Park: Essays and Other Adventures in Photography,” “The Amnesia Pavilions” and “In Most Tides an Island,” which was shortlisted for the Paris Photo–Aperture PhotoBook Award and named a Best Book of the Year in Artforum. In addition to solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe, his writing has been published by MACK/SPBH, Aperture, Radius, Triple Canopy, Foam, and Routledge, among others. Muellner has performed slide lectures internationally, including at MoMA PS1, Carnegie Museum, The Photographers’ Gallery and the Museum of Contemporary Photography. His work has been supported by a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship in Photography, a John Gutmann Fellowship and residencies at the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies. Muellner received a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale University and an M.F.A. from Temple University. He is the founding co-director of the Image Text MFA and ITI Press at Cornell University.

In conjunction with the exhibition, artist Paulina Velázquez Solís will be present for a live performance on the Everson Plaza on July 26 at 8:30 p.m.

About the Exhibition

“Unseen/forgotten: An ode to the humble landscape” is the continuation of a project Velázquez Solís developed during the pandemic. She found herself in a new environment in Brooktondale, New York, surrounded by a creek where the change of pace and isolation brought via COVID accentuated the sound perception of the river, and its presence as a neighbor and living entity.

This sonic connection was similar to her home in Costa Rica, which is also next to a river, making the sound and the experience of the river both grounding and nostalgic. This project, which includes interactive and performance-based elements, explores Central New York as a site of “post-industrial natural wonder,” using regionally extinct species in local herbaria as tools to meditate on “the tension between what prevails and what has shifted or disappeared” in a field of “memory, transformation and territory.”

Paulina Velázquez Solís, “Unseen/forgotten” installation view, 2024 (Photo courtesy of Light Work)

About the Artist

(she/her) is a multimedia artist from Latinoamerica with an interest in the oddities hidden within nature and the body. She was born in Puebla, Mexico, and grew up between Mexico and Costa Rica, where she went to art school. She works in diverse mediums, including installation, sculpture, drawing, animation and multimedia performance.

She graduated with a degree in art and visual communication in printmaking at Universidad Nacional in Costa Rica and obtained an M.F.A. in new genres from the San Francisco Art Institute as a Fulbright Scholar. She moved to Ithaca, New York, in 2018 and is currently a faculty member in the art department at Cornell University and Ithaca College.

Her work has been shown around the world, including at the Museo de Arte y Diseño Contemporáneo and TEOR/éTica in Costa Rica, Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan, Ex-Teresa Arte Actual in México City, Museo de Arte in San Salvador, Torino Contemporanea in Italy, La Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, Mengi in Reykjavik, Iceland, Museum of the Americas in Washington, D.C., UCLA Biennial in Los Ángeles and the Berkeley Art Museum in the San Francisco Bay Area.

To request high-resolution images for press reproduction and interviews, contact Cali Banks, Light Work communications coordinator, at cali@lightwork.org.

UVP programs are made possible by a Tier Three Project Support grant from the County of Onondaga, with the support of County Executive Ryan McMahon and the Onondaga County Legislature, administered by CNY Arts. All Light Work programs are made possible by the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

“Paper Trail: Works by Veteran Photographers, Cartoonists and Sketch Artists,” is on display at the , which is managed by VPA’s creative arts therapy program, through Friday, Aug. 2.

Many of the images are from three cartoonist collections held at the . Featured are works by (“Beetle Bailey”), (“Marmaduke”) and (a World War II cartoonist). Other materials are by Alan Dunn and former students of the military visual journalism program at the : Kenny Holston, Preston Keres, Pablo Piedra, Ethan Rocke and Marianique Santos.

The co-curators, graduate students Ohoud Ibrahim Alfadhli, Upneet Kaur Mair and Katelyn Marie Miller, have all worked on various aspects of the exhibit as NVRC Gallery curatorial assistants.

Jennifer DeLucia

, assistant professor and chair of creative arts therapy, has guided the students through the project, which includes cartoons, photography and sketches that convey the complexities of the veteran experience. “As co-curators, students are empowered to take an active role in shaping the narrative and design of the exhibitions,” DeLucia says. “The interdisciplinary partnership between the art therapy and museum studies programs within VPA creates opportunities for unique dialogue as multiple perspectives inform the curatorial work, and students add fresh ideas and a great level of energy and enthusiasm.”

The experience also provides a unique interdisciplinary and experiential learning opportunity. “They are exposed to military culture and history, and that knowledge of military-connected communities will carry with them as they transition into new roles when they graduate, [helping them] address the miliary-civilian divide,” DeLucia says.

Ohoud Alfadhli

Co-curating the exhibit helped Alfadhli, an international student from Saudi Arabia, better understand the administrative functions of developing an exhibit, such as making appropriate legal arrangements for the loan of the art and copyright issues, she says. She also enjoyed delving into the archives to select exhibit items. “It allowed me to explore the artists’ works, sketches and correspondence, yet it was also challenging because I encountered numerous pieces that deserved to be exhibited.”

Upneet Mair

Mair, who is from India, says she enjoyed the installation process most. “It can be a bit exhausting, but the process is what I like about it, and once the exhibition is up, the satisfaction of doing it feels good,” she says. Mair, who has a master’s degree in fine arts, finishes the museum studies master’s program this spring. She wants to work at major museums in New York City as a curator or collection manager.

Katelyn Miller

Miller hails from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, which she��calls “a place where museums, history and community engagement rule every major endeavor.” She adds: “I have embraced that perspective in both my undergraduate degree and my graduate career here.”

Miller used software to plot the exhibits in the gallery space, inputting artwork dimensions to develop an accessible and efficient design, an aspect of exhibition work that she particularly enjoyed. “Working on this exhibition from concept to installation has been a valuable exercise in collaboration and exhibition research and design. This space is an ideal environment for developing my skills as a museum professional, and I hope that ‘Paper Trail’ conveys this effort to its visitors,” she says. Miller wants to work in an institution that provides the community with learning resources, such as a national park, library or museum.

“The NVRC was intentionally designed to nurture interdisciplinary programming to advance the social, economic and wellness concerns of veterans and their families,” says J. Michael Haynie, vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and innovation and executive director of the University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families. “Our collaboration with VPA at the NVRC Gallery is a unique example of Syracuse University’s commitment to being the best place for veterans, and I encourage the campus community to visit this impressive exhibit.”

Dawoud Bey’s “Clothes Drying on the Line.” (Photo courtesy of Dawoud Bey)

Black-and-white images from “An American Project,” made in Syracuse in 1985 during Bey’s artist residency at Light Work, chronicle the community and history of South Salina Street. These prints were recently gifted by Bey and Stephen Daiter Gallery to celebrate the dedication of the Jeffrey J.Hoone Gallery.

“Embracing Eatonville” was a photographic survey of Eatonville, Florida—the oldest Black-incorporated town in the United States—that featured work by Bey, Lonnie Graham, Carrie Mae Weems and Deborah Willis, and was exhibited at Light Work in 2003. Bey
made color photographs of high school students combining their portraits with text sharing personal hopes, fears, and dreams.

“I was invited to do a residency at Light Work in 1985, after being introduced to the organization by my friends, photographers Michael Spano and Sy Rubin. Applying and being accepted has remained an important highlight of my career almost forty years later,” Bey says. “It was the first time I was also able to have the kind of absolute support that allowed me to have what is still one of my most productive months ever as an artist. That support was something that I’d never experienced before, and it allowed for a profound burst of creative activity, going out into the Syracuse community every day to make photographs without the worry about how that investment of time would be remunerated.”

The projects will be on display in the Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery at Light Work (316 Waverly Ave.) from March 18 through May 17.

Peter Jones, “Twins,” 1989 Everson Museum of Art

A new exhibition of clay sculptures by acclaimed and highly innovative artist Peter B. Jones (Onondaga) will open at the on Aug. 24 and will be on view through Dec. 15. “Continuity, Innovation and Resistance: The Art of Peter B. Jones” comments on and actively resists the impact of colonialism on Haudenosaunee communities, past and present. His art presents Haudenosaunee culture as a continuum that has resisted and persisted despite serious attacks on Haudenosaunee lands, sovereignty and cultural identity.��

Under the direction of professors and (Akwesasne Mohawk Nation), this exhibition was co-curated by students at Syracuse University including Charlotte Dupree (Akwesasne Mohawk Nation), Eiza Capton (Cayuga Nation), Anthony V. Ornelaz (Diné), Ana Juliana Borja Armas (Quechua) and Jaden N. Dagenais. “It has been a distinct pleasure to co-direct this project with professor Stevens and to see the students who shaped the exhibition—Charlotte, Eiza, Anthony, AJ and Jaden—grow as scholars, curators and storytellers,” says Scott. “I am proud of the work they have done, which honors Peter Jones as a groundbreaking artist and has created space for teaching the Syracuse University and local communities about Haudenosaunee culture, history and vibrant present.”��

The exhibition features ceramic works lent from the National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, D.C.), the New York State Museum (Albany, New York), the Fenimore Art Museum (Cooperstown, New York), the Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, New York), the Longyear Museum of Anthropology at Colgate University (Hamilton, New York), the Iroquois Museum (Howes Cave, New York) and private collectors.��

About the Exhibition��

Peter B. Jones’s work is a testament to Haudenosaunee cultural continuity despite cataclysmic and overt challenges to Indigenous sovereignty owing to waves of colonialism, first by European powers and later by the United States and Canada. His traditional vessels revive ancient Haudenosaunee pottery techniques and styles, which were almost lost as Indigenous peoples adopted European trade goods and owing to profound disruptions by displacement, war and epidemics. Many of Jones’s innovative figurative sculptures celebrate Haudenosaunee worldviews and social organization, while others address��the negative impacts of missionary activities, Indian removal, assimilationist policies and capitalism. His sculptures of storytellers, wampum readers, medicine women, warriors and elders, remind viewers that, in the face of these tremendous pressures and challenges, Haudenosaunee peoples have maintained their culture, which is still thriving today. “Peter Jones has been recognized as the leading Haudenosaunee artist working in clay for over three decades and this exhibition gives us a great overview of his remarkable career,” says Stevens. ��

The exhibition and related programming has been made possible by generous support from a Humanities New York Action Grant, a mini-grant from the Engaged Humanities Network, which included access to a network to seed, support, and foster exchanges for the project, Syracuse University SOURCE grants, as well as co-sponsorship from the Humanities Center (Syracuse Symposium), College of Arts and Sciences, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Hendricks Chapel, Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Office of Strategic Initiatives, Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Native Student Program, Department of Art and Music Histories, and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program.��

About the Artist��

Peter B. Jones was born an Onondaga citizen (Beaver Clan) in 1947 and grew up on the Cattaraugus Seneca Reservation in western New York, where he now operates a pottery workshop and studio. He studied under Hopi artist Otellie Loloma while attending the Institute of American Indian Art in New Mexico. His pottery, which has revived traditional Haudenosaunee pit firing, hand-built coiling, and slab construction, is admired and collected by community members, art collectors, and museums across the country and internationally. Reminiscent of early Haudenosaunee pottery, Jones’ art both speaks to cultural continuity and directly reflects the issues that have impacted Haudenosaunee people. Jones works mostly in stoneware and white earthenware clay. He is currently teaching young potters at the Seneca Nation Sully, building a traditional arts and Seneca language facility on the Cattaraugus reservation.��

Featured Events��

Opening Reception: “Continuity, Innovation, and Resistance: The Art of Peter B. Jones”
Thursday, Sept. 14: 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum��

Peter B. Jones Artist Talk
Friday, Sept. 15: Noon to 1:30 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum��

Community Day
Saturday, Oct. 14: Noon to 4 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum��

Art Break: A Conversation with the Curators of Continuity, Innovation, and Resistance
Wednesday, Nov. 15: Noon to 12:45 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum��

website for more public programs surrounding the exhibition. Members of the media, please contact Emily Dittman, interim director of Syracuse University Art Museum, at ekdittma@syr.edu for more information or to schedule a tour.��

Syracuse University has participated in “On My Own Time” ever year it has been offered since 1982. Over the years, it’s estimated that more than 1,800 faculty and staff have exhibited.

This year’s on-campus exhibition, which was displayed in Hendricks Chapel throughout late May and early June, comprised 34 pieces of art from 17 faculty/staff artists representing 14 schools, colleges and departments across the University. The diverse range of artwork submitted this year included drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, glasswork, jewelry making, printmaking, fiber art, computer art and collage/assemblage.

Of the 17 artists, six were selected to display their art at the “On My Own Time” finale exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art from Oct. 11-Nov. 7. Five artists were selected by CNY Arts judges and a sixth individual received the People’s Choice Award, nominated by folks on campus who visited this year’s exhibition.

From left: Margaret Voss, Margaret Butler, Jenny Saluti, Austine Emifoniye and Marie Luther at the artists reception and awards ceremony June 8. Congratulations to this year’s winners, including Shikha Nangia (not pictured). (Photo by Angela Ryan)

The artwork and artists selected to exhibit at the Everson are the following:

• “Birds in Winter” by Margaret Butler, administrative specialist, College of Arts and Sciences (People’s Choice Award winner)
• “Royal Procession” by Austine Emifoniye, graduate assistant, School of Design, College of Visual and Performing Arts
• “Two Water Lilies” by Marie Luther, accounting clerk, College of Visual and Performing Arts
• “See How Brain Protects Itself from Intruders” by Shikha Nangia, professor of biomedical and chemical engineering, College of Engineering and Computer Science
• “Westie Holiday Surface Design” by Jenny Saluti, director of recruitment and admissions, College of Visual and Performing Arts
• “A Rococo Homage” by Margaret Voss, associate professor of nutrition and food studies, Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics

All of the winning artwork can be viewed below.

“Syracuse University’s steadfast history of participation in ‘On My Own Time’ highlights our commitment to community partnerships, connecting our campus community with the broader Central New York community,” said Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resource Officer Andrew R. Gordon at the artists reception and awards ceremony, held June 8. “The program is a symbol of our SU employer culture—a culture where we engage our team and celebrate the unique gifts they bring to the organization to make it such a wonderful place.”

Creating art can be both a relaxing and rewarding endeavor, even for those who don’t do it professionally.

“Creating a piece is a journey of many decisions. When I hold a finished piece that means I have persevered through each decision and met every challenge. That is the reward!” says Luther. “To find a message important enough to express in a piece of art involves looking inward and outward with depth. It is an honor to have something that I created displayed in the Everson.”

Voss says this recognition is extra special, as she made the piece of jewelry she entered in “On My Own Time” for a friend of her daughter to wear to her junior prom.

“Usually I paint in my free time, but this year I tried my hand at designing jewelry,” Voss says. “Not only was she beautifully adorned for what can be an awkward adolescent milestone, but she now owns a unique piece of art that will reside briefly in the Everson Museum. I hope it gives her great joy, and a few bragging rights, in the future.”

For Emifoniye, creating art on his own time adds value to his routine outside the pace and routine of his normal work. “It gives a form of relaxation as I channel creative energies and inspiration from the SU environment into producing art,” he says. “Exhibiting the resulting art at the prestigious Everson Museum is quite fulfilling.”

Additional participating faculty and staff artists include Molly Cavanaugh, Jesse Darling, Christian Day, Lisa Kennedy, John Olson, Christina Papaleo, Scott Samson, Christine Signy, Joseph Stoll, Ronald Thiele and Lynn Wilcox.

This year’s participants in “On My Own Time” (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Thank you to all who entered this year’s “On My Own Time” exhibition. The entire campus community is invited to visit the Everson this fall to see the artwork of the University’s winners and other local organizations on display. More information can be found on the .

Butler with her piece “Birds in Winter” (glasswork), People’s Choice Award winner (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Luther with her piece, “Two Water Lilies” (glasswork) (Photo by Angela Ryan)

“See how brain protects itself from intruders” by Shikha Nangia (mixed media) (Photo by Randy Pellis)

Emifoniye with his piece, “Royal Procession”(metalwork) (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Voss with her piece, “A Rococo Homage” (jewelry) (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Saluti with her piece, “Westie Holiday Surface Design” (computer art) (Photo by Angela Ryan)

Jessica McGhee ’19

Her resume would reveal a 2019 B.F.A. recipient from the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), a current graduate student in VPA’s art therapy program, an intern with a local hospital, an aspiring nonprofit leader, and a volunteer, instructor and arts programming coordinator with La Casita Cultural Center.

But she might describe herself in different terms—as a lifelong artist, a people watcher, a witness and observer of beauty, a survivor of intimate partner violence and sexual trauma, and an adamant believer in the power of art therapy.

“I love seeing the beauty in people, and oftentimes they cannot see it in themselves. I feel like being as I’m able to see it, it’s my job to communicate it,” McGhee says.

An artist from a young age, she is primarily a painter of surrealist landscapes, often created with mixed medias and on material that would otherwise be disposed of. Her work, with titles like “Roots,” “Mother Sun,” “Self-Actualization” and “On Coexistence,” evokes spirituality, connection to nature, self-expression, exploration of race and the prevalence of inner strength.

“My art has always tried to show people their value, the complexity of life, the complexity of existence in this physical place,” she says.

“On Coexistence” (mixed media on wood) by Jessica McGhee (Photo courtesy of the artist)

Art as a Therapeutic Intervention

Perhaps it was destiny that in 2019, the year McGhee graduated with a B.F.A., VPA announced the launch of its M.S. program in art therapy, housed in the Department of Creative Arts Therapy. She was intrigued by the program and eventually became part of its , beginning in the Fall 2021 semester.

McGhee says the program puts terminology and theory to what she felt she was already doing through her creative pursuits.

“Before I started the program, I feel I was doing art therapy with myself—but not fully understanding what was coming out,” she says. “I always learned a lot from my art and my creative investigation, but being in the program ties everything together and makes a lot of sense.”

Currently, McGhee puts theory into practice as an intern with a local hospital’s inpatient substance use disorder unit. She designed and facilitates a 28-day art therapy program that complements other treatment modalities for people with alcohol and substance use disorders.

Her clients receive support as they stabilize, build self-worth and find self-forgiveness, all critical to the recovery process, through principles of art therapy. “I teach about symbolism and metaphor, and it comes through in their artwork in ways that are so insightful,” McGhee says.

Based on her belief that substance use disorders are often a maladaptive response to trauma, McGhee emphasizes the importance of self-expression in healing and hopes to inspire others to find their purpose through art therapy.

“Once an individual can let go of all of the suffering and pain and actually start to investigate and get curious about their own interests, that’s when self-actualization comes to play,” she says.

Broadening her work beyond the hospital setting, McGhee holds multiple roles with , including volunteering with an Arts as Mindfulness group run by fellow art therapy student Bennie Guzman. The program is for adults to enjoy a space for creativity and self-reflection, build on community, manage stress and develop their creative expression.

“I teach different coping skills, meditation, strengths-based exercises and creative investigation into the self,” McGhee says. She is currently planning a community care workshop on April 3 at the .

Integrative Modalities

While art therapy is her main focus, McGhee incorporates other healing modalities into her work with clients and in the community.

Influenced by the principles of somatic therapy—which draws connections between emotions and where they are experienced in the physical body—she incorporates principles of vipassana (a Buddhist meditation technique), body scans, nature-based therapy and strengths assessments (she is fond of the ).

She explains that our emotional memories, particularly memories of traumatic origin, tend to be stored in the part of our brain that is non-verbal, or in the body, and surface later through these non-verbal realms—so practices that get us out of our brains and more connected to our bodies can help.

“All of those emotions and feelings, everything that’s going on inside of you, all of that nonverbal suffering… you can externalize it,” McGhee says. “In talk therapy, oftentimes you can re-experience the moment, and it can be re-traumatizing each time you bring it out of your mouth. But if you’re putting it on paper as it feels inside of you, then you’re actually exercising those emotions. You’re analyzing them, you’re investigating them, but you aren’t reprocessing that exact moment of trauma.”

Therapeutic Works on Display

Earlier this year, McGhee was invited to show her artwork at the University’s 38th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration as part of the held in the Club 44 VIP lounge in the JMA Wireless Dome.

“Never had I imagined I would be a part of something so big and so amazing,” she says of the experience, noting how surreal it was for her to see her art displayed on the JMA Dome’s giant videoboards. McGhee curated nine original works for the celebration, which welcomed over 2,000 students, faculty, staff and community members on Jan. 22.

The event was envisioned as a way for participants to celebrate the richness of Syracuse’s culture and beauty, in reflection of the theme of this year’s MLK Celebration, “Civil Rights and the City of Syracuse.” McGhee exhibited alongside fellow artists David R. MacDonald, Jaleel Campbell and Vanessa Johnson. Two pieces exhibited—“Self Actualization” (mixed media on a wood triptych) and “Rebirth” (mask)—were created as response art to her therapeutic work.

McGhee connects with a community member at the 2023 MLK Celebration in Club 44 of the JMA Wireless Dome. (Photo by Amelia Beamish)

“I was honored to be a part of the exhibition—it made me feel really wonderful,” McGhee says.

In the Works: Nonprofit Community Retreat Center

Upon graduating from the art therapy program next May, McGhee has aspirations to launch a Syracuse-based nonprofit offering alternative therapy services in a retreat-based setting to trauma survivors, regardless of their ability to pay. She and business partner Azra Gradincic have begun laying the groundwork to bring this dream to fruition.

The nonprofit, tentatively named , will offer inclusive access to integrative, holistic healing. Their ambition is to remove the financial barriers that often accompany retreat-style healing settings by offering a sliding-scale or free financial model, while also accepting Medicaid, Medicare and private insurance.

“I see a secure setting where people can heal and rebuild and have dedicated break time, when they aren’t trying to survive their day-to-day life, but can really focus on their personal needs and healing,” McGhee says.

McGhee with her painting “Lexical Priming” (mixed media on wood) at the 2023 MLK Celebration. (Photo by Angela Ryan)

To learn more about McGhee, visit . Her work is currently on display at (400 S. Salina St., Syracuse), Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and she plans to exhibit at La Casita later this spring.

Artist Rina Banerjee, with her artwork “Viola from New Orleans” (Photo courtesy of William Widmer)

While the world comes to terms with the profound impact of a global pandemic, it simultaneously continues to grapple with race, migration and climate change.��, associate professor in the Department of Art and Music Histories (AMH) in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), says one of the ways people can engage in important conversations about these pressing issues is through the power of art.

This semester, Ray opens “Take Me to the Palace of Love” at the , an exhibition she has curated of acclaimed artist��’s work, in consultation with Banerjee and Melissa Yuen, the museum’s interim chief curator. She will also host Banerjee as the Syracuse University Humanities Center’s in collaboration with students, faculty, curators and staff across the University.

Born in Kolkata, India, and having lived briefly in Great Britain before growing up in the United States, Banerjee has lived with the challenges of ethnicity, race and migration. Not surprisingly, her work examines how diasporas and journeys can affect one’s sense of place and identity.

Banerjee’s colorful sculptures feature a wide range of globally sourced materials, textiles, colonial/historical and domestic objects. Her previous experience as a polymer research chemist informs her unique style, as she received a degree in polymer engineering from Case Western University and worked in that field for several years before receiving an M.F.A. from Yale University.

She was recently appointed the inaugural Post-Colonial Critic at the Yale School of Art. Banerjee’s works have been displayed at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and she has held a prestigious artist’s residency at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Banerjee’s exhibition and an upcoming residency at Syracuse University are supported by the , the Syracuse University Art Museum, the CNY Humanities Corridor, over 30 University departments and units, and Todd Rubin ’04, president of The Republic of Tea, who is providing tea for Banerjee’s different residency activities.

In addition, Ray was recently awarded a Grants for Arts Projects award from the (NEA), in support of “” and Banerjee’s public art-making project which will take place in the City of Syracuse on Feb. 25. Notably, this is the first NEA grant for an exhibition at Syracuse’s art museum.

NEA Chair Maria Rosario Jackson says, “the National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support arts projects in communities nationwide. Projects such as this one at Syracuse University strengthen arts and cultural ecosystems, provide equitable opportunities for arts participation and practice, and contribute to the health of our communities and our economy.”

“Take Me to the Palace of Love” on Display Through May 14

Banerjee’s exhibition includes one of her noted installations, a re-imagined Taj Mahal made out of pink plastic wrap. Officially titled “Take Me, Take Me, Take Me…To the Palace of Love,”��this artwork is based on the famous Mughal monument in India, which also inspired the exhibition’s title.

“The ‘pink Taj,’ as it is affectionately known, is testament to Banerjee’s background as an artist and a polymer scientist,” says Ray. “It also evokes her birthplace, India, while reminding us of the consumerist culture of America in which she grew up—a culture reliant on the global economies of trade and exchange.” Ray notes that the sculpture is a portable object which, like the artist herself, is diasporic.

“Viola, from New Orleans” by Rina Banerjee, 2017 (Photo courtesy of Lily LeGrange)

“It has traveled from museum to museum, across oceans, not unlike the very image of the Taj which emerged a cherished souvenir from the 19th century onwards,” says Ray.

The installation is accompanied by examples of early 20th-century images of the Taj and Mughal architecture from the Syracuse University Art Museum and Bird Library, as well as from the (Cornell University). A chair designed by American furniture designer Lockwood de Forest, on loan from the , greets visitors to the exhibition. A key figure in the Aesthetic Movement, de Forest was influenced by Mughal architecture and design.

Two additional critically acclaimed art installations by Banerjee in the exhibition alongside African, American and Indian art from the museum’s collections include “Viola, from New Orleans” (2017), a multimedia work that explores interracial marriage in America, and “A World Lost” (2013), another multimedia installation that critiques climate change.

“I hope exhibition visitors will be struck by Banerjee’s intricate constructions that remind us that beauty can reside in the most mundane objects and materials,” says Ray. “Most of all, I hope we can find our own stories to connect with her art installations and drawings, which are powerful, spectacular and thought-provoking.”

Jeannette K. Watson Distinguished Visiting Professorship in the Humanities

The University community will have the unique opportunity to interact with and work alongside Banerjee during her residency as the Humanities Center’s 2023 Jeannette K. Watson Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities from Feb. 20-March 3. Banerjee will engage with faculty, students and members of the Syracuse and Central New York communities during a .

, director of the Humanities Center and the CNY Humanities Corridor, is delighted to welcome Banerjee to campus and invites everyone to engage with the residency’s layered series of events. “Professor Ray’s interdisciplinary vision, combined with the scope of Rina Banerjee’s oeuvre, has resulted in an exciting, robust array of opportunities to interact with Banerjee’s ideas and work, from large-scale lectures to intimate dialogues,” May says.

Banerjee’s residency has been designed as a series of interactive conversations led by faculty and students from African American studies, architecture, English, geography, law, South Asian studies and Women in Science and Engineering. Banerjee’s residency also involves curators from the , which houses a unique����as well as a growing archive of artists of color.

“A World Lost” by Rina Banerjee, 2013 (Photo courtesy of Lily LeGrange)

Banerjee’s residency begins with a virtual talk titled�� on Feb. 20 at 5:30 p.m. ET. Graduate students ��(AMH) and����(Newhouse) will introduce Banerjee as the 2023 Watson Professor in a Zoom conversation moderated by��, assistant professor of art history. Arora has curated a wall of Mithila paintings from India, in response to Banerjee’s drawings displayed in the exhibition.

Next, Banerjee will give a public lecture on Feb. 23, which will be followed by a reception at the museum. Her residency will conclude on March 4 with a public (in-person) dialogue with internationally acclaimed scholar , University Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University. Spivak’s event is supported by an award from the CNY Humanities Corridor to the�� working group, whose work focuses on public-facing humanities research, teaching and collaboration.

With support from the NEA grant, the CNY Humanities Corridor and an��, “Take Me to the Palace of Love” will be extended into the City of Syracuse, allowing new American and underrepresented communities to document their own stories about identity and place—individually and collectively— with Banerjee. The program, titled “,” is co-organized by��, Dean’s Professor of Community Engagement in A&S.��, students, faculty and community members will be invited to collaborate on a public art installation with Banerjee.

“As a resettlement city with several new and older generations of immigrants and asylum-seekers, Syracuse is uniquely positioned to serve as a source of everyday stories of resourcefulness and resilience,” says Nordquist, who is also co-founder of the Narratio Fellowship.

Rooted in cultural memory and storytelling, Nordquist notes that the public art-making project will foster a shared understanding of the diverse communities that make up the City of Syracuse. This event is Feb. 25 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Community Room at .

Four current Syracuse University students and Narratio Fellowship alumni will also compose poetry and create a film in response to Banerjee’s art installations and public art-making project. The poetry and film will be revealed during a March 30 event titled ��organized by Nordquist and����(Newhouse) at the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse.

Post-residency, the exhibition’s events will end with a chant performance by museum studies graduate student Amarachi Attamah. An online catalogue featuring essays and community responses to Banerjee’s art installations and the public art-making project, will also be published following the exhibition.

Collaborators who contributed to Banerjee’s exhibition and residency include Brice Nordquist, Dean’s Professor of Community Engagement (A&S); former Syracuse University Art Museum director Vanja Malloy; Vivian May, director, and Diane Drake, assistant director, Syracuse University Humanities Center; Sarah Workman, proposal development; Emily Dittman, Melissa Yuen, Kate Holohan, Dylan P. Otts, Jennifer Badua, Victoria Gray and Abby Campanaro, Syracuse University Art Museum; Pastor Gail Riina, Hendricks Chapel; Danielle Taana Smith, director, Renée Crown University Honors Program; Joan Bryant (A&S); Sascha Scott (A&S); Lawrence Chua (Architecture); Timur Hammond (Maxwell); David Driesen (Law); Mike Goode (A&S); Shobha Bhatia (Engineering); Nicolette Dobrowolski and Courtney Hicks (Bird Library); Mark Cass, Northside Learning Center; Susan Wadley, professor emeritus, anthropology; and students Ankush Arora (AMH), Natalie Rieth (Newhouse), Samaya Nasr (Museum Studies) and Julia Neufeld (AMH).

Curated by , associate professor of art and music histories in the College of Arts and Sciences, the exhibition features three monumental sculptural works by Banerjee, as well as works from the museum’s permanent collection, and loaned artwork from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University and the artist’s personal collection.

Rina Banerjee, “Take me, take me, take me…to the Palace of Love,” 2013 (Photo courtesy of the artist)

In conjunction with the exhibition, Banerjee is the 2023 Jeanette K. Watson Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities at Syracuse University. Banerjee’s two-week residency, “Diaspora, Displacement and the Science of Art,” will take place from Feb. 20-March 3.

The exhibition and Banerjee’s residency is generously supported by the Syracuse University Humanities Center, the Department of Art and Music Histories, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the Art Museum, along with 33 departments and units at the University and The Republic of Tea.

“We are delighted to bring Rina Banerjee’s creative spirit to Syracuse University,” says Ray. “’Take Me to the Palace of Love’ is not just an exhibition; it is fundamentally a love letter to nature, community and identity.”

About the Exhibition

“Can we rescue love?” is the fundamental question at the heart of “Take Me to the Palace of Love,” which includes Banerjee’s drawings and three critical art installations. It is through the nourishing power of love that we define our sense of place in our communities and on our planet.

Yet love, as Banerjee’s work discloses, has been distorted to create inequity and destroy our relationship with the natural world. The exhibition urges us to restore our social and planetary connections with love. Rooted in cultural memory and storytelling, it invites us to ask: Does love play a role in how we view ourselves and shape our sense of place? Has climate change been shaped by a loss of love? How does love shape or resist gendered and racialized identities? As we come to terms with a global pandemic, these questions grow sharper and more relevant than ever.

About the Artist

Now based in New York City, Rina Banerjee was born in Kolkata, India, and lived briefly in Manchester and London before arriving in Queens, New York. Drawing on her multinational background and personal history as an immigrant, Banerjee focuses on ethnicity, race and migration and American diasporic histories in her sculpture, drawings and video art. Her sculptures feature a wide range of globally sourced materials, textiles, and colonial/historical and domestic objects, while her drawings are inspired by Indian miniature and Chinese silk paintings and Aztec drawings.

Artist Rina Banerjee, with her artwork “Viola from New Orleans” (Photo courtesy of William Widmer)

In 2018 the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the San José Museum of Art co-organized Banerjee’s first solo retrospective, “Rina Banerjee: Make Me a Summary of the World,” featuring 60 works, including sculptures, paintings and video. The retrospective’s North American tour included exhibitions at the San José Museum of Art and the Fowler Museum at the University of California, Los Angeles before ending at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, in 2020.

Banerjee has exhibited internationally, spanning 14 biennials worldwide, including the Venice Biennial, Yokohama Triennale and Kochi Biennial. Banerjee’s works are included in many private and public collections, including the Foundation Louis Vuitton, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, San José Museum of Art, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum.

Banerjee returned to teaching in 2020, as a critic for the Yale School of Art Graduate Program. Between September 2021 and January 2022, she served a prestigious artist’s residency at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Featured Events

• , Feb. 20 from 5:30-6:30 p.m. ET, virtual
• , Feb. 23 from 5:30-7:30 p.m., Life Sciences 001, followed by a reception at the Shaffer Art Building
• , March 3 from 3-5:30 p.m., Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium, Newhouse 3

for more public programs surrounding the exhibition and Banerjee’s two-week residency.

Members of the media, please contact Emily Dittman, interim director of Syracuse University Art Museum, at ekdittma@syr.edu, for more information or to schedule a tour.

To express the celebration theme of “Civil Rights and the City of Syracuse,” four local artists were selected to show their works in the specially constructed gallery, which will be open to the public on Sunday, Jan. 22, before and during the traditional celebration dinner. The art gallery will open at 4:15 p.m. and the dinner will begin at 5 p.m. For more information, visit .

The exhibition will spotlight artists David R. MacDonald, Jaleel Campbell, Jessica McGhee ’19 and Vanessa Johnson. Curators for the exhibition include Qiana Williams and Cjala Surratt of the Black Artists’ Collective; Ken Harper, associate professor of visual communications and art curator in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications; and Hendricks Chapel staff.

THE ARTISTS

, professor emeritus at Syracuse University, is an acclaimed and celebrated ceramic artist, who has lived in Syracuse for many years. MacDonald joined the faculty of the School of Art and Design at Syracuse University in 1971. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, MacDonald’s work received most of its creative inspiration from his investigation of his African heritage. MacDonald draws much of his inspiration from the myriad examples of surface decoration that manifests itself in the many ethnic groups of sub-Saharan Africa. MacDonald’s work spans the complete spectrum of ceramic forms of a utilitarian nature.

Artwork by Jaleel Campbell

’s passion for creating knows no bounds. Whether it be through illustration work that showcases the often underrepresented, video work that captures the beauty and essence of Black life and culture, or handmade dolls that aim to honor and acknowledge African traditions, there is no limit to his creativity. “I create work that reminds Black people of their worth; even when the world becomes too heavy,” he says.

“Lexical Priming” by Jessica McGhee ’19

, originally from Los Angeles, California, moved to Syracuse in 2008. She earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Syracuse University in 2019 and is currently enrolled in the University’s creative arts therapy M.S. program. Her primary medium is painting, though she works in a variety of media. McGhee works therapeutically and believes strongly in art’s nonverbal ability to communicate, heal and transform the self in ways that impact the overall well-being of its creator. She is currently the arts programming coordinator and an instructor at the University’s La Casita Cultural Center.

“Hye Won Hye” by Vanessa Johnson

is a griot (storyteller) in the West African tradition. She is also a writer, playwright, actor, fiber artist, museum consultant, community activist, historian, educator and teaching artist. Johnson received the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Creatives Rebuild NY Grant for 2022-24. At Onondaga Historical Association, Johnson used her storytelling talents to tell the history of Onondaga County and she has been teaching in school programs since 2005. Presently, Johnsonteaches at Syracuse University’s Community Folk Art Center and is the artist-in-residence for the Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation

“We are excited for this year’s participants to celebrate the richness of Syracuse’s culture and beauty…and there’s no juicier way to do that than through art,“ says Harper, who has been on the MLK Event Planning Committee for the past three years. “We hope to expand the gallery next year to include collaborations with additional local artists, the Community Folk Art Center and the Syracuse University Art Museums.”

Tickets for the dinner and program, which will include student and community group performances, presentation of the Unsung Hero Awards and a keynote address from the Rev. Phil Turner,��.

Credit: Dawoud Bey

Impressive in its breadth and depth, the exhibition is a thoughtful curation of images and objects that have entered Light Work’s collection since the organization’s inception in 1973. Only the generosity of former Light Work artists-in-residence, grant awardees and individual donations have made this possible.

Light Work’s 50th anniversary presents a unique opportunity to share with the local, regional and national community the legacy of support the organization has extended to emerging and under-represented artists working in photography, lens-based media and digital image-making.

More than 4,000 photographic prints, objects and ephemera from an extensive and diverse archive are the basis of this exhibition. The selection maps out the many programs and partnerships representing 50 years of our commitment to increasing the visibility of lens-based artists.

The exhibition also highlights the hundreds of artists who came to Syracuse to expand their practice and make new work. Highlights in the show include images from acclaimed photographers Dawoud Bey (residency 1985), Wendy Red Star (Ellis Gallery 2019), Alessandra Sanguinetti (residency 2002, Main Gallery 2003), Cindy Sherman (residency 1981), Hank Willis Thomas (residency 2006), Carrie Mae Weems (residency 1988), James Welling (residency 1986) and many more.

Deborah Willis

The five-month celebratory retrospective will boast a full roster of exhibition-related special events, workshops, docent-led tours, and an artist lecture with award-winning historian, author, curator, photographer and former Light Work residency participant (1990), Deborah Willis, Ph.D. Light Work will host Willis’ lecture in the Everson Museum’s Hosmer Auditorium on Thursday, April 13, at 6:30 p.m.

Willis is a University Professor and chair of the Department of Photography and Imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. She is also the director of NYU’s Center for Black Visual Culture. Her body of work examines photography’s multifaceted histories, visual culture, contemporary women photographers, and beauty. She is the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Her many landmark publications include “The Black Civil War Soldier: A Visual History of Conflict and Citizenship” and “Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the Present.” Professor Willis’s curated exhibitions include “Home: Reimagining Interiority” at YoungArts in Miami, “Framing Moments” at the Kalamazoo Institute of the Arts, “Migrations and Meanings in Art,” and “Free As They Want to Be: Artists Committed to Memory” at FotoFocus 2022.

Medieval manuscripts from Special Collections Research Center collections

Syracuse University Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) has selected collection items currently on view at the Syracuse University Art Museum’s most recent exhibition, “Precious Metal: Gold Across Space and Time.”

On view until Dec. 11, “Precious Metal” is a celebration of the fifth anniversary of the significant discovery by global scientists and scientists at Syracuse University, who witnessed the production of gold through the collision of two neutron stars.

SCRC staff Irina Savinetskaya, curator (early to pre-20th century), and Daniel Sarmiento, curator (20th century to present), partnered with the Art Museum’s Interim Chief Curator Melissa Yuen to include a selection of SCRC items, along with input from Romita Ray, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in history of architecture; Duncan Brown, vice president for research and Charles Brightman Professor of Physics; Stefan Ballmer, professor of physics; and Steve Penn, professor of physics at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Visitors can glimpse a selection of SCRC materials that support the exhibition’s purpose in considering “how people have exploited gold’s unique physical properties to make art and to convey ideas about spirituality, power and opulence.” For cinema buffs and popular culture fans, an Academy Award won by Hungarian American composer and conductor Miklós Rózsa for scoring the 1959 film Ben Hur is featured. Also highlighted is��a “Book of Hours,” also known as MS 6 (ca. 1480-1500), a unique devotional work with intricate illuminated miniatures decorated in gold. Additionally, a text largely considered the earliest printed book on metallurgy, “La pyrotechnie, ou Art du feu,” by Vannoccio Biringuccio, is on view as well as a German Jewelry Making Manual from 1891, which includes instructions and recipes related to gold.

“SCRC curators are passionate about the collections they steward and enthusiastic to increase access and knowledge of historical resources and primary sources found within our world-class special collections. SCRC’s partnership with Syracuse University Art Museum on “Precious Metal” is an excellent example of collaborating with campus partners to expand the reach of SCRC collection materials across SU’s campus community,” says SCRC Lead Curator Courtney Hicks.

Yuen says, “I am delighted to work with my colleagues at the SCRC to showcase some of the treasures we have at Syracuse University. While the exhibition primarily highlights the cosmic origins and earthly meanings of gold, it also underscores the depth of expertise on campus that we are eager to share through collaborations such as this with our academic community.”

To learn more about SCRC’s items on view in “Precious Metal,”�� join Irina Savinetskaya during an upcoming talk as part of the Art Museum’s Lunchtime Lecture series on Nov. 30, from noon to 12:45 p.m. at the Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building.

When Brice Nordquist founded the (EHN) in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) in 2020, one the main ideas guiding its mission was to build and foster relationships between members of Syracuse University and the surrounding communities. To help facilitate that objective, EHN offers to support faculty and students at Syracuse on their publicly engaged scholarship and creative work.

Through initiatives tackling pressing issues like mass incarceration and climate change, grant awardees demonstrate how humanities knowledges and methods are used to answer urgent questions facing society.

EHN’s Engaged Communities Mini-Grants support projects like the Natural Sciences Explorer Program, where A&S faculty and students work with Central New York youth to spark their interest in science.

This year six different teams received $5,000 in seed funding to develop and implement University projects designed in collaboration with community partners. Mini-grant awardees for the 2022-23 academic year will be eligible, along with awardees from 2021-22, to apply for a $10,000 Sustaining Engagement Grant in Spring 2023 for continued work on their project.

From engaging elementary school students in scientific exploration to curating an art exhibition to illuminate Indigenous culture, this year’s winners exemplify the extensive range of scholarship across A&S. While each project is arts and humanities based, Nordquist says an important component of this initiative is promoting collaborations that take up a variety of subjects, topics and themes.

“Programs such as this year’s Natural Sciences Explorer Program and last year’s have core humanist elements even though they aren’t situated exclusively in a humanities field,” says Nordquist. “A key to this effort is supporting projects that span disciplines, are codesigned with community-based partners and have teams that are diverse in their stages of education and expertise. We hope each grant helps these partnerships grow and extend reciprocal relationships between Syracuse University and our community-based collaborators.”

To maximize impact, project teams will also meet with each other and members of the throughout the year to problem solve, share resources, align efforts and collectively advocate.

The NSEP works with elementary school children at the North Side Learning Center (NSLC) in Syracuse to explore biology and earth and environmental sciences through inquiry-based learning and culturally responsive teaching. The program aims to instill an interest in biology and geoscience for students in groups that are traditionally underrepresented in STEM. Using tangible projects that demonstrate how science plays a role in students’ everyday lives, the NSEP hopes to inspire a curiosity that stays with them well beyond their participation in the program.

Earth and environmental sciences graduate student Eliza Hurst presents a hydrology demonstration to Syracuse-area youth at the North Side Learning Center (NSLC).

They recently held a seven-week summer program focused on the Earth system as a whole. Through hands-on research, students learned about Earth’s four subsystems: the “lithosphere” (land), the “hydrosphere” (water), the “biosphere” (living things) and the “atmosphere” (air). Alongside project leaders, the young scholars explored how the different subsystems interact with one another. Students dissected owl pellets to construct a food web, which is a collection of food chains within a single ecosystem; learned about biomes, which are areas classified by species living in a particular location; and explored how temperature and moisture variations within their yards form microbiomes.

While this round of EHN funding supports their work only at NSLC now, project leaders hope to soon offer additional after-school programs at other community centers around Syracuse.

Philosophy Lab

Project Lead: Michael Rieppel, associate professor of philosophy

Michael Rieppel (right) leads a philosophy discussion at Southside Academy in Syracuse.

One of the most common questions children often ask is, why? That sense of wonder and feeling of puzzlement about the world, which often wanes as people reach adulthood, is what makes children perfect philosophers, says philosophy professor Michael Rieppel. But unfortunately, most elementary and middle school students rarely get to engage with philosophy, at least in the United States.

The Philosophy Lab, coordinated by Rieppel and philosophy graduate students, offers after-school programming for students in the city of Syracuse that emphasizes critical philosophical tools to help students understand the importance of reasoning. The program’s primary goal is to help participants build principled answers to existential questions they may be struggling to find answers to.

Questions students explore in the Philosophy Lab include: What makes you who you are, and what kind of changes can you undergo and still be you? Are there facts about what’s right and wrong, and where do these ethical standards come from? What is consciousness, and could a computer ever be conscious?

“Our goal in exposing them to philosophy is to show them that the questions they ask are worth taking seriously, and that they themselves have the skills necessary to dig more deeply into those questions and begin to formulate their own answers to them,” says Rieppel.

The program, currently being offered at Ed Smith K-8 School in Syracuse, is helping students gain a sense of empowerment and confidence in their ability to engage with philosophical questions analytically and to arrive at reasoned answers to them. Rieppel says he hopes to build on the success at Ed Smith and expand to other Syracuse city schools and after school programs in the future.

Deaf New Americans – Developing Language and Sharing Stories

Project Leads: Corrine Occhino, assistant professor of languages, literatures and linguistics with a dual appointment in the School of Education, and Monu Chhetri and Tamla Htoo (co-founders of )

Corrine Occhino

Occhino, Chhetri and Htoo’s project will support Deaf resettled refugees in Central New York who are learning American Sign Language (ASL), an important step in creating self-sufficiency among the community of Deaf New Americans.

Their work aims to better understand and support the literacies of deaf refugees through the creation of English language and ASL instructional materials. In collaboration with Deaf New Americans Advocacy Inc., a Central New York-based non-profit that advocates for and provides services to the local Deaf community, Occhino will develop bilingual ASL materials for Deaf resettled refugees in Syracuse. The project will include a video storytelling component to document the challenges and lived experiences of Deaf New Americans across contexts to bring awareness of their existence and needs.

Through a separate collaboration with Nordquist, Occhino will also set up a remote tutoring program for the hearing children of Deaf refugees who are second language learners of English.

Peter Jones Exhibition and Programming

Project Leads: Sascha Scott, associate professor of art history, and Scott Manning Stevens, Citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and associate professor of English and director of Native American and Indigenous Studies

Student Curatorial Team: Eiza Capton (Member of the Cayuga Nation; B.F.A. in Illustration), Charlotte Dupree (Citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation; B.A. in Art History), Anthony V. Ornelaz (M.F.A. in Creative Writing), Jaden N. Dagenais (M.A. in Art History; M.S. in Library and Information Studies) and AJ Borja Armas (Ph.D. in Cultural Foundations of Education)

Renowned artist Peter Jones with one of his ceramic sculptures

In collaboration with the, Scott and Stevens are working with a student curatorial team to organize an exhibit highlighting the work of nationally and internationally recognized artist Peter Jones. A member of the Beaver Clan of the Onondaga Nation, Jones’ works are held by prestigious museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Museum of the American Indian. In addition to reviving traditional Haudenosaunee pottery making, Jones has innovated a form of figurative ceramic sculpture through which he highlights traditional Haudenosaunee culture and the challenges their communities face.

The exhibition, which will open at Syracuse University in August 2023, is being curated by undergraduate and graduate students under the direction of Stevens and Scott. The student research team has selected works of art for the exhibition, created the thematic design, and interviewed the artist. They are currently conducting research for the exhibition and are writing wall text and catalog essays.

Patrick W. Berry

With over 2 million people in prisons and jails, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Even after being released from prison, formerly incarcerated people face numerous hurdles when reacclimating into society, which can often lead to a relapse into criminal behavior, says Patrick W. Berry, author of “Doing Time, Writing Lives: Refiguring Literacy and Mass Incarceration.”

“Formerly incarcerated people are frequently told what they cannot do, where they can’t live, where they can’t work, and where they can’t go to school,” he says. “This makes finding a way so incredibly difficult.”

In collaboration with the Center for Community Alternatives, an organization promoting reintegrative justice and a reduced reliance on incarceration, Writing Beyond Release will initiate the launch of “Mend.” The national online and print publication will discuss the crisis of mass incarceration from the personal narratives of people who have been directly impacted. “Mend” will work to educate the nation about the shortcomings of the current incarceration system and help incarcerated people and their families develop new facets of their identities.

“The ‘Mend’ initiative is about community building,” says Berry. “It is about the process of making something together, learning practical skills in writing and publication, and contributing to new narratives.”

While the program itself will be situated in Central New York and created and edited by formerly incarcerated people and their families from the region, the publication will be open to anyone whose life has been impacted by mass incarceration. Unlike other journals for the incarcerated, Berry explains that this project will not limit authors on subject matter.

“While prison narratives will be welcome, they will not be the publication’s sole focus,” he notes. “As writers explore different aspects of their lives and experiences, we do not to limit them. This approach is necessary because too often formerly incarcerated writers cannot leave behind the identity created by their being in prison.”

Take Me to the Palace of Love

Project Leads: Romita Ray, associate professor of art and music histories, Vanja Malloy, director and chief curator of the Syracuse University Art Museum, and Ankush Arora, graduate student, art and music histories

Artwork by Rina Banerjee will be on exhibit this spring at the SU Art Museum. (Courtesy: William Widmer)

Can we rescue love? That is the question posed by acclaimed artist Rina Banerjee, whose exhibition “Take Me to the Palace of Love,” will be on view at SU Art Museum in Spring 2023. An immigrant artist who was born in India, Banerjee’s art is shaped by her first-hand experience witnessing how love can go awry when ethnic and racial differences are leveraged to divide instead of to unite.

Her exhibition at Syracuse is inspired by “Take Me…to the Palace of Love“ (2003), one of Banerjee’s noted art installations about home and diaspora whose focal point, a pink saran-wrap Taj Mahal, will be exhibited at the Syracuse University Art Museum alongside “Viola, from New Orleans” (2017), a multi-media work that explores inter-racial marriage in America, and “A World Lost” (2013), another multi-media installation that critiques climate change. These artworks will be complemented by folk art from India, African masks, Indian sculpture, other items from the museum’s collections, as well as artworks from additional museums in Central New York.

Rooted in cultural memory and storytelling, the exhibit collectively asks: What role does love play in identity-formation and place-making? And how does love shape or resist gendered and racialized identities?

With support from the EHN mini-grant, “Take Me to the Palace of Love” will be extended into the City of Syracuse, allowing the University community and new American and underrepresented communities to document their own stories about identity and place—individually and collectively—in dialogue with Banerjee who will be in residence as the University’s in the spring.

The public will be invited to participate in the installation by producing short essays, poetry, fiction, podcasts, or short videos that will be curated in close consultation with Banerjee. Exhibition curators Romita Ray and Vanja Malloy, and community engagement coordinator Brice Nordquist will also contribute to the catalogue and solicit and select contributions from members of the University and Syracuse communities.

The catalogue will be housed on the SU Art museum’s website, allowing it to become a dynamic site of knowledge-sharing and knowledge-building within and across different communities. There will also be a public display in the city of Syracuse at a site to be determined.

Find more information on the .

He also noted that outdoor museum programming can help keep museums successful financially by bringing in new revenue, particularly during the pandemic. “Small museums or ones with limited or no endowments have taken a financial hit in the last two years, so they need funds to stay open,” he said.

“Wild Hunt” watercolor print by Amelia Leonards (Ameluria) | Collection of Molly Wight

A new exhibition at the explores the role that the online marketplace Etsy plays (or will play) in the art world through what is considered “fine art.”

“Caveat Emptor: Etsy in the Art World” aims to present the historical prevalence and popularity of mass-produced objects, as well as how online platforms such as Etsy offer a departure from traditional work made for the masses.

Curated by Molly Wight G’22, a museum studies graduate student in the University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), the exhibition is the culmination of independent study and research that showcases several artists, including Andy Warhol, Winslow Homer, Japanese woodblock prints and selections from the curator’s personal collection.

“Isshi Kaido-maru,” a woodblock print by Utagawa Kunisada (Toyokuni III), 1786-1864 | Collection of the British Museum

The exhibition will be on view at the Sue and Leon Genet Gallery, located on the first floor of the Nancy Cantor Warehouse at 350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse, through April 3. A reception will be held Monday, April 11, from 5 to 7 p.m. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, noon to 5 p.m. or by appointment.

“Caveat Emptor” examines not only how artists who market their artwork on Etsy interact with the art world, but also the precedent for mass-produced art and how Etsy art shares similarities but also has differences from types of art like ukiyo-e prints and Alphonse Mucha’s Art Nouveau posters. Artwork that is marketed on Etsy is contemporary art in that it is created by living artists, but it is very different from the kind of contemporary art that most museums collect.

Based in VPA’s School of Design at the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, the Sue and Leon Genet Gallery is a student-managed space hosting exhibitions from the school’s students, faculty and alumni. Programming seeks to engage the University and downtown Syracuse community with exhibitions inspired by and related to the field of design.

The 119 Euclid Artwalk features 10 artists, with the theme of “Voices of the Heroes,” “highlighting how Black students at Syracuse and within the Syracuse community are reclaiming narratives and becoming the hero of their own stories,” says Bryanna Hull ’22, who helped organize the event.

Illustration major Bryanna Hull ’22 wants to give Black student artists a platform to showcase their important work—and to give the campus community a chance to discover those artists and start conversations around their artwork.

Her efforts led to the , an exhibition of artwork at 119 Euclid Ave., which runs through Saturday, Feb. 19.��Dedicated to celebrating the Black student experience, is a welcoming space for the campus community, especially Black students and those interested in Black history and culture, to relax, share and learn.

Bryanna Hull

The 119 Euclid Artwalk features 10 artists, with the theme of “Voices of the Heroes,” “highlighting how Black students at Syracuse and within the Syracuse community are reclaiming narratives and becoming the hero of their own stories,” Hull says.

Hull first proposed the idea of an art show in October to Cornelia Stokes, office coordinator at 119 Euclid, which is overseen by the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. The first art show was held in October.

“After that first show, I explained to Cornelia how I want the art shows to represent and give platforms to people of color on campus to be held every semester,” says Hull, who assists with the visual curation at 119 Euclid. “I had the idea of having the next one in February in celebration of Black History Month.”

The artwalk event, which features artists both from the University and from the Syracuse area, is intended to represent Black artists who often don’t get the recognition they deserve, Hull says.

Visitors to the exhibition can explore and examine the varied stories of each particular artist through the artists’ work.

“What you can expect is people’s stories being told, their voices being heard, them being seen. Each artwork represents them and their stories or what they have experienced,” Hull says. “I want people to be able to digest the stories being told and start a conversation, feel the emotions put into the art and see how each artist expressed their story.”

The 119 Euclid Artwalk runs through Saturday, Feb. 19.

One of Hull’s art pieces, “The Black Print,” is on display during the exhibition. The artwork “is about Black people being the blueprint for everything,” Hull explains.

Hull’s own story as an illustrator began when she was around 6 or 7 years old.

“I would create art and illustrate my own books and calendars for fun,” she says. “When I reached high school and had to decide what programs I was looking to go to college for, I knew it was art I wanted to do but didn’t know specifically what it was called that I was doing.”

Her art teachers directed her into illustration, which reflected Hull’s skills and talents.

Hull has worked with multiple mediums, such as cast/mold making; oil and acrylic paint; pen and ink; pencil and digital, but most of her work is done digitally through Procreate and Adobe applications.

“My inspiration mainly stems from wanting to represent myself and what my brand is, which is identity and speaking on social injustices and activism,” Hull says. “A lot of my work is based on who I am and where my family comes from, along with things I’ve experienced or seen.”

“The Black Print,” by Bryanna Hull, is part of the 119 Euclid Artwalk.

Her work has become stronger through the close-knit experiences she shares with the students and faculty within the illustration program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

“There is a lot of one-on-one time with the professors, and that’s what I value the most because they know me personally and what I like, how I draw, etc., which helps them help me improve my skills,” says Hull, who is also involved with campus groups Renegade Magazine, Mixtape Magazine and fullCIRCLE, a mentoring group for people of color. “Not only that but the group critiques from classmates that we have—the professors really push for feedback from other classmates as well as staying connected with one another.”

Her journey at Syracuse continues after she graduates, as she will pursue a master’s degree in the multimedia, photography and design program in the Newhouse School.

“I eventually want to work in the editorial illustration field with magazine companies such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, etc.,” Hull says.

She will also continue to elevate her work on a personal level to let others connect with her work. “I plan to fully invest in my business, Arts by Bry, and sell my work,” she says.

The 119 Euclid Artwalk runs through Saturday, Feb. 19.

“My work shows a mysterious, quiet atmosphere. I secretly pass by these insects, flowers and trees, observing the lonely and beautiful beings, while speculating on their lives. I appreciate their brief encounters with me. They are like a sedative, making me stop and breathe,” says Xuan Liu, a third-year master of fine arts in illustration student in the .

Xuan Liu (left) and Ann Skiold

It is almost as if time has frozen, making me feel the rhythm of life and the environment. I follow these plants, insects, and cells to feel the cycle of life, the impermanence and eternity of life — Xuan Liu.

For more information about the Biblio Gallery, contact S. Ann Skiold, M.F.A., MLIS, librarian for decorative and applied arts, design, art history, film, photography, and Spanish and Italian at Syracuse University Libraries, or apply to submit an exhibition via the

Melissa Yuen

Melissa Yuen was appointed curator of the on Dec. 1, 2021. She joined Syracuse from the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and previously served as a curatorial fellow at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center.

SU News sat down with her to learn more about her role and her vision for future exhibitions at the Syracuse University Art Museum.

A reception for Henkel and his gallery talk takes place on Thursday, Nov. 4, at 6 p.m. in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery. The reception is free and open to the public, with light refreshments.

About the Exhibition��

Whatever is discarded, broken and damaged draws James Henkel to it. The objects he collects, assembles, or deconstructs are humble, common and often no more than the scale of the human hand. Both the patina of wear and the handling that was often the source of the object’s destruction are clearly present. He presents pieces of ceramic pots, bowls, bricks, toys, combs and well-worn books in their broken fragments. Completely useless now, they remain a testimony to someone’s life. This is what Henkel elevates by photographing these found objects so directly. Tension abounds in his work between the humble and the monumental, between play and decay, between high and low. The artist cross-references grander ideas from art history, painting, and sculpture, while also pointing back to the simpler but profound experience of photographing an ordinary life.

James Henkel

James Henkel has lived his life around artists and creatives. His wife and daughter are both artists and he is professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota’s Department of Art. In his years as an undergraduate, he discovered the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina. He has remained closely tied to the school and now lives nearby. The potters, weavers, bookbinders, and artisans of Penland have influenced his thinking as he challenges the relationships between art, craft, function, and beauty. Henkel photographs objects as containers of memory. He uses his camera to focus our attention and to share a sense of wonder. Those too invested in hierarchies will miss it. This is what artists do: expose our blind spots and encourage us to see.

Fallen Warrior, 1957

Spanning over seven decades, the exhibition of 31 prints of varying media highlights Kaish’s mastery of traditional and emerging techniques, starting with an early drawing Kaish created as a student at the University in 1945, through his experimental years in Italy and culminating in the dramatic color and patterns of his current “Butterflies” series.

The Palitz Gallery is located at 11 E. 61st St., New York City. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m-6 p.m. The exhibition runs through March 4, 2022, and is closed University holidays (Nov. 25-26 and Dec. 23-Jan. 3).

A will be held on Tuesday, Nov 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition and related programs are free and open to the public. In accordance with the New York City mandate, all visitors aged 5 and older must show proof that they have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.�� Masks (age 2+) are required for all visitors. Contact 212.826.0320 or lubin@syr.edu for more information.

La Casita Cultural Center in Syracuse

The 2021-22 academic year marks the 10th anniversary of La Casita Cultural Center, and the organization will commemorate the occasion with the opening of a new exhibition, “.” The exhibition honors the community of artists, educators, students and families who have been a part of La Casita’s history. The opening reception and launch of the exhibition on Sept. 18 will coincide with 2021 National Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

Tere Paniagua, executive director of the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community in the College of Arts and Sciences, says the goal of the exhibition is to honor the people who have devoted their time, energy, talents and histories to La Casita. “Our students, faculty, staff, local residents and artists, put their heart in everything they do here, and they are the heart of the barrio,” she says. “This fall, as we return to in-person programming and begin to heal from the public health crisis experienced last year, the center’s programs will focus on healing through creativity and artistic expression.”

The “Corazón del Barrio��(Heart of the Barrio)” program will also include community dialogues, the release of a new children’s book that comprises five years of dual-language writing and illustration workshops where the authors and graphic artists are the children participating in the programs, as well as the release of a new publication produced by the Teen Writing Program offered last summer, a 90-page book titled “My Life In Syracuse,” edited by Zakery Muñoz, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Writing Studies, Rhetoric and Composition.

The exhibition’s opening reception on Sept. 18 is from 6 to 8 p.m. and guests can attend in-person at La Casita (109 Otisco St. in Syracuse) or view virtually via Zoom. The opening festivities will include a tour of the exhibit, a live duet by Colombian violinist Sara Silva G’06 with Cuban classical guitarist and soprano, Liamna Pestana ’21; a spoken word performance by Noel Quiñones; live salsa music by Henry Rosado and his Grupo Boricua and a live performance by the Syracuse-based dancers of Dominique’s Dance Creations.

Admission to the event is free. Guests in attendance will be required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test and use of masks will be required. More details and an online registration link are available through .

Students and alumni facilitating a dual language reading program with children at La Casita.

The opening event is part of the Syracuse University Humanities Center’s��.”

Support for La Casita comes from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Latino-Latin American Studies Program, the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community, the Office of Community Engagement, PLACA (Program on Latin America and the Caribbean, Maxwell School) and the Syracuse University Humanities Center.

Ann Mitchell, Cactus Basket, 2017

A new exhibition is now on view at Syracuse University Art Museum featuring more than 52 contemporary artworks by Indigenous artists from all six Haudenosaunee Nations across what is now New York.

The exhibition takes a closer look at the multiple sources of inspiration in contemporary Haudenosaunee art, including treaties, the natural world, community and family members, ancestors, oral histories, and connection to land.

“Collectively, the artworks in this exhibition break convention by challenging the expected, disrupting stereotypes and interrupting non-Haudenosaunee historical narratives,” says Vanja Malloy, director and chief curator of Syracuse University Art Museum. “As the artists and their works demonstrate in this exhibition, the continuous trajectory of Haudenosaunee art has been in existence since long before 1607 and the arrival of Europeans.”

Erwin Printup Jr., Three Sisters, 2018

“Each One Inspired: Haudenosaunee Art Across the Homelands” will give visitors a sense of the dynamic, loud, punchy, glittering, somber and intricate ways Haudenosaunee artists respond to, react to and draw inspiration from their communities and histories; in doing so, this exhibition asks visitors to question their own relationships to Indigenous histories, people and lands.

The exhibition is curated by Gwendolyn Saul, curator of ethnography at the New York State Museum in Albany. The works in the exhibition come from the New York State Museum’s contemporary Native Art collection consisting of more than 150 original artworks by artists whose ancestral lands lie within what is now New York state. The majority of artwork featured in “Each One Inspired: Haudenosaunee Art Across the Homelands” comes from new art acquisitions made during the past six years.

“The exhibition beautifully accentuates Haudenosaunee aesthetic voices, creativity, resilience and resistance. It is important that these voices be honored at Syracuse University, which sits on the unceded lands of the Onondaga Nation,” says Sascha Scott, associate professor of Native American and Indigenous studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, who is a specialist in 19th- and 20th-century American art and Native North American art.

Carrie Hill, Untitled, 2018

Haudenosaunee is an alliance of native nations united for the past several hundred years by complementary traditions, beliefs and cultural values. Sometimes referred to as the Iroquois Confederacy or Six Nations, the Haudenosaunee consist of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora Nations.

Special Events

12:15 p.m., Friday, Sept. 24
Join guest curator Gwendolyn Saul, Ph.D., for a curator’s tour of the newly installed exhibition “Each One, Inspired: Haudenosaunee Art Across the Homeland.”

4 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 7
Curator Gwendolyn Saul, Ph.D., will join artist Hayden Haynes (Seneca) for a discussion on the art of antler carving, how Hayden became interested in this medium and what inspires his work.

5-7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 7
Join the museum for a reception celebrating the fall exhibitions.

12:15 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 3
“Each One, Inspired” exhibiting artist Ronnie-Leigh Goeman (Onondaga) will offer a lunchtime lecture about her artwork on display, as well as show examples of her other basketry work and discuss the various materials including samples of the tree and grass used.

Check the for more public programs that will be added in the coming weeks. Members of the media may contact Emily Dittman, associate director of Syracuse University Art Museum, at ekdittma@syr.edu for more information or to schedule a tour.

Courtesy of Kelvin Burzon

“Noli Me Tangere,” an exhibition by artist Kelvin Burzon, will be on view Aug. 30-Dec. 10 at Point of Contact Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public Mon.-Fri., noon-5 p.m. or by appointment, with proper social distancing and face masks worn over the nose and mouth. Guided tours will be available virtually or upon request.

Kelvin Burzon is a Filipino-American artist whose work explores intersections of sexuality, race, gender and religion. As a child growing up in a Filipino culture, Burzon’s initial ambition was to become a Catholic priest. “I have always been interested in the religion’s role in culture and familial relationships and have been drawn to the religion’s traditions, imagery, theatricality, and its psychological vestige,” says Burzon. His work is inspired by cerebral influences growing up in and around the church. “My cultural and familial identity, my memories as a child, cannot be separated from the church. It was an integral part of what it meant to be Filipino,” Burzon adds.

Burzon received MFA degree from Indiana University’s School of Art + Design, where he developed his most recent bodies of work. There, he was a performing member of the African American Dance Company, where he flourished in a collaborative performance outlet. This outlet blossomed interests in critical race theory, photography’s role in people’s social identities, storytelling, archival gaps and performance. Burzon received a bachelor’s degree from Wabash College, where he studied studio art and music. There, he became versed in painting, sculpture, ceramics and photography. He studied music history, violin and piano performance, vocal performance and years of ethnomusicology.

Burzon continues to push his work with inspirations from the past, recontextualized naratives and imagery of religion, paired with the never-ending stimulation and inspiration from the LGBTQ+ community. He seeks to push the limits of his work by visually redefining and creating a new narrative for himself and those like him.

“Noli Me Tangere,” “touch me not” or “don’t tread on me,” (Latin) is a series of photographs that examines an internal conflict of homosexuality and Catholicism. The photographs address, but don’t aim to solve, the contentions between religion and homosexuality. Utilizing appropriated religious imagery and language, the work is recontextualized by the insertion of LGBTQ members and activists posing as Catholic deities. Themes, lighting and color treatment are adopted from the works of Renaissance artists. The photographs are then presented as polyptychs in the style of Catholic altarpieces.

This program is possible thanks to the support of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community, and the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University, and is part of the University’s Humanities Center 2021-2022 Symposium “Conventions.”

Artwork from the “Carrying the Thick Present: Fabulation” exhibition at the Point of Contact Gallery. (Photo courtesy of Catherine Spencer)

Point of Contact Gallery is proud to announce the opening of “Carrying the Thick Present: Fabulation,” the 2021 Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) exhibition curated by Manuela Hansen. Featured artists include Katlyn Brumfield, Ellery Bryan, Jihun Choi, Alvin Huang, Catherine Spencer and Dahee Yun from the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

The exhibition will be on view at Point of Contact Gallery from March 30-May 21. Admission is free and open to the public by appointment only, with proper social distancing and face masks worn over the nose and mouth. Guided tours will be available virtually or upon request.

To book an appointment, visit . “Carrying the Thick Present” is broken down into three central themes: intimacy, fabulation and trauma. “Fabulation,” on view at Point of Contact Gallery, features six artists’ exploration into the potentials of fabulation, that is, of fabricating the real through speculative storytelling and alter-worlding. Eerie environments and monstrous organisms emerge. Communal care, dancing with ghosts and grieving with others are forwarded as methods of bearing the weight of loss. Gaming and tales of multispecies kinship heighten awareness of our enmeshment within a multispecies landscape. Through the gesture and practice of fabulation, these artists’ works offer other configurations to dwelling with loss and open us into an appreciation of our entwined shared living and dying. Through fabulations, these works reimagine the thick present and its multiple past and future durations, disrupting habitual narratives about the self and about our ways of living together.

Katlyn Brumfield grew up in Madison County, Kentucky, and earned her bachelor’s degrees in art history and studio art from the University of Louisville. Her sculptural work draws from the material culture of Appalachian agrarianism to create ritual settings for ecological mourning. Brumfield has collaborated with scientific collections and conducted international fieldwork in her research and creative practice. By weaving scientific knowledge into elegiac and regional narratives her works embody the emotional dimensions of imminent planetary catastrophe.

Ellery Bryan is a nonbinary visual artist working primarily with loss, ritual and temporality. Their artwork manifests as tactile objects, written and verbal text, aural installations, film and video. They envision the potential for tangible media and everyday environments to perform as entrances for mysticism and transcendent futures. They are based on unceded Piscataway land currently called Baltimore, Maryland, and have shown their work at institutions such as the Museum of Art and Design in New York and the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Jihun Choi received a bachelor of arts degree in media studies and production from Temple University in Philadelphia in 2017. He uses video documentation of self-expression to illuminate social injustices that directly affect him, while also investigating and identifying the complexities of humanities and the side effects of a society compartmentalized by identity. He identifies this as social gaze; a product of social construction, that is a tainted lens that everyone subliminally looks through. Choi’s position as an Asian minority artist is to express the lost sense of belonging that was generated from his own experiences and exposure to the diverse culture.

Alvin Huang was born in New York, grew up in the U.K. and now lives in Taiwan. He earned a B.S. in life science in 2011 and now takes an interdisciplinary approach toward the computer art field. His works focus on fictional biodiversity, where he uses them as a figurative device to invite people to think through real-world issues.

Catherine Spencer from rural upstate New York uses a wide range of materials in her work. By transforming found objects beyond recognition, she offers her audience an alternative environment.�� These environments reference various forms of escapism as well as the distortion of emotional pain. She received a bachelor of fine arts in painting at Alfred University in 2013.

Dahee Yun was born in March 1991 in South Korea and currently works in Syracuse, New York. She is a filmmaker, painter and film educator and her films have screened at numerous international film festivals. Conceptually, Yun investigates blurring boundaries such as reality and dreams and questioning normality; furthermore, her works always talk about women and animals based on her autobiographical story.

About the Curator

Manuela Hansen is a Fulbright Fellow from Argentina pursuing an M.A. in modern and contemporary art: critical and curatorial Studies at Columbia University. Her field of research includes contemporary art with a focus on the posthuman turn, institutional critique and Latin America. Through a post-humanist feminist lens, her thesis focuses on works by Mariko Mori, Anicka Yi and Mika Rottenberg, and argues that they can be seen as challenging pervasive dualisms in Western thought. Hansen currently serves on the steering committee of the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery; she has also served at MALBA Joven’s steering committee (Young Friends Association of the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires). She has worked as adjunct professor of Latin American and Argentinean art in Universidad del Salvador, Argentina (2016-19); as project manager of Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires (2017-19); and as artistic director of Buenos Aires Art Week (2019). Manuela earned her bachelor of arts (with Honors) in arts management and art history at Universidad del Salvador Argentina.

Exhibition Venues:

• Carrying the Thick Present: Intimacy
  Syracuse University Art Museum
  Shaffer Art Building
  Exhibition dates: April 8-May 23, 2021
• Carrying the Thick Present: Fabulation
  Point of Contact Gallery
  The Warehouse, 350 West Fayette Street
  Exhibition Dates: March 30-May 21, 2021
• Carrying the Thick Present: Trauma
  Community Folk Art Center
  805 E Genesee Street
  Exhibition Dates: April 8-May 23, 2021

This program is possible thanks to the support of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community and the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University.

Ballard’s use of imagery reflects social issues affecting the African American experience within a historical context. Her current body of work layers collaged photos adorned with paint, oil pastels and metallic foils on reclaimed, aged wood fences. The fusion of wood and photography offers artwork that explores Ballard’s southern roots and speak to themes in her community. In March 2020, Time Magazine commissioned Ballard’s painting “The Bus Riders (1955)” to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage.

To view Ballard’s work at CFAC, email cfac@syr.edu to make an appointment or view the exhibit virtually beginning Feb. 8 at .

About the artist:

is an artist, art historian, curator and author. She holds bachelor’s degrees in studio art and art history, with a minor in museum studies, from Rutgers University, and an M.F.A. in studio art from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Ballard’s art has been commissioned as a cover for Time Magazine’s special Woman of the Year double edition, released March 2020. Among her accolades, Ballard is a 2020 Yaddo Artist residency recipient; a Pew Foundation residency nominee and named one of the Top 10 Female Emerging Artists to Collect by Black Art in America. Ballard’s work has been in film productions and exhibited at galleries and museums nationwide. It has also been acquired by prominent collections such as the African American Museum of Philadelphia, the Colored Girls Museum, the Grant Hill and Petrucci Family Foundation Collection, Syracuse University Community Folk Arts Center, and Jule Collins Smith Fine Art Museum at Auburn University Collections.

John Gibson

As a Marine combat engineer with the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, John Gibson’s job was to identify improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and mines, place and clear obstacles, lay out concertina wire and build bunkers. This essential, physical and tactile combat zone work not only requires close attention to detail but also an understanding of how the lives of fellow servicemembers rely on your skill. The sights, sounds and intense memories of combat left a deep impression on Gibson ’20, one that he invites others to experience through his immersive art exhibition, “A Sapper’s Abyss.”

Gibson’s exhibition—an installation, kinetic sculpture and performance piece in one, titled after the traditional name for a combat engineer— in the of Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature, a digital quarterly journal edited by Diane Wiener, Burton Blatt Institute research professor and associate director of interdisciplinary programs and outreach. The issue also features .

Originally installed at the ”Warrior Brain + Artist Mind” gallery exhibition hosted by CreatiVets and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago—and now stored at the National Veterans Art Museum—Wordgathering the “abyss” virtually, hyperlinking a “walk-through” of the sculpture, the photos and sound files that make up the piece.

These facets are featured in distinct sections, with accompanying image descriptions of the visual content. Several photographs and image descriptions of the “abyss” in its original exhibition context are also included.

Warrior Brain + Artist Mind Exhibition (CreatiVets, June 2018), showing various artists’ work in the gallery, including John T. Gibson’s “The Sapper’s Abyss”

“The whole piece is 4 feet wide by 7 feet long and 8 feet tall,” describes Gibson. “When you first come up to the exhibition, you see wooden frames surrounded by a skirt of black burlap with an entrance on one side and an exit on the other.”

At the entrance, continues Gibson, broken and twisted chains hold open the doors. “The entrance is about 5 feet tall, so you have to kind of duck to get in. Once you’re in, you see dirt, sandbags and combat trash, such as discarded Meals Ready to Eat and little pieces of rubber.”

Bringing this claustrophobic space vividly to life, Gibson has hung a web of fishing line to which are attached 57 photos. “The photos are double-sided, and they are almost spinning, kind of like a mobile,” he continues. “If you touch one, they all move. It gives a kind of ‘Twilight Zone’ feel.” Above the viewer, a spotlight adds to the stark, oppressive atmosphere.

The photos illustrate life for a sapper in an intense combat zone. Some of them are extremely graphic, Gibson notes, showing the havoc IEDs wreak on a body. Their placement and constant motion remind the viewer that veterans must live with these images long after their service has ended. “The photos were donated by Dr. Jon Bowersox, a friend who was a medical officer. He took them and obtained them through a Freedom of Information Act request,” says Gibson.

To these battlefield sights, Gibson has added equally shocking sounds. A pressure plate—not unlike those that set off enemy IEDs—lies hidden in the dirt. If an unsuspecting visitor steps on the plate, one of three bomb blast sounds are triggered along with a flash of a flood light from above. Gibson manufactured the sounds himself, by recording a ball bearing hitting a metal sheet in an empty hallway. “I put different pieces of fabric up and then just let the ball bearings go with elastic, then I manipulated the recordings to make them sound like a rural explosion or urban explosion with up-close reverberation.”

The effect of this sound, vision and tactility is an overwhelmingly sensory experience. It encourages the viewer to walk in Gibson’s scuffed and dusty combat boots into that part of his mind where combat memories have been compartmentalized.

“‘A Sapper’s Abyss’ stands for what happens to old trauma,” observes Gibson. “But I’m also trying to express how this form of compartmentalization is not unique to veterans.” Many people who experience trauma, he observes, have a place in their mind where difficult memories are stored. Of course, trauma survivors can find venturing into such a memory room uncomfortable, and Gibson admits that he has combat veteran friends who “love the project but say ‘I’m not going near it.'”

“While I was putting it together, it was tough,” Gibson adds. “There were a couple of sleepless nights as I put myself back into that space so I could unpack it and translate it in order for another person to experience it. It was a very introspective experience.”

A disability advocate who believes strongly in the healing power of self-expression, since leaving the Marines, Gibson has fostered his artistic talent, his skills as a counselor and future therapist, and his advocacy on behalf of veterans.

When asked why he decided to move from his native California to pursue a bachelor’s degree in social work at Syracuse, Gibson is to-the-point: “Syracuse is the number one private school for veterans, hands down. I really saw that firsthand through the implementation of the DSL program.”

Gibson is referring to the University’s Office of Veteran and Military Affairs Disability Services Liaison program, his “pet project” that allowed him to fully display his passion for helping and supporting veterans. The program ensures veteran students are connected to University and other external resources enabling the student veteran success on campus. As an undergraduate, Gibson also served on the Disability External Review Committee, charged by University Chancellor Kent Syverud to provide policy advice regarding disability culture on campus.

After completing a master’s degree, Gibson says he hopes to divide his time between clinical social work and working for a nonprofit. With military experience in Marine expeditionary units in 13 countries—and visits to seven more—Gibson says where he practices in the future is not as important as the mission.

“Because of this perspective, I have come to understand that team and purpose supersede geography. I mean, I’d love to be somewhere a little bit warmer, but really it’s about the mission and the team,” Gibson says. “If I can have a good mission that I’m passionate about and have a team that’s supportive, I can make a nest anywhere on earth.”

An opening reception will be held on Friday, March 6, from 6-9 p.m. Additional hours are Saturday, March 7, from 11 a.m.-5 p.m. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Curated by Zane Onckule, “March Six Show” features the work of 15 members of the M.F.A. Class of 2020: Franco Andres, Brandy Boden, Charles Hickey, Darcie Brown, David Steinberg, Devon Gelhar, Eric Mowen, Katie Shulman, Laurence Hervieux-Gosselin, Regan Henley, Stephen Farrell, Tanisha Steverson, Wanrong Zheng, Yiying Wang and Zichen Xu.

Onckule (b. 1982, Latvia) is a curator and program director at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga, Latvia. She was co-commissioner for the 13th Baltic Triennial in 2018 (curated by Vincent Honoré) and a co-commissioner of the Latvian Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale co-organized with Art in General (New York). In May 2019, Onckule received a master of arts (M.A.) degree from the Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College. She is interested in the modes of language, writing, anti-production and notion of retreat, all seen through questioning of the conditions of (visual art) practices.

For more information about the exhibition, contact Professor Juan Juarez, jhjuarez@syr.edu, or Professor Yasser Aggour, yaggour@syr.edu.

Artwork by Bennie Guzmán featured in the exhibition “Pa’ La Calle” (To the Streets).

is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month with the opening of a new exhibition launched with an opening reception on Friday, Sept. 13, at 6 p.m. Admission to the event is free and open to the public. A traditional Caribbean menu and refreshments will be served. The opening reception will include special performances by Raíces, a Syracuse University all-student dance troupe, and Dominque’s Dance Creations. La Casita Cultural Center is located at 109 Otisco St., Syracuse; free parking is available.

The exhibition, “Pa’ La Calle” (To the Streets), presents the work of Syracuse-based, up-and-coming artist Bennie Guzmán. The opening reception is the kick-off event for the 2019 Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month commemorative program at La Casita. As with previous annual exhibitions at La Casita, “Pa’ La Calle” sets the central theme for a series of events and programs that will examine urban cultures, life in the barrio, street art, graffiti, hip-hop and reggaeton throughout the 2019-20 academic year.

“I believe that art is the best way to start a conversation,” says Guzmán. “And I believe that for the youth in this community, where hip-hop, reggaeton and graffiti art are so prevalent, this is the language we need to use in order to have that conversation.”

“Pa’ La Calle” features a collection of paintings, a series of portraits that recognize prominent Latinos and Latinas of Syracuse who are committed to the continued development and well-being of this community and who are enthusiastic partners in support of La Casita’s programs. Portraits include Gregorio Jimenez, executive director of the Near Westside Initiative; Bea González, vice president of Community Engagement at Syracuse University; José Miguel Hernández Hurtado, artistic director of La Joven Guardia del Teatro Latino; and Hugo Acosta and Marisol Hernández, publisher and editor in chief, respectively, of CNY Latino, among others.

Guzmán also invited a group of teens to create a mural inspired by the lives and aspirations of these young talents in the Syracuse Latinx community. The Spanish Action League’s One Team-One Dream youth program partnered in the project, which was completed this past July.

“This project is about engaging with our community in new ways,” Guzmán. “It’s about taking all the positive things that come from this community and putting them on display for everyone to see. At the end of the day, I want the people in this community to see themselves like never before.”

Guzmán’s art is focused on sharing the narratives and lived experiences of marginalized communities. He was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and received a B.A. from Colgate University in art and art history, specializing in studio art and English. He is currently a staff member at La Casita in charge of media outreach and communications.

The exhibition opening will be followed by a panel discussion titled “Letra del Reggaeton” (Lyrics of Reggaeton) on Wednesday, Oct. 16, at 6 p.m. at La Casita. The event, which is free and open to the public, features Syracuse University faculty and students, local deejays and promoters in a dialogue about the controversial nature of hip-hop and reggaeton lyrics, the global impact on these music genres, and their undisputed success in conquering young markets from almost every culture worldwide.

Panelists are Todd Herreman, associate teaching professor in the Setnor School of Music; David Knapp, assistant professor of music education in the Setnor School and an expert on Arab hip-hop; Biko Gray, assistant professor of religion in the College of Arts and Sciences and author of “Breaking Bread, Breaking Beats: Churches and Hip-Hop—A Basic Guide to Key��Issues” (The CERCL Writing Collective; 2014); Hasan Stephens, director of the Good Life Youth Foundation and a professional deejay; Liamna Pestana Roche ’22, a student in the Setnor School, who will talk about the ban on reggaeton in her native Cuba; and Syracuse University graduate student Roberto Pérez, a professional Latin music deejay.

Berenice Abbott, Hoboken Railroad Yard, New Jersey, 1935

The Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery at Lubin House presents “In Actuality: Social Realism and Its Legacy from the Robert B. Menschel Collection,” on display through Oct. 17.

Curated by Natalie McGrath G’19, this display celebrates the philanthropy and dedication to the arts of Syracuse University Life Trustee Robert B. Menschel ’51, H’91, who has contributed over 400 works of art to the permanent art collection at Syracuse University since 1978.

Organized in honor of his most recent gift of over 180 photographs in 2018, this exhibition presents images by such master photographers as Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Doris Ulmann, Helen Levitt and W. Eugene Smith and highlights their contribution to the Social Realism artist movement.

The Palitz Gallery is located in Syracuse University’s Lubin House at 11 E. 61st St., New York City. Exhibition hours are Monday-Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The exhibition is closed University holidays and Labor Day weekend. A gallery reception will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 24, from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition and related programs are free and open to the public. Contact 212.826.0320 or lubin@syr.edu for more information.

Following the advent of photography in the mid-nineteenth century, artists and critics alike struggled to make sense of this new technology and its place in the world of modern art.�� Some photographers chose to experiment with chemical processes and lighting techniques in order to achieve more abstract and painterly images, resembling traditional forms of art. Others embraced the camera’s documentary function and championed stark reality as a subject.

This exhibition explores photographic works from the artistic movement known as social realism, popularized in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, through which artists captured frank and unembellished scenes of working-class life and industrialized spaces. Before its relationship to photography in the 20th-century, realism developed in Europe as a means for painters to explore subject matter that was considered base by the academies and their wealthy patrons, through such artists�� as Gustave Courbet and Honoré Daumier. The act of representing average laborers in compositions and scales traditionally reserved for grand portraiture and history painting rocked the art world through its biting political commentary and avant-garde credibility.

The pathos of realism resonated in the United States for years to come, as social realists worked to capture moments from one of the most desperate eras of American history, The Great Depression. Such artists as Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein and Ralph Steiner among others used the dynamic medium of photography to document and convey the extreme poverty and suffering endured by working-class Americans during this time.�� To this day, social realism has left a lasting mark on photography, as artists continue to capture scenes of daily life and the inner complexities of the masses.

Image courtesy of Lucia Warck-Meister

Point of Contact Gallery is hosting an opening reception for “Artemisia,” an exhibition by Argentinian installation artists Lucia Warck-Meister on Aug. 29. The reception will take place from 6 to 8 p.m. This event is free and open to the public. Cash bar and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Free parking will be available on the night of the reception in the Syracuse University lot on the corner of West Street and West Fayette Street.

“Artemisia” will be on view through Oct. 4 at the Point of Contact Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 12 to 5 p.m. or by appointment.

From Buenos Aires, Argentina, Lucia Warck-Meister (https://www.luciawarckmeister.com/) brings a site-specific installation project to the Point of Contact Gallery and to Syracuse University.

Warck-Meister is especially attracted to the vulnerability of memory: what happens when its components are altered and the flow of our thinking, our abilities and the sense of who we are, are interrupted. Fragility and transformations are part of the alchemy that informs that protective shelter that we call “identity.”

For her installation “Artemisia,” Warck-Meister takes as a springboard the story of Artemisia Gentileschi and how the terrible events she endured during her life as a female artist changed the way she saw herself and dramatically changed the subjects of her paintings.

Unlike previous works that are minimalist in form, Warck-Meister now creates an ornate space by using red satin, beads, metallic polyester, charcoal and glass. Materials that contrast their intrinsic characteristics but nevertheless are united in a powerful embrace.

Special thanks to Pedro DiPietro, assistant professor of women’s and gender studies at Syracuse University, for their invaluable contribution to the exhibition catalogue.

This program is possible thanks to the support of the College of Arts and�� Sciences, the Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community and the Coalition of Museum and Art Centers at Syracuse University.

Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke, still from “You Were An Amazement On the Day You Were Born,” 2019

The Syracuse University Art Galleries announces “Not A Metric Matters,” an exhibition featuring new and recent contemporary artwork created by 16 faculty members from the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).

The exhibition highlights artists working in a variety of media, including painting, photography, drawing, ceramics, video and site-specific installations. Curated by DJ Hellerman, curator of art and programs at the Everson Museum of Art, this exhibition brings together the eclectic and powerful work of design, illustration, studio arts and transmedia faculty at Syracuse University.

“We are thrilled to exhibit the work of our faculty here at the University. Continuing in the tradition of the annual presentation of masters of fine arts students each spring, this exhibition showcases the diverse interests and unique talent of our colleagues in the schools of art, design, and department of transmedia,” says Emily Dittman, SUArt Galleries associate director.

A complimentary exhibition, “Teaching Methods: The Legacy of Art and Design Faculty,” will also be on display in the galleries. Curated by David Prince, this exhibition presents a sampling of work by former VPA faculty in the permanent collection.

The exhibitions will run Thursday, Aug. 15, through Sunday, Nov. 24, in the Shaffer Art Building. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Thursdays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closed University holidays and Mondays. The SUArt Galleries will host an opening reception, co-sponsored by the College of Visual and Performing Arts, from 5 to 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 12. Patrons are welcome to view the exhibition until the gallery closes at 8 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

“Not A Metric Matters” features new and recent artwork from 16 faculty members from Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts: Yasser Aggour, Cooper Battersby and Emily Vey Duke, Don Carr, Ann Clarke, Deborah Dohne, Holly Greenberg, Heath Hanlin, Margie Hughto, Seyeon Lee, Sarah McCoubrey, Su Hyun Nam, Vasilios Papaioannu, James Ransome, Tom Sherman and Chris Wildrick.

In their most basic form, exhibitions provide occasions for art and ideas to be presented to an audience for public conversation, critique and evaluation. At academic institutions such as SUArt Galleries, these presentations are intended to be educational and emphasize knowledge, skills and research while putting the interest of students first.

Faculty exhibitions like “Not A Metric Matters” are tricky; a large group show where the organizing principle doesn’t consider the formal or conceptual concerns of the artists’ practices. Simply, each exhibiting artist is currently teaching at the same university. At the same time, faculty exhibitions are interesting opportunities to rearrange the traditional student-teacher power dynamic by presenting the work of professors for critique and evaluation by their students.

“Not A Metric Matters” is an opportunity for attendees to think deeply about the institutionalized and socialized ways we evaluate, judge and critique one another. It is a moment to ask meaningful questions about why and to what end we do participate in this structure, who benefits and whether or not these are evaluation metrics that actually matter.

DJ Hellerman is curator of art and programs at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse. A native of Ohio, Hellerman began curating and educating people about art while helping Progressive Insurance build a collection of contemporary art designed to encourage innovation and change. He received an M.A. in art history from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and a B.A. in English and philosophy from Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio.

A few of Hellerman’s recent curatorial productions include solo exhibitions: “Edie Fake: Structures Shift,” “Jeff Donaldson: Dig,” “T.R. Ericsson: I Was Born To Bring You Into This World,” “Bjorn Schulke: Traveling Spy” and “Mildred Beltré: DreamWork.”

Recent theme-based group exhibitions include “Civic Virtue: all over the floor”; “Seen & Heard: An Active Commemoration of Suffrage In New York”; “Of Land & Local,” an annual place-based exhibition about art and the environment; and “Taking Pictures,” an exhibition exploring how artists associated with the Pictures Generation anticipated and recently turned their critical attention to digital networks used in the dissemination and consumption of images.

Hellerman is an adjunct professor at Syracuse University, has spoken at conferences across the country and has written extensively on American Art, popular culture, and the post-war American City. Prior to his position in Syracuse, Hellerman served as curator and director of exhibitions at Burlington City Arts located in Burlington, Vermont.

Related Programs

All programs are free and open to the public. For parking information, visit parking.syr.edu.

Artist Talk: Yasser Aggour

Wednesday, Sept. 4, 12:15 p.m.

Artist Talk: Margie Hughto

Wednesday, Sept. 18, 12:15 p.m.

Artist Talk: Holly Greenberg

Thursday, Nov. 7, 6:30 p.m.

Shemin Auditorium, Shaffer Art Building

Presented in collaboration with the Visiting Artist Lecture Series

Grief, Healing and Creative Possibilities

Friday, Nov. 8, 10 a.m. to noon

Maxwell Auditorium

Join artist Holly Greenberg, curator DJ Hellerman, Hendricks Chapel Dean Brian Konkol and art historian Mary Murray for a moderated panel discussing the isolating, and often silent, aspects of death, grief and remembrance. Presented in collaboration with the Syracuse University Humanities Center in the College of Arts and Sciences, organizer of the 2019 Syracuse Symposium on Silence.

The reception is free and open to the public. Cash bar and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Free parking will be available on the night of the reception in the Syracuse University lot on the corner of West and West Fayette streets.

“Time Changes Everything” will be on view through Aug. 9 at the Point of Contact Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from noon to 5 p.m. or by appointment.

Each artist in “Time Changes Everything” battles the temporality of human existence and the material world constructed around it.

Bischoff’s photography expresses a harmony of the past and present depicting the ruins left in the world’s progression. Bischoff’s Ruins series functions as a reminder of the care our planet deserves.

Ceramist Margie Hughto draws inspiration from landfills and remains left by humans in the creation of her Excavation Series. Hughto’s work embodies the transience of the human experience in a world heavily structured by transitory material objects.

Bringing together numerous modes of digital art, Gerbarg forms The Syracuse Pictures. Her artwork abstracts the world into its own heterotopia, existing in both the past and present.

Andres realizes the difficulty of authenticity for artists as he utilizes an accumulation of mediums in the formation of one’s identity. The process of his artwork becomes a depiction of time and change as his work spans from ancient processes to contemporary modes of video.

These four distinct artists come together in “Time Changes Everything” to pose a larger challenge to the viewers through the ultimate tool, their artwork.

������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ�

������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ�, one of Haiti’s greatest living writers and artists,��will visit Syracuse University, March 25-26.

The author of more than 40 books in Haitian and French, he is a Nobel Prize candidate,��a��commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France, and a UNESCO Artist for Peace.

������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ� will headline multiple lectures, readings and book signings, as well as a film screening and an art exhibition. All events are free and open to the public.

For more information, contact Jean Jonassaint, professor of French and Francophone studies in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics (LLL) in A&S, at 315.443.5382 or jjonassa@syr.edu.

“[������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ�] is not only a major Haitian writer, but he is probably the Haitian writer,” Jonassaint told The New York Times, which has dubbed ������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ� the “father of Haitian literature.”

He will focus part of his visit on “Dézafi” (1975), his first novel in Haitian Creole, inspired by living under brutal Duvalier rule in the 1950s and ’60s. Last year, The University of Virginia Press published an English translation of the novel by��Asselin Charles, with an afterward by Jonassaint.

The schedule is as follows:

Monday, March 25

• A Q&A with ������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ� about “Dézafi” from 2:15-3:35 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons (114 Bird Library). The session is part of “Translingual Francophone Authors” (FRE 400/600), taught by Genevieve Waite, assistant teaching professor and French language coordinator in LLL.
• A discussion about the challenges of writing and translating “Dézafi” with ������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ� and Charles, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Graham Scholarly Commons. Booksigning to follow.

Tuesday, March 26

• A reading of “Dézafi” by��������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ� and Charles in French and English,��from noon to 2 p.m. in the Community Folk Art Center (CFAC) at 805 East Genesee St., Syracuse. The program includes a light lunch and booksigning; reservations are required. R.S.V.P. at jjonassa@syr.edu by March 20.
• A screening of and talkback with ������԰�é�پ���ԲԱ� about “Une étrange cathédrale dans la graisse des ténèbres” (“A Strange Cathedral in the Fat of Darkness”), a documentary about the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, from 2:30-4:15 p.m. in the CFAC Blackbox Theater. Panelists include Charles; Jonassaint; and Nicole Wallenbrock, a visiting assistant teaching professor of French and Francophone Studies in LLL.

The University of Virginia Press, 2018

Dox Thrash, “Study for Old Barns,” 1948

The Syracuse University Art Galleries presents “Dox Thrash, Black Life, and the Carborundum Mezzotint,” currently on view through March 8.�� The exhibition brings together over 50 works on loan from public and private collections that reveal the experimental printmaking process, known as the Carborundum mezzotint, pioneered by Thrash.

A Lunchtime Lecture will be held Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 12:15 p.m. Join Andrew Saluti, printmaker and assistant professor of museum studies, for a gallery tour of the exhibition.

A Philadelphia-based artist, Thrash was a noted participant in the New Negro movement of the 1930s and ’40s. ��Also on view are works by Thrash in other print mediums, including�� watercolors and drawings, all of which powerfully document the artist’s intimate, invested engagement with African American culture in the middle decades of the twentieth century.�� Organized by Dolan/Maxwell, this exhibition was previously presented at the Palmer Musuem of Art , and will travel to Fort Wayne Musuem of Art this spring.

The exhibition will be on view through March 8, 2019 in the Shaffer Art Building at Syracuse University. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; and Thursdays 11 a.m.–8 p.m. The gallery is closed on Mondays and University holidays.�� Patrons are welcome to view the exhibition until the gallery closes at 8 p.m.

Philadelphia-based artist Dox Thrash (1893–1965) was both a pioneering printmaker and a noted participant in the “New Negro” movement of the 1930s and ’40s. A veteran of World War I as well as the minstrel stage, he trained at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before making his way to Philadelphia, where he ultimately forged a career as both a painter and a graphic artist.

In 1937, Thrash signed on for employment with the Federal Art Project’s Fine Print Workshop. There, while working with fellow artists Hugh Mesibov and Michael Gallagher, he began to experiment with a new approach to intaglio printmaking, which today is known as the carborundum mezzotint process. By thoroughly abrading a plate with particles of carborundum, or silicon carbide, the artists could create a design on its surface by burnishing and scraping. When inked and printed, the plate yielded an image that was remarkably rich in darks and lights. With its broad tonal range, the new process was ideally suited to the sensitive portrayals of Black life for which Thrash would become known.

Light Work is located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Avenue. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

����work boldly addresses themes of labor, power and representation. For a Chilean artist living in America at a moment in which the president of the United States continues pressing for a border wall, the underlying narrative of Valenzuela’s work—of immigration and the struggles of the working class—is as charged as ever.

The title of the exhibition, “American Type,” refers to a 1955 essay in which art critic Clement Greenberg frames the work of abstract expressionist painters such as Pollock, Kline, Motherwell, and Rothko as distinctly American. Greenberg proposed that post-war American painting was more about the act of painting itself than about any complex idea of representation. Valenzuela finds it interesting to challenge this concept and, as he puts it, to contemplate��“how much the absence of content has become the American gold.”��He doesn’t argue that abstraction is necessarily without subject or emotion, but Valenzuela questions Greenberg and art world elitism more generally by making his own subversive abstractions that he imbues with social-political meaning.

Valenzuela’s approach to representation in his work draws our attention to the extensive labor of his artistic process. Every aspect of his work shows a trace of his own labor, from the building of studio assemblages, to the photographic steps that lead to the final prints. Even the wooden frames that hold the work have been cut, assembled, and painted by his hand. Labor is inherent in the making of all art, but for Valenzuela it becomes a compelling central subject.

Valenzuela lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He studied art history and photography at the University of Chile (2004), holds a B.A. in philosophy from The Evergreen State College (2010), and an M.F.A. from the University of Washington (2012). Recent residencies include Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts (Omaha, Nebraska), Center for Photography (Woodstock, New York), Core Fellowship at the Museum of Fine Arts (Houston, TX), Light Work (Syracuse), MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, New Hampshire), and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Recent solo exhibitions include��Future Ruins��at Frye Art Museum (Seattle, Washington), Galerie Lisa Kandlhofer (Vienna, Austria, 2018),��Work in Its Place��at Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (Eugene, Oregon, 2018),��New Land��at McColl Center (Charlotte, North Carolina, 2017),��American-Type��at Orange County Museum (Santa Ana, California, 2018),��Labor Standardsat Portland Art Museum (Portland, Oregon, 2018), and��Prole��at Ulrich Museum of Art (Wichita, Kansas, 2016). Valenzuela is an assistant professor in the Department of Art, University of California at Los Angeles, and recipient of the 2017 Joan Mitchell Award for Painters and Sculptors. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in August 2017.

“Dream bird, Hatching the Egg” in A.I.R Gallery (2018). Courtesy of the artist

Point of Contact Gallery is hosting an opening reception for “Dream Bird, Hatching the Egg,” a solo exhibition by New York artist Susan Stainman on Friday, Feb. 8. The reception will take place from 6-8 p.m.

The event is free and open to the public. Cash bar and light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Free parking will be available on the night of the reception in the Syracuse University lot on the corner of West Street and West Fayette Street.

“Dream Bird, Hatching the Egg” will be on view through March 15 at the Point of Contact Gallery. Admission is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from noon-5 p.m. or by appointment.

��“Dream Bird, Hatching the Egg” includes works that explore the interconnection between Buddhist philosophy, meditation and the creative process. The artist’s work creates a visual metaphor of her personal experience with sensuality and color. The tactility of her work draws the viewer in through the body as a means of manipulation, lulling them into mental relaxation and an experience of natural mind.

A sculpture in “Soft Items,” a solo exhibition of sculptures by Braxton Congrove

Random Access Gallery will present “Soft Items,” a solo exhibition of sculptures by Braxton Congrove, Nov. 2-9 in 117 Smith Hall. An opening reception will be held Friday, Nov. 2, from 5-8 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Congrove derives her fiction-based work from occurrences in daily life. Her sculptures and scenes are reminiscent of everyday objects, with shapes and forms easily recognizable as things you could find around your home. These images are shrunken, enlarged, multiplied and re-coated in velvety textures, creating an augmented reality that feels like a child’s drawing of a room. Together this surreal collection of objects works as a comfort space.

“Soft Items” champions lighthearted, playful narratives while letting the viewer in on an inside joke. Congrove’s created world is a return to adolescence, where the proposition of play generates naive and humorous sculptural objects.

A sculpture in “Soft Items,” a solo exhibition of sculptures by Braxton Congrove

Congrove lives and works in Richmond, Virginia. She received a B.F.A. from James Madison University and attended the Virginia Commonwealth University Summer Studio Program. Recent solo exhibitions took place at VALET, Arlington Arts Center and Hillyer Art Space. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at ADA, Disjecta, and Not Gallery, among others. She has attended residencies at Ox-Bow, Bread and Puppet Theater, OTTO’s Abode, and c3:Initiative and was a 2018 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Fellowship recipient. Her work has been featured in Dialogue Magazine, Hiss Mag Issue 1 and the “Curator in Residence: Julia Greenway” exhibition catalog.

Random Access Gallery’s exhibitions, performances, artist talks and panel discussions offer a space for broadening the scope of interdisciplinary collaboration and experimentation in contemporary creative practices. Through dynamic curatorial initiatives and inclusivity, Random Access Gallery brings together local, national, and international artists for critical conversations. Random Access is funded through the generous contributions of the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ School of Art and CASP.

For an accommodations request, please contact Rebecca Forstater at randomaccessspace@gmail.com.

Scarville’s exhibition will be on view in the Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery from Nov. 1–Dec. 13 , 2018. The opening reception on Thursday, Nov. 1, from 5-7 p.m., features a gallery talk with Keisha Scarville at 6 p.m. Find Light Work in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center on the Syracuse University campus at 316 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, NY 13244. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public. Refreshments served.

After the death of her mother in 2015, Scarville deepened her use of photography as a way to explore how the loss of such an anchor point can affect one’s identity and sense of both absence and self in the world.

Scarville’s new exhibition, titled “Alma,” presents a selection of photographs whose larger subject is transformation born of loss.

She has worked on this project for more than three years and has approached it in several different ways that she describes as “chapters.” Initially the work was about body as medium and then, place-as-container, particularly Guyana, South America, Alma’s birthplace, and Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an enclave of Caribbean immigrants where Scarville grew up, which she continues to call home.

Working with Alma’s richly patterned clothing and possessions Scarville states she looks for ways to visually conjure her mother’s presence. “I am interested in how the absent body lives in the photograph and the materiality of absence. I am seeking invocation, something celebratory that rethinks absence as a threshold.”

Scarville (b. 1975) ��is a mixed media artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Scarville’s primary theme is the relationship between transformation and the unknown. Grounded in photography, she works across media to explore place, absence, and subjectivity. She has exhibited at Aljira Center for Contemporary Art, BRIC Arts Media House, The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, Lesley Heller Gallery, Museum of Contemporary Diasporan Arts, Rush Arts Gallery, and Studio Museum of Harlem. She has participated in artist residencies at Baxter Street CCNY, BRIC Workspace, Center for Photography at Woodstock, Light Work Artist Residency Program, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Program, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Vermont Studio Center. Scarville is adjunct faculty at the International Center of Photography and Parsons School of Design.

On Saturday, Nov. 2, photographers are invited to sign-up for one-on-one portfolio review in the Light Work Lab with the artist Keisha Scarville. Scarville will explore ideas of narrative structure, editing and content. Reviews are by appointment only, email mlhodgen@syr.edu to register.

The “Keisha Scarville: Alma” exhibition and the Portfolio Review Workshop were made possible by the generous support of the Syracuse University Humanities Center and is part of the 2018-19 Syracuse Symposium: Stories.

Part of Matthew Nielson’s “Numb Windows” exhibition.

Random Access Gallery will present “Numb Windows,” the first solo exhibition by Matthew Nielson, with an opening reception on Friday, Oct. 26, from 5-8 p.m. in 117 Smith Hall. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Nielson’s work explores perspective, dynamic forces and the abstract expression of entropy through the exploration of material. He is a South Carolina artist who uses his training as a sculptor and surgical support technician to recreate the uncertainty of a hospital waiting room. In January 2017, Nielson’s brother suffered a traumatic head injury during a military training exercise and had to undergo surgery. After rushing to the hospital, Nielson found himself waiting in anticipation amidst the tones, beeps and hums of the hospital machinery as President Donald Trump’s inauguration played on the television.

In “Numb Windows,” Nielson works with the dismal sensations of the constant hospital drone, the swarming staff members and the knowledge of helplessness in the waiting room as a way to amplify the feeling of nervous anticipation. As President Trump was being sworn in, Nielson saw the same shocked sense of apprehension that one feels for an endangered loved one in the operating room on the faces of nearly every person in the country. Fear and hope palpably intertwined. The dismal sensations from before turned from anticipation to invitation. A seductive invitation to let repetition take over and numb the senses.

Nielson received a bachelor of fine arts degree from Winthrop University and is currently exploring a career in nursing while working for the McLeod Medical System in South Carolina.

Random Access Gallery’s exhibitions, performances, artist talks and panel discussions offer a space for broadening the scope of interdisciplinary collaboration and experimentation in contemporary creative practices. Through dynamic curatorial initiatives and inclusivity, the gallery brings together local, national and international artists for critical conversations. Random Access is funded through the generous contributions of Syracuse University’s School of Art in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and CASP.

For accommodations request, contact Charles Hickey at randomaccessspace@gmail.com or 404.520.4763.

Project director Tula Goenka and project photographer Cindy Bell will deliver a gallery talk and tour at 5 p.m., with the reception following from 6-8 p.m. These events are free and open to the public. Light hors d’oeuvres will be served. Free parking is available on the night of the reception in the Syracuse University lot on the corner of West Street and West Fayette Street.

“Look Now: Facing Breast Cancer” will be on view from Oct. 8 – 31 at the Point of Contact Gallery. The gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Friday from 12-5pm or by appointment.

In 2010, Tula Goenka, a breast cancer survivor herself, was the first of three subjects photographed for “Look Now.” She has now re-launched the project with a new collaborative team as a multimedia installation.

In 2018-19, “Look Now” focuses on the personal stories of survivors from Central New York. Interactive text, graphics, mirrors and an experimental silent film enhance the exhibition’s visual core, which presents 44 participants—25 with clothed photographic portraits and images of bare chests, and 19 who have chosen to remain anonymous except for their bare-chest close-ups. Future phases include a new media site and a spoken word performance in collaboration with playwright Kyle Bass.

Goenka is the Newhouse Endowed Chair of Public Communications at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and a noted human rights activist, filmmaker, author, and founder and co-director of Syracuse University’s annual Human Rights Film Festival.

Bell is a nationally known, ADDY Award-winning photographer who has engaged in multiple visual projects about breast cancer survivors and authored the photobook, Common Thread. Look Now is part of Syracuse University’s Syracuse Symposium series, whose theme in 2018-19 is Stories, an exploration of how we tell them and what effects whose stories we hear.

LaToya M. Hobbs

In the (CFAC) exhibition “Salt of the Earth,” hopes to spur a dialogue about the perception of Black womanhood. “In thinking about women as ‘preservers’ in service to others, I want to highlight the importance of self-preservation and examine how Black women engage in acts of self-care or the lack thereof,” she says in her artist’s statement.

The exhibition, which feature 15 pieces in a variety of mediums, runs through Nov. 3. An opening reception and artist talk—a conversation between Hobbs and , assistant professor of African American Studies (AAS) in the College of Arts and Sciences—will be 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21, at CFAC, 805 E. Genesee St.

“The pieces in the exhibition hum with energy and evoke dynamism and rhythm,” says CFAC’s outgoing interim director Kal Alston. “The work gives viewers an opportunity to meditate on the role, centrality, vitality and spirit of Black women at a personal, community and global level.”

Alston is also associate dean of academic affairs and a professor of Cultural Foundations of Education at Syracuse’s School of Education and an affiliated faculty member in Women’s and Gender Studies in A&S. She has served as CFAC interim director since October 2016. The center, founded in 1972, is a unit of AAS.

“Queen Wawa” Oil, Acrylic and Collage on Canvas 30” X 24

“Salt of the Earth” is part of the Department of African American Studies Colloquium Series and was brought to CFAC by Gibson, an expert in 20th- and 21st-century African American literature and culture.

Hobbs, a native of North Little Rock, Arkansas, earned a bachelor’s degree in studio art with an emphasis in painting from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an M.F.A. in printmaking from Purdue University. She is a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her work has appeared at numerous exhibitions, including at the Tulipamwe International Artists’ Exhibition at the National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia (Africa); Prizm Art Fair; Art Basel Miami and the National Wet Paint Exhibition in Chicago. Her work has been featured in Transition: An International Review, a publication of the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University.

Another Hobbs solo exhibition, “Sitting Pretty,” is at Goucher College’s Rosenberg Gallery through Oct. 25. That show features 15 large-scale woodcut and mixed media monotype portraits that “confront European expectations of beauty and hairstyle with boldness, rebellion, self-confidence, and a spiritual consciousness.”

Her CFAC exhibition aims toward “redefining what motherhood looks like in the 21st century for Black women,” Gibson says. The exhibition illustrates “the continued resiliency and beauty of Black women in all of their many manifestations.”

The Photo Walk—organized by The Stand/South Side Newspaper Project—took place on Saturday, July 28. Individuals of all skill levels and ages were invited to explore and document a typical Saturday in Syracuse’s South Side.

In March 2018, the South Side Newspaper Project was one of seven awardees of a Finding Common Ground grant, which offers funding for recipients to engage in meaningful and civil dialogue with the communities they serve. The grant enabled organizers to expand the Photo Walk project by printing, framing and exhibiting selected photos.

In addition to The Link Gallery exhibition, 10 photos will be placed on permanent display in five South Side locations: Beauchamp Library, 2111 S. Salina St.; Blue Brothers Barbershop, 2036 S. Salina St.; Colonial Laundromat, 3901 S. Salina St.; Cut Kings, 2850 S. Salina St.; and the Elks Lodge, 3815 S. Salina St.

An exhibition reception will take place on Sept. 6 at 6 p.m. in The Link Gallery. Complimentary refreshments will be provided. The Stand t-shirts will be available for purchase, and orders will be taken for image reprints.

The Link Gallery is accessible to wheelchair users via a street-level power-assist door adjacent to The Window Projects Gallery on West Fayette Street. For more information or to make arrangements for groups with special needs, contact Greg Munno at 315.730.4621.

For more information on The Stand, visit .

Building upon the United States’ existing artistic infrastructure, For Freedoms has developed a network of artists and institutional partners, including Light Work, who will produce nationwide exhibitions, public art installations and local community dialogues in order to introduce nuanced, artistic thinking into public discourse. Centered on the vital work of artists, these exhibitions and related projects will model how arts institutions can become forums for civic action.

The 50 State Initiative will include the installation of a series of artist-produced billboards in public and art spaces in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Billboards are going up across the country this fall in advance of midterm elections, while other educational and outreach components of the initiative will occur from September through December.

Six of the billboard installations are within the city of Syracuse, and will be in various locations between Aug. 13 – Oct. 7, 2018.

The images and text that comprise these billboards aim to provoke conversations in our community that lead to civic engagement. To help easily identify billboard locations and encourage engagement, a free downloadable map with information regarding the works on view will be available to the public.

Thursday, Sept. 20, at 6 p.m., For Freedoms co-founder Eric Gottesman will join us for a gallery talk about the process of curating “Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul” and how this thematically intersects with the For Freedoms campaign artistic and art ideals.

In appropriating the billboard format, these by award-winning artists invite the viewer to engage critically with the messages their work presents as well as with the medium of political and commercial advertising itself.

Former Light Work artists-in-residence Eric Gottesman and Hank Willis Thomas started For Freedoms in 2016 as a non-partisan platform for civic engagement, discourse, and direct action for artists in the United States. Inspired by Norman Rockwell’s 1943 paintings of the four universal freedoms that Franklin Delano Roosevelt articulated in 1941—freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear—For Freedoms seeks to use art to deepen public discussions of civic issues and core values, and to clarify that participation, not ideology, is the bedrock of citizenship in American society. For Freedoms is part of a rich history of artists employing means of mass communication to provoke political discourse. For Freedoms believes art and artists play important roles in galvanizing our society toward a more representative and transparent government.

Free Public Programs

��

Aug. 27 – Oct. 18, 2018

Kathleen O. Ellis and Hallway Gallery

Reception: Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, 5-7 p.m.

Gallery Talk: Eric Gottesman

Thursday, Sept. 20, 2018, 6 p.m.
For Freedoms co-founder Eric Gottesman will share back-story about the inception of the For Freedoms and use his curatoirial selections from the “Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul” exhibition as talking points to ignite a dialogue about the various socially relevant topics.

Exhibition Support

“Be Strong and Do Not Betray Your Soul: Selections from the Light Work Collection” exhibition and related programming are partially supported by a grant from The Central New York Community Foundation (CNYCF).

Gallery Hours, Admission & General Information

Find Light Work’s galleries in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse, New York. Gallery hours are: Monday-Thursday 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday 10 a.m.- 6 p.m., Saturday-Sunday 1 p.m.-9 p.m. Light Work closes on all major holidays. Contact Light Work to schedule a guided tour of the galleries or the Light Work Lab. Follow Light Work on , and . For general information, please visit , call 315.443.1300, or email info@lightwork.org.

Newhouse School Professor and Syracuse photographer are looking for survivors and fighters to participate in the multimedia exhibition at Syracuse University’s in October.

The Look Now team is currently looking for Central New York breast cancer survivors willing to be photographed for a portrait with clothes on (public persona), juxtaposed with a close-up of their bare chest (private struggle). Survivors can also participate anonymously by having only a close-up of their bare chest photographed with no name or other information attached.

The goal is to share stories of breast cancer survivors in their own voice, create awareness and provide support. The project also aims to address the human rights aspect of access to health care, and how differences in income, race, ethnicity and geographic location can impact diagnosis, treatment and survival.

Any Central New York resident who has been diagnosed and treated for breast cancer is encouraged to participate in photography sessions happening right now in Syracuse.

Those interested can contact Professor Tula Goenka at 315-657-1680 or Research Assistant Gina Gayle at 646-245-1241, or email looknowproject@gmail.com.

The Look Now multimedia project aims to break down the barrier between a survivor’s public persona and their private struggles with the disease. The project was started by Tula Goenka, who is a breast cancer survivor. She is also a filmmaker, author, human rights activist and professor at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Cindy Bell, a Syracuse photographer, is creating the portraits.

The next phase of the “Look Now: Facing Breast Cancer Project” will include a website featuring images; provide support and list resources; be an artistic testament to living well after the disease; and above all, empower the people who participate.

“CRISIS: A Visual Exploration of Conflict,” curated by Museum Studies graduate students, investigates how visual artists have captured, reacted to and explained physical acts of conflict, issues of identity, and art’s evolving conceptual methodologies.

“Symphony in Black and White: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler” highlights a lesser-known aspect of James McNeill Whistler’s career: his prints. Featuring over 20 etchings and lithographs selected from the Syracuse University permanent art collection, “Symphony” was curated by undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in art history courses in the College of Arts and Sciences.

James McNeill Whistler, The Bridge, Santa Marta, 1879-1880.

The exhibitions will be on view April 5 through May 13 in the Shaffer Art Building at Syracuse University. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; and Thursdays 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. The SUArt Galleries will host a gallery reception from 5 – 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 12. Patrons are welcome to view the exhibition until the gallery closes at 8:00 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

Installed in the Study Gallery, “CRISIS: A Visual Exploration of Conflict” investigates how visual artists have captured, reacted to and explained physical acts of conflict, issues of identity, and the evolving conceptual methodologies in art. Physical conflict is explored through subtopics including technological advancements in warfare and the loss of humanity, represented by works as diverse as 17th century etchings to contemporary sculpture.

Conflicts of identity grapple with the internal and psychological conflict of self and sexuality, the ongoing evolution on the notions of gender, and the revealing effects of cultural appropriation. Additionally, the ever-evolving genres of art, and the sometimes competing ideas found in these stylistic shifts, are signified by the pioneering artists that symbolize these movements.

Drawing from the diverse collections on campus, “CRISIS” includes over 30 examples of prints, photographs, archival materials, paintings, and multi-dimensional objects from Light Work, the Syracuse University Art Galleries and the Special Collections Research Center.

Andy Warhol, untitled, 1975. Syracuse University Art Collection; ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./ Artist Rights Society

Curated by graduate students enrolled in Fine Arts Curatorship, taught by Andrew Saluti, assistant professor of museum studies, School of Design, this project is generously supported by the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration (PARCC) in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the Syracuse University Humanities Center, and the Graduate Program in Museum Studies, School of Design, College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Installed in the Rudolf and Alice Wiezel Gallery, “Symphony in Black and White” highlights a lesser-known aspect of James McNeill Whistler’s career: his prints. During his day, Whistler was internationally renowned for his etchings, which helped fuel a print revival during the last half of the nineteenth century.

Through his prints, Whistler balanced his need to appeal to the market with his desire to innovate. His first set of published prints—The French Set—were created in the late 1850s, when he was a young up-and-comer in Paris who had aligned himself with French Realism. Soon thereafter, he settled in London, where he produced prints of the rough and tumble docks along the River Thames. Many of these prints were not published until 1871 as part of the Thames Set, and its popularity led Whistler to return to the shores of the Thames again and again throughout the next three decades to create etchings and lithographs that pictured scenes along the river.

As a mature artist, Whistler also created prints that represented many other magnificent cities in Europe, most notably Venice (the First Venice Set of 1880 and the Second Venice Set of 1886) and Amsterdam (the Amsterdam Set of 1890, his last). Prints from the five aforementioned portfolios are featured in this exhibition, along with numerous other etchings and two lithographs. Curated by Associate Professor of Art and Music Histories Sascha Scott and her students enrolled in the fall 2017 courses HOA 498: Senior Seminar: Research and Professional Practice and HOA 655: Proseminar in Graduate Research Methods and Scholarly Writing.

RELATED PROGRAMS

All programs are free and open to the public. For parking information, visit parking.syr.edu

Gallery Reception

Thursday, April 12, 5 – 7 p.m.

Lunchtime Lecture: Symphony in Black and White: The Prints of James McNeill Whistler

Wednesday, April 18, 12:15 p.m.

Join Department of Art and Music Histories professor Sascha Scott and student curators

Ben Farr ’18 and Tammy Hong ’18, for a gallery tour of Symphony in Black and White

Lunchtime Lecture: CRISIS: A Visual Exploration of Conflict

Wednesday, April 25, 12:15 p.m.

Join Museum Studies assistant professor, Andrew Saluti and select student curators for a gallery tour of CRISIS: A Visual Exploration of Conflict

About the SUArt Galleries

The SUArt Galleries is Syracuse University’s fine arts museum, offering the SU community and the general public a dynamic schedule of engaging and thought-provoking exhibitions, all of them enriched by public programs. With its emphasis on American art and interpretation, and a focus on exploring art in its historical, cultural, and social contexts, the SUArt Galleries serves as a museum-laboratory for our students and university community. The SUArt Galleries is a member of SU’s Coalition of Museum and Art Centers (CMAC).

All of the works in the three exhibitions are by M.F.A. candidates in VPA.

The exhibition features the work of 31 M.F.A. candidates from VPA’s School of Art and Department of Transmedia and is curated by Shehab Awad, exhibitions and programs associate at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Art, New York City.

Featuring a diverse array of paintings, sculptures, video and installations, “Hiding in Plain Sight” represents the culmination of a three-year period of critical investigation and introspection, marked by a significant, self-led shift toward multidisciplinary experimentation. The result is a collection of works which, through their staging and materiality, radicalize traditional modes of art-making and subvert our perception of space and reality.

The exhibition schedule is as follows. All events are free and open to the public.

March 26-May 11
, the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, 350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse
Reception: Friday, April 6, 6-8 p.m.
Artists: Eric D. Charlton, Joan Helen Farrenkopf, Marilyn Koch, Jo Yu Lee, Katie Levesque, Luxin Zhang
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, noon-5 p.m. or by appointment.
Contact: 315.443.2169 or pointofcontactgallery@gmail.com

April 5-May 13
, Shaffer Art Building
Reception: Thursday, April 12, 5-7 p.m.
Artists: Adriana Bianchi, Antone Dolezal, Yueying Feng, Cait Finley, Mirra Goldfrad, Aysha Hamouda, Brion Hardink, Michael W. Hicks, Jack Honeysett, Sijia Hong, Shaluliu Huang, Kwan Jeong, Sunyoung Lee, Andrew Pappas, Selma Selman, Joe Turek, Teona Yamanidze, Tong Zhang
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; Thursday until 8 p.m.; closed Monday
Contact: 315.443.4097 or suart@syr.edu

April 5-May 13
, 805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse
Reception: Friday, April 13, 5-7 p.m.
Artists: Chelsey Albert, Xiaoyu Che, Amanda Struver, Fei Taishi, Kieu-Anh Truong, Preston Van Allen, D’Angelo Lovell Williams
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
Contact: 315.442.2230 or cfac@syr.edu

In an age where judgement is shaped by “alternative facts,” “Hiding in Plain Sight” does not attempt to offer any absolute truths or alternative solutions because the truth is unimaginable. Together, the artworks in the exhibition suggest a new mode of inconspicuous opposition: one that mirrors the absurdity of its surrounding environment to question the personal, the political and the real.

Awad’s recent projects include “A Tardigrade’s Dream,” a publication produced with Nile Sunset Annex for “Meeting Points 8: Both Sides of the Curtain” at La Loge, Brussels, and Beirut Art Center; “The Future is Self-organized,” an online platform in collaboration with de Appel Curatorial Program participants at Casco, the Netherlands; and “We Are The Margins,” a series of public events about marginality and gentrification produced in various locations in New York City. He was the curatorial assistant at Townhouse, Cairo, from 2013-15 and is a core member of Muhawilun, a research and writing group dedicated to the history of contemporary art in Egypt. Awad holds an M.A. from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

About Syracuse University

Syracuse University is a private, international research university with distinctive academics, diversely unique offerings and an��undeniable spirit. Located in the geographic , with a global footprint, and��, Syracuse University offers a quintessential college experience. The scope of Syracuse University is a testament to its strengths: a pioneering history dating back to 1870; a choice of more than 200 majors and 100 minors offered through 13 schools and colleges; nearly 15,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students; more than a quarter of a million alumni in 160 countries; and a student population from all 50 U.S. states and 123 countries. For more information, please visit .

Todd Conover

Conover and Clarke are both faculty members in the (VPA). The exhibition is designed by , also a VPA faculty member.

Conover and Clarke share a passion—arguably obsession—for their respective materials, metal and fibers, as well as the practice of studio work itself. Both artists are also inspired by nature and memory inclusive of references to the history of the materials and techniques they use.

Conover has taught at Syracuse University since 1995 and is an assistant professor of fashion design in VPA’s School of Design. From 2012-16 he served as program coordinator of the fashion design program. From 1992-2008 he was co-designer/owner with Mayer of Conover Mayer, a high-end fashion line that was carried by boutique stores nationwide and retailers Bergdorf Goodman and Nieman Marcus. A trained metalsmith, Conover now focuses on one-of-a-kind art jewelry and vessels, exhibiting and selling his work nationally in museum and gallery shows.

“With a mix of unexpected yet related materials, my jewelry tends to be overtly bold��with inspiration harnessed from natural forms that will highlight surface and��materials,” says Conover. “Color is added by the use of freeform shaped cabochons of rock, gemstones and glass as well as ancient patina techniques.”

Clarke is an associate professor of studio arts in VPA’s School of Art and dean emerita (2008-16) of VPA. She joined Syracuse University in 1998 as a faculty member in fiber arts/material studies, served as chair of the Department of Art from 2005-07, and was named VPA’s associate dean of the visual arts in 2007. Clarke has returned to teaching and her studio practice and has exhibited widely. Her work is featured in many private collections and has been published extensively. She holds a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking from the University of Michigan and a master of fine arts degree in textiles from the Rhode Island School of Design.

Ann Clarke

“The constants in my work are telling a story with image and color,” says Clarke. “The themes I cycle through are family history, nature, literary references (poetry and fiction) and stories from the world news. I begin with the story. I am thrilled to have returned to both teaching and my studio practice.”

Mayer is a professor and program coordinator of fashion design in��the School of Design. He teaches fashion, fashion history and textiles and is the��curator of the Sue Ann Genet Costume Collection, which is housed within the��School of Design. He recently published “Vintage Details: A Fashion Sourcebook” (Laurence King Publishing, 2016), written with Basia Szkutnicka, to wide acclaim. “Vintage Details” is a stunning collection of more than 550 beautifully photographed details from previously unseen 20th-century vintage clothing.

In 2008, Mayer mounted a major historic fashion exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, “Marie Antoinette: Styling the 18th Century Superstar,” with an accompanying book of the same title. Exhibitions that followed included “Marlo Thomas as That Girl,” “Christian Dior 1947-1957,” “Emilio Pucci: Master of Print Design,” as well as “Styling an American Family, the 1910s at Gustav Stickley’s Craftsman Farms,” which was shown at the Craftsman Farms Museum in Morris Plains, N.J. This final exhibition formed the nucleus for a major 2013 exhibition at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse titled “An American Look: Fashion, Decorative Arts and Gustav Stickley.” Mayer has also curated the exhibition “Fashion After Five: The Clothes and Culture of the Cocktail Hour” at the Onondaga Historical Society in Syracuse.

914Works is an intimate gallery space in VPA. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. The gallery is open from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month. For more information,��email��914works@syr.edu.

A piece from the exhibition “Aleph” by Pedro Roth

The exhibition “Aleph” by artist Pedro Roth is on view at Point of Contact Gallery,��350 W. Fayette St., Syracuse, through Oct. 6.

An artist talk and guided tour will take place Thursday, Sept. 28, at 5 p.m. A reception will follow at 6 p.m.

Born in Budapest, Hungary, and raised in Buenos Aires, where he currently lives, Roth has exhibited extensively between Prague and Buenos Aires in venues such as the Laura Haber Gallery, Centro Cultural Borges and the Wussman Gallery, among others. His works can be found in collections of the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires (MAMBA); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Latinoamericano, La Plata (MACLA); Jewish Museum of Prague; Museo de Bellas Artes de Azul, Provincia de Buenos Aires; Museo Contemporaneo de Santa Fe (MAC); and the Jewish Museum of Buenos Aires. In 2010, he was recognized as a Distinguished Citizen of the Culture by the City Council of Buenos Aires.

Right: Robert Cottingham, “American Hi-Fi”, 1971. On view in the Modern & Contemporary Galleries. Left: Sheila Pinkel, “Ilexoptical Co. Wide Open,” 2015. On view in the Photography Study Gallery.

Two of the exhibitions, on display in the Print and Photography Study Galleries through May 2018, were curated in concert with the main gallery exhibition “Meant to Be Shared: Selections from the Arthur Ross Collection of European Prints at Yale University.” Additional exhibitions are installed in the Study Cabinets, exploring the prints of James McNeill Whistler and the circus prints of Georges Rouault. New selections integrated into the Collection Galleries highlight the permanent collection, examining the academic interests and themes explored in Syracuse University fall curricula, allowing for new dialogues and art appreciation for students, faculty and the public.

The exhibitions opened Aug. 17 in the Shaffer Art Building. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m.-4:30 p.m.; and Thursdays 11 a.m.-8 p.m. The SUArt Galleries will host an opening night reception from 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 7. Patrons are welcome to view the exhibition until the gallery closes at 8 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public.

“In Gratitude: The Museum Project,” on display in the Photography Study Gallery, examines the Museum Project, an artist collective formed by over a dozen pre-eminent American artists seeking a way to express their gratitude for the institutional support of, and commitment to, photography as an art form. This exhibition, curated by exhibition and collection manager Emily Dittman, features a multitude of contemporary perspectives and a rich diversity of styles, concepts and photographic materials as it explores the recent donation of artwork to the Syracuse University Art Collection.

“Americans in Venice: Late 19^th and early 20^th Century Prints,” curated by SUArt Galleries director Domenic Iacono, presents six prints by James McNeill Whistler from this period, placing them alongside the work of other Americans who were practicing in Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The juxtaposition of these works allows the viewer to appreciate Whistler’s innovations and his effect on the artists who followed him. Artists such as Mortimer Menpes, Frank Duveneck, Otto Bacher and Joseph Pennell owe much to Whistler’s innovative style and approach and, in turn, their work had an impact on the artists who made prints of Venice during the 20th century. On display in the Print Study Room, this exhibition will be on view through May 13, 2018.

The exhibition and programs are free and open to the public.�� Complete information and related programming is available by visiting the website at

Artwork from “Present Tense” exhibition

To promote peace and move public opinion toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, a survivors’ (Hibakusha) organization produced the panels, and Japanese consumer co-op unions have disseminated them throughout Japan and the world. Nihon Hidankyo is the Japanese national organization of A-bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Hibakusha); founded in 1956, it is dedicated to the elimination of nuclear weapons and prevention of a nuclear war.

The Japanese Consumers’ Co-operative Union gave the set of panels to Andrew Grimes, a professor who researched co-ops and visited Japan. The panels were shown in Lexington, Kentucky, in the 1990s; Grimes wanted them exhibited again in 2017, as their message is especially relevant. His daughter, Diane Grimes, an associate professor of communication and rhetorical studies in the College of Visual and Performing Arts’ Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies, brought the panels to Syracuse to be shown.

Regular exhibition hours are Tues.-Sat., 1-4 p.m. Email 914works@syr.edu for more information.

“Present Tense” is co-sponsored by the Syracuse Peace Council, 914Works, Bishop Harrison Center, and the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies. It is part of a larger Hiroshima and Nagasaki commemoration; for more information, visit .

Yvonne Buchanan, “Polaris” video still

On view through Aug. 27 and curated by DJ Hellerman, “Seen and Heard” explores the use of the arts as a catalyst for social change. Artists have played key roles in social and political movements throughout history, altering the ways in which people view and think about the world. Whether performance, music or visual, art of any medium has the power to challenge assumptions and inspire passions as nothing else can, and artists harness that power to analyze humanity, initiate tough conversations, protest injustice and effect emotional and systematic change.

Initially inspired by Barbara Kruger’s “Who Speaks? Who is Silent?,” a monumental work in the Everson’s collection that addresses the implication of silence and representation for women, “Seen and Heard” features the work of nine contemporary artists alongside key works from the museum’s permanent collection. Through this presentation, the exhibition considers the history of social and political activism in the arts and invites visitors to participate in a timely conversation about equal rights and civic engagement. The nine artists, who also include Mildred Beltré, Lionel Cruet, Stella Marrs, Jessica Putnam-Phillips, Kevin Snipes and Holly Zausner, share a passion for social equality and justice, and their work builds upon the extensive history of art as a form of activism. Working in sculpture, installation, printmaking, ceramics, photography and video, each artist explores the language and tactics of protest in both subtle and overt ways.

Cassils’ work on view includes “Resilience of the 20%,” the monumental bronze sculpture created in the School of Art’s Fall 2016 SCU 300/600 Atelier: Cassils’ course, co-taught by Cassils, Tom Hall and Posner.

The Everson Museum is located at 401 Harrison St., Syracuse. Learn more about the exhibition and related events on the Everson’s .

The Light Work Grants in Photography program is a part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to Central New York artists working in photography. Established in 1975, it is one of the longest-running photography fellowship programs in the country.

Each recipient receives a $3,000 award, is published in Contact Sheet: The Light Work Annual and will be part of a group exhibition at Light Work with fellow grant recipients in the fall. The judges for this year were Jacqueline Bates (photography director, California Sunday Magazine), Kottie Gaydos (curator and director of operations, Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography) and Charles Guice (director, Charles Guice Contemporary, and co-founder, Converging Perspectives).

Film by Mary Helena Clark, 2017

is an artist and educator based in Hamilton, New York. Her films have been screened at the 2017 Whitney Biennial (New York, New York), the Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus, Ohio), Grazer Kunstverein (Graz, Austria), Anthology Film Archives (New York, New York), Museum of Contemporary Photography (Chicago, Illinois), National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Swedish Film Institute (Stockholm, Sweden) and at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the New York Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, the Hong Kong International Film Festival and BAMcinématek, among others. She has curated film programs at Altman Siegel (San Francisco, California), The Nightingale (Chicago), and Bridget Donahue (New York, New York). Her work has been written about in Reverse Shot, Cinema Scope, Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail and Filmmaker Magazine, among other publications.

“My work is motivated by the transportive qualities of cinema, employing the same fluidity and physical lawlessness that is at the heart of lyrical poetics—how rhythms can move a viewer through space while causal relationships splinter.”

— Mary Helena Clark

Joe Librandi-Cowan, “The Auburn System Line-up,” 2015

is a 2015 graduate of the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, where he studied fine art photography and was the recent recipient of an Imagining America Engagement Fellowship. His artistic practice is heavily community-based, dealing with the deep and complex issues of the prison industrial complex, its role within society, and its impact on his hometown’s community. Librandi-Cowan is a native of Auburn, New York—a community sustained by a maximum-security prison that lies in the middle of the city. He works closely with community members and community educational institutions to create and show images that function within the community to create positive dialog around these difficult topics, while simultaneously allowing these images to function outside of the community to ask bigger questions about mass incarceration within American society. Librandi-Cowan has received a Finger Lakes Community Arts Grant and has had solo shows of his project “The Auburn System” at The Cayuga Museum of History and Art in Auburn and The Gallery at Onondaga Community Collegein Syracuse, New York. He has also shown widely online, including a feature on Lensculture and an interview with Pete Brook of the Prison Photography Project.

“My work brings these histories into discussion within the context of modern day mass incarceration to explore how a community so deeply ingrained within the prison industry and penal history coexists with its prison. The work also exists to foster a discussion that asks difficult questions regarding prisons, incarceration and policing within American society.”

— Joe Librandi-Cowan

Stephanie Mercedes, “Castigos,” 2017

Stephanie Mercedes an Argentinian/American artist who studied fine art and critical studies at Smith College and the European Graduate School, and was a 2014 recipient of the Norfolk Fellowship from Yale School of Art. Mercedes is interested in manipulating traditional forms of photography and investigating the role of photographic copyright in historical national memory. Mercedes recently had a solo show: “Luz del Día: Copyrighting the Light of Day” at the Flower City Art Center and the Common Ground Gallery in Washington, D.C., and at Antenna Gallery, New Orleans, Louisiana. Mercedes has also exhibited at MORE Gallery in Italy and Puffin Cultural Foundation in 2017. Mercedes has performed and exhibited throughout the United States, in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland and Italy. She is currently teaching: “The Politics of Hope,” “Using Art as a Political Tool,” “Archives of the Future” and “Law as Form.” Mercedes won the 5 College Film Festival in 2015 and has participated in the residencies at Bronx Museum of Art, Flower City Art Center, Kimmel Neilson Art Center, Lugar a Dudas, Largo das Artes, LPEP and SOMA Summer. Mercedes lives in Hamilton, New York.

“Even for those who have no connection to Argentina or the history of human rights violations in Latin America. My work is about attempting to restore the missing fragments of historical memory. Something that I believe is a universal human desire.”

— Stephanie Mercedes

For more information regarding��this year’s grant recipients and to view their work, please visit�� at

Loren Bartnicke, detail of “Windows of Desire,” 2017

The Syracuse University Art Galleries announces “Let’s Be Dragons: Wild Seeds,” the annual exhibition of the master of fine arts [M.F.A.] thesis candidates��from the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Wild Seeds features the artwork of nine emerging artists: Loren Bartnicke, Gang Chen, Owen Drysdale, Rachel Fein-Smolinski, Peter Smith, Shiwen Su, Chunlin Yang, Munjal Yagnik and Chris Zacher.

The exhibition is organized by DJ Hellerman, curator of art and programs at the Everson Museum of Art; this spring marks the first-ever campus and Syracuse citywide celebration of the arts learned and practiced at Syracuse University.

The exhibition will run Thursday, April 6, through Sunday, May 14, in the Shaffer Art Building. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; and Thursdays 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. The gallery will be closed Easter weekend and on University holidays. The SUArt Galleries will host an opening reception from 5 – 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 13. Patrons are welcome to view the exhibition until the gallery closes at 8 p.m.�� The reception is free and open to the public.

Referencing Octavia E. Butler’s 1980 science-fiction novel “These Wild Seeds,” the exhibition brings together a selection of artists interested in undermining or tinkering with superstructures designed to engineer social order and temper radical individuality. Altogether, the artists in “Wild Seeds” point and nudge our focus toward institutions with power and control. The works present questions about who has the agency to manipulate our subjectivity and they attempt to craft histories that open the possibility of forging against the currents of dominant culture.

Decidedly, these artworks and art practices are acts of resistance and revision, often rejected or dismissed, that help us envision a future that is unlike our past. “Let’s Be Dragons” organizer DJ Hellerman states, “It has been a privilege to work with such a committed group of artists. As they leave the M.F.A. program, I have high expectations for their contributions to the world. We all need engaged artists making challenging work, especially now.”

This year, the M.F.A. exhibition is divided among four Syracuse University exhibition spaces, and features 29 artists.�� “Let’s Be Dragons” is the overarching exhibition title and each venue acts as an individual chapter, unifying the work shown at each location. The participating venues include SUArt Galleries (“Wild Seeds”), Point of Contact Gallery (“Serpents Inside”), Community Folk Art Center (“Strangers in a Strange Land”), and 914 Works (“Hardwired to Connect”).

Select programming associated with the exhibition includes a Lunchtime Lecture with DJ Hellerman, organizer of the exhibition, on Wednesday, April 12, beginning at 12:15 p.m.�� The exhibition and programs are free and open to the public. Complete information and related programming is available by visiting the official exhibition website at

DJ��Hellerman��is curator of art and programs at the Everson Museum of Art. A native of Ohio, DJ began curating and educating people about art while helping Progressive Insurance build a collection of contemporary art designed to encourage innovation and change. He received an M.A. in art history from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and a B.A. in English and philosophy from Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio. He loves live music and literature as much as he enjoys visual art.

A few of Hellerman’s recent curatorial productions include solo exhibitions: “T.R. Ericsson: Crackle & Drag,” “Björn Schülke: Traveling Spy” and “Mildred Beltré: DreamWork.” A few recent theme-based group exhibitions include “Of Land & Local,” an annual place-based exhibition about art and the environment, and “Taking Pictures,” an exhibition exploring how artists associated with the Pictures Generation anticipated and recently turned their critical attention to digital networks used in the dissemination and consumption of images.

Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, “#2 Gas Money,” 2013

The Syracuse University Art Galleries celebrates the strength of Syracuse University students, alumnae and scholarship with the presentation of two new exhibitions that opened April 6.

“Hindsight: Four Alumni Artists from the College of Visual and Performing Arts” examines the careers of four women who met during their time as students in the College of Visual and Performing Arts: Sarah Provoncha Burda, Angela Earley-Alves, Maggy Rozycki Hiltner and Jenny Kanzler.

“Taking Flight: Richard Koppe’s Works on Paper” features over 20 original prints and drawings selected from the Syracuse University permanent art collection, and is the first exhibition to highlight Koppe’s work, maintained by the Art Collection, in over 40 years.

Richard Koppe, “Waiting,” 1946

The exhibitions will be on view April 6 through May 14, 2017 in the Shaffer Art Building at Syracuse University. Gallery hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 11 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.; and Thursdays 11 a.m. – 8 p.m.�� The Gallery will be closed on Easter weekend and University holidays.�� The SUArt Galleries will host a gallery reception from 5 – 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 13.�� Patrons are welcome to view the exhibition until the gallery closes at 8 p.m.�� The reception is free and open to the public.

“Taking Flight: Richard Koppe’s Works on Paper” explores for the first time in 40 years the holdings of this important abstract artist housed in the Syracuse University permanent art collection. The display examines an artist whose career exemplifies the interconnectedness of art, design and engineering in the 20th century. The paintings and drawings on exhibition can be linked to his experiences as a student of the New Bauhaus, a wartime aircraft production engineer and art educator at one of the first design schools in America.

Installed in the Wiezel Gallery, the exhibition was curated by Theresa Engelbrecht G’17, dual master’s candidate in museum studies and art history and recipient of the 2015 and 2016 Louise and Bernard Palitz Art Scholar Award. The topic corresponds with her thesis research on the artist, which she will present at the conclusion of her graduate work in art history.

“Hindsight: Four Alumni From the College of Visual and Performing Arts,” installed in the Study Gallery, features the work of artists Sarah Provoncha Burda, Angela Earley-Alves, Maggy Rozycki Hiltner and Jenny Kanzler. Each has grown in artistic practice since graduating in 1997, taking on new media and shifting subject matter that progressed from their original course of study. In addition to their campus connection, the work of these artists share overarching themes of memory, nostalgia, storytelling and the idea of their work being more than what meets the eye at first glance.

Burda, Earley-Alves, Hiltner and Kanzler look back on their experiences from childhood and their migrations from Syracuse, to and from various cities, rural areas and suburbs in their post-collegiate artistic careers. Students enrolled in the Graduate Program in Museum Studies course Advanced Curatorship, organized the exhibition, guided by Andrew Saluti, chief curator of exhibitions, programs and education at the Special Collections and Archives Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries.

Select programming associated with the exhibitions includes an artist panel with the four artists from “Hindsight,” presented by the Visiting Artist Lecture Series sponsored by the School of Art, on Thursday, April 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the Shemin Auditorium in Shaffer Art Building. There will also be a Lunchtime Lecture, highlighting the exhibition “Taking Flight” with curator of the exhibition Theresa Moir Engelbrecht, on Wednesday, May 3, at 12:15 p.m. Please check the SUArt Galleries website for updated information on the lectures, as well as additional programming including lunchtime lectures and a special SUKids event in April.