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. .

Emily Dittman

Following 17 years of service to the , Emily Dittman has been named director, effective Oct. 16. The announcement was made today by Associate Provost for Strategic Initiatives Elisa Dekaney.

“Emily’s steady, visionary leadership has already guided the Syracuse University Art Museum along a successful path and secured its place at the center of campus life,” Dekaney says. “I am excited to continue working with her to further expand and strengthen the museum as a resource for students, faculty, staff and the local community.”

Dittman has served as the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s interim director for two years, leading operations, financial and strategic planning, alumni relations, fundraising and communications and marketing, and managing a staff of six full-time and 14 part-time employees. Additionally, she directs the collections care team, overseeing cataloguing, storage, environmentals and the design and function of the collection database.

“I am thrilled to embark on the next chapter of my leadership journey with the arts at Syracuse University,” Dittman says. “The museum’s prestigious permanent collection, engaging exhibitions and dynamic programs inspire me daily with their potential to serve as transformative experiences for our community. I am excited for the opportunity to collaborate more closely with our students, faculty, artists and community members during this exciting period of growth for the museum as an arts destination that is welcoming and open to all.”

Dittman joined the Art Museum in 2007 as a collection and exhibition manager, a role she held for 11 years. In that capacity, she had oversight of the SUArt Traveling Exhibition program, the Campus Loan program, special exhibitions and photography exhibitions at Syracuse University Art Galleries. She also handled communications tasks, including gallery publications and media relations. She later served as associate director for four years.

Dittman has curated a number of exhibitions, including “Impact!: The Photo League and its Legacy,” “Wanderlust: Travel Photography,” “Everyday Art: Street Photography in the Syracuse University Art Collection” and “Pure Photography: Pictorial and Modern Photographs.” She serves on the board of and teaches museum studies courses in the .

Dittman earned an M.A. in museum studies and an M.S. in library and information science from Syracuse University and a B.A. in history from Allegheny College.

The University welcomes alumni back to campus at the tailgate during Orange Central 2023 (Photo by Ross Knight)

Get ready for an unforgettable weekend as Syracuse University gears up for Orange Central Homecoming 2024. This year’s celebration, set for Nov. 1-3, will be a vibrant and family-friendly weekend, bringing the campus community together in a spirit of camaraderie and Orange pride.

While there is a , be sure not to miss these signature programs from the Office of Alumni Engagement and Annual Giving:

Friday, Nov. 1: Kick off the weekend with Forever Orange Friday from 6-9 p.m. on the Shaw Quad. Enjoy delicious cookout food, lawn games, a photo booth and time with Otto the Orange while mingling with student organizations participating in our Student Organization Challenge.

Saturday, Nov. 2: Start your day with our Homecoming Alumni Breakfast from 9-10:30 a.m. inside Schine’s Goldstein Auditorium. Connect with alumni, students, faculty and staff from various schools and colleges—all in one place. Pick up your exclusive game day clear tote, then head to the Quad for our tailgate.

Sunday, Nov. 3: Wrap up the weekend with our *NEW* SU Arts Fair and Brunch from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Shaffer Art Building lobby. Stop by as your schedule allows to enjoy hands-on art activities, an Instagram photo station, balloon artist, drumming performances and guided tours of the Syracuse University Art Museum—plus a delicious brunch.

Orange Central Homecoming 2024 is more than just a weekend of events; it’s a celebration of the Syracuse University community and our incredible spirit. Whether you’re a graduate, a current student, or a member of Syracuse’s faculty or staff, we hope you’ll join us for a weekend filled with fun, food and festivities. Sign-up is .

Under the new banner Arts at Syracuse University, are top-notch museums and galleries, active maker spaces, robust community centers and a myriad of creative events and programs.

The new name is part of a rebranding and profile-boosting effort to highlight the University’s arts offerings and strengthen and grow awareness of its diverse group of centers and programs, says , assistant provost for arts and community programming.

The initiative includes the , which comprehensively illustrates the range of arts centers and programming available to students, faculty, staff and community members. The site also includes a dedicated that highlights events, ongoing programs and exhibitions.

Spaces and programs include , , , , , , at Syracuse University Libraries, , the , Syracuse University Artist-in-Residence Program and the in New York City.

Outdoor visual displays are conducted at the Urban Video Project.

New ideas about how academic and community arts programming and experiences are presented to a range of constituencies—students, faculty, staff and the general public—and as part of student experiential learning, teaching activities and individual entertainment and enjoyment resulted from a year-long planning process spearheaded by the , Traudt says.

Miranda Traudt

“This is much more than a name change. It’s a true rethinking of the arts at Syracuse University,” she says. “We purposefully considered how all the individual units and centers that are doing such fantastic work on their own could band together to have greater overall impact and visibility and to create wider local, regional, national and international awareness of these exceptional offerings.”

In addition to enhancing the visibility of the separate arts programs and centers, Arts at Syracuse University highlights how, grouped together, the units offer distinctive experiential learning opportunities for students that are typically available only at much larger national and international venues, Traudt says.

Syracuse Stage puts students and their artistic presentations at the center of downtown Syracuse and hosts theater offerings that are enjoyed by all of Central New York.

“The Syracuse University Art Museum has one of the largest university-owned art collections in the country. La Casita, as a vital part of the Syracuse Near West Side community, is the only Latin cultural center in this part of New York state. The Community Folk Art Center is a vibrant seat of community programming for people of all ages. Light Work’s renowned Artist-in-Residence Program has hosted more than 400 artists coming from every U.S. state and 15-plus countries. Urban Video Project is an important international venue for the public presentation of video and electronic arts and one of the few projects in the U.S. dedicated to continuous and ongoing video art projections. Exhibitions of nationally and internationally known artists hosted here mean you don’t have to travel to New York City to see that kind of artistic excellence.”

Elisa Dekaney

Elisa Dekaney, associate provost for strategic initiatives, makes this comparison. “We pride ourselves on the fact that the University’s study-abroad programs utilize their locations as classrooms. We say, ‘Florence is our classroom; London is our classroom’ because of what these cities offer in the arts and cultural experiences. But we can also say ‘Syracuse is our classroom’ because of the rich arts programming the University offers right here.”

Other goals defined in the strategic operating plan include serving as an international model of arts and humanities engagement for institutions of higher education; expanding community partnerships; growing reciprocal relationships with local, regional, national and international arts and strategic partners; increasing faculty, alumni and donor engagement with the arts programs and centers.

Directed by School of Education Professor , Breedlove Readers encourages girls ages 13 through 17 to celebrate black girl stories through reading, writing and creating in the community.

For the , the club will explore ideas around identity and coming-of-age, two themes that the Art Museum addresses in its latest exhibition, “.”

Book club participants will read a novel that resonates with the life and works of Gordon Parks—a pioneering Black photographer, poet and musician—and then visit the Art Museum to explore connections between the novel and his photographs.

As a photographer, Parks worked in a variety of styles, including fashion photography, celebrity portraiture and social justice subjects. Parks famously called his camera a “tool of social consciousness” and a “weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs.” The exhibition includes photographs from Parks’ full body of work, which spans decades of his career.

About the Breedlove Readers Fall 2024 Program

• Meeting Dates: Saturday, Nov. 2 (Syracuse University Art Museum) and Saturday, Dec. 7 (Syracuse University MakerSpace)
• Applications close Tuesday, Oct 1. .
• Space is limited to 10 participants per cohort, ages 13-17.
• All programming is free of charge.
• Transportation is available.
• If accepted, participants must commit to attending all meetings.

Gordon Parks, “Mrs. Jefferson,” from the series Fort Scott Revisited (Photo courtesy of The Gordon Parks Foundation)

“Homeward to the Prairie I Come” features more than 75 of Parks’ images, examining his wide-ranging artistic ideas. The exhibition not only includes Parks’ documentary photography such as the series Paris Fashions, Fort Scott Revisited and The Redemption of the Champion��(featuring images of Muhammed Ali), but also his thoughts on photography as a fine art medium and his engagement with celebrated paintings and sculptures.

Most significantly, the photographs instigate cultural change by challenging viewers to imagine a more inclusive culture than the one they know: a world where Black skin represents ideal beauty, where an African American athlete embodies the exemplary hero and where an artist of African heritage has a place within the lineage of excellent artists in Western art history.

“This exhibition leverages the power of art to catalyze dialogue about the wide range of issues that Parks engaged with in his photography, from systemic racism to the labor and ethics of the global fashion industry to ideas of celebrity and home,” says Melissa Yuen, the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s interim chief curator.

Interim director of the museum Emily Dittman says, “Gordon Parks was a visionary interdisciplinary artist whose work had a lasting impact on the world. His dedication to continually tell the stories of individuals that were—and still are—too often hidden and overlooked is clearly evident and inspiring throughout his artistic work.”

In this spirit, the museum is taking steps to creating an accessible, diverse and multilingual space for all communities and families. The interpretive text in the exhibition is bilingual, providing both English and Spanish text for visitors, large-type text will be available and a family guide is provided to help youth and families explore the exhibition. An open access digital exhibition catalog for the exhibition will be available for visitors in the reflection area, as well as reading materials on Gordon Parks and his multifaceted career. The exhibition will be accompanied by a dynamic slate of public programming, all free and open to the public.

Co-curated by Aileen June Wang, Ph.D., curator, and Sarah Price, registrar, at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Kansas State University, the tour is organized by Art Bridges. The exhibition and related programs have been made possible by generous support from Art Bridges, the Wege Foundation and the Humanities Center (Syracuse Symposium).

About the Artist

Parks, one of the greatest photographers of the twentieth century, was a humanitarian with a deep commitment to social justice. He left behind an exceptional body of work that documents American life and culture from the early 1940s into the 2000s, with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights and urban life. Parks was also a distinguished composer, author and filmmaker who interacted with many of the leading people of his era—from politicians and artists to athletes and celebrities.

Born into poverty and segregation in Fort Scott, Kansas, in 1912, Parks was drawn to photography as a young man when he saw images of migrant workers taken by Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographers in a magazine. After buying a camera at a pawn shop, he taught himself how to use it. Despite his lack of professional training, he won the Julius Rosenwald Fellowship in 1942; this led to a position with the photography section of the FSA in Washington, D.C., and, later, the Office of War Information (OWI). Working for these agencies, which were then chronicling the nation’s social conditions, Parks quickly developed a personal style that would make him among the most celebrated photographers of his era. His extraordinary pictures allowed him to break the color line in professional photography while he created remarkably expressive images that consistently explored the social and economic impact of poverty, racism, and other forms of discrimination.

Featured Events

• Opening Reception and Keynote—Sept. 6, 4-6:30 p.m.; keynote: 4-5 p.m., 160 Link Hall; reception: 5-6:30 p.m., Syracuse University Art Museum
• The Duke Ellington Orchestra presented in partnership with the Malmgren Concert Series—Sept. 22, 4 p.m.; Hendricks Chapel, with reception to follow at the Syracuse University Art Museum
• Community Screening of “Shaft” (1971), directed by Gordon Parks—Oct. 4, 7 p.m.; The Westcott Theater, 524 Westcott St., Syracuse
• Community Day—Oct. 5, noon-4 p.m.; Syracuse University Art Museum
• Art Break: Gordon Parks with Nancy Keefe Rhodes—Oct. 16, noon;��Syracuse University Art Museum
• Celebrating the Legacy of Gordon Parks—Nov. 9, noon-4 p.m.; Syracuse University Art Museum;��1 p.m.: Art Break with contemporary photographer Jarod Lew; 2:30 p.m.: screening of “A Choice of Weapons: Inspired by Gordon Parks” (2021)
• Gordon Parks Community Gathering/Showcase—Dec. 7, timing TBD;��Deedee’s Community Room, Salt City Market, 484 S. Salina St., Syracuse

Visit the for event information. Members of the media may contact Emily Dittman, interim director of Syracuse University Art Museum, for more information or to schedule a tour.

[Featured image: Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks, “Mrs. Jefferson,” from the series Fort Scott Revisited, 1950, printed in 2017, gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches. Kansas State University, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, gift of Gordon Parks and the Gordon Parks Foundation, 2017.373. Image courtesy of and copyright by The Gordon Parks Foundation]

“Syracuse University is so fortunate to count outstanding teachers, scholars and administrators like Julie and Elisa among its faculty members, and I am truly grateful for their willingness to serve in these important roles,” Agnew says. “Their past leadership experiences and fresh perspectives position them to make a positive impact not only on the Academic Affairs team, but also across the University and in the local community.”

Julie Hasenwinkel

Julie Hasenwinkel

As associate provost for academic programs, Hasenwinkel will support teaching, learning and student success. Her portfolio will include oversight of a wide range of University offices and programs in these areas, including the , the and . She assumes the role from Agnew, who was named interim vice chancellor, provost and chief academic officer July 1.

, a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence, is currently chair of the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering in the (ECS). She is also a faculty affiliate of the . She has served as ECS associate dean for academic and student affairs and senior associate dean.

Her professional and scholarly areas of expertise include faculty development in teaching and learning; engineering education and active learning pedagogies; student success initiatives; orthopedic biomaterials; and biomaterials for nerve regeneration. She holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University, an M.S. in bioengineering from Clemson University and a B.S.E. in biomedical engineering from Duke University.

“I’m very excited to take on this role and to have the opportunity to work with colleagues across the University and the leadership team in Academic Affairs to enhance our academic programs, student success, experiential inquiry and teaching and learning excellence,” Hasenwinkel says. “I look forward to implementing the goals of the academic strategic plan and exploring innovative ways that we can meet the current and future needs of our students so they can thrive at Syracuse University and beyond.”

Elisa Dekaney

Elisa Dekaney

In the role of associate provost for strategic initiatives, Dekaney will work to strengthen the academic experience through strong connections with campus and community-based programs, particularly in the arts and humanities. In this role, she will oversee University-based cultural organizations like the , and , among others. Dekaney will also have oversight of the University’s study abroad and study away initiatives. She assumes the role from Marcelle Haddix, who was recently named dean of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

, now the associate dean for research and global engagement and a professor of music education in the , is also a Laura J. and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Teaching Excellence.

Her scholarly research focuses on aesthetic response to music, world music and cultures, International Phonetic Alphabet, Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian culture and clinical simulation applied to music education. She holds a Ph.D. in choral music education from Florida State University, a master’s degree in choral conducting from the University of Missouri-Kansas, a bachelor’s degree in sacred music (piano) from the Seminário Teológico Batista do Sul do Brasil and a bachelor’s degree in communications from the Universidade Federal Fluminense.

“I am honored to join Interim Provost Lois Agnew and the entire Academic Affairs team. This role presents an incredible opportunity to collaborate with Syracuse University faculty, staff and students in driving innovative projects and fostering a culture of excellence in an environment welcoming to all,” Dekaney says. “I am committed to advancing our strategic goals with a strong focus on diversity and inclusion. By ensuring that our initiatives reflect these core values, we can create a transformative educational experience that benefits all members of our community.”

Goode teamed up with staff at the�� and students across campus to explore the ways in which objects and artworks in the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection could be utilized as teaching resources. Over the past year, the transdisciplinary team has conducted countless hours of research to develop a collection of electronic museums (e-museums) called the��. The following section of questions and answers provide details and information about the curators, the extensive research that went into this effort and how teachers can utilize these resources.

Josh T Franco

The will host artist and art historian Josh T Franco in residence at the museum and on the Syracuse University campus to activate “Scriptorium con Safos: Syracuse,” and to engage with the community. The mini-residency is sponsored through generous support provided by .

The mini-residency begins on Thursday, April 4 at 2 p.m. with “Rocks, Water, Responsibility: Responding to Site,” a workshop open to the public to explore interconnections between people, rocks, and water. Franco will collaborate with Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach, to lead the workshop that will begin at the museum to examine Franco’s work alongside American artist Robert Smithson’s installation “Double Nonsite, California and Nevada.”�� Through this examination, the group will consider how we might use that lens to explore the local geological landscape at Canal Landing Park in Fayetteville. Advance is required for this workshop.

Franco will then activate the museum galleries for a performance of “Scriptorium con Safos: Syracuse,” from 2:30-4:30 p.m. on Friday, April 5. Afterward, Franco will be in conversation with , associate professor of studio arts in the School of Art in the , from 5-5:30 p.m., which will be followed by a reception hosted by the museum.

Franco, who is overseeing the permanent collection installation at the museum for 2023-24, will conclude his mini-residence with a live performance of “Scriptorium con Safos: Syracuse,” from 1-3 p.m. on Saturday, April 6.

Rina Banerjee’s “Take Me to the Palace of Love”

One of the highest honors given by MANY, the Art Museum, along with fellow awardees that include peer museums, museum professionals, industry partners and legislative leaders, will be recognized for their exceptional achievements at MANY’s 2024 annual conference “Giving Voice to Value” in Albany, New York, in early April. “We are honored to be recognized by our museum colleagues for the Rina Banerjee exhibition and related programs- which included extensive collaborations with our campus community through faculty, student and staff-led programs, as well as the greater Syracuse area community,” says Emily Dittman, interim director, who will receive the award on behalf of the museum. “This project provided us the opportunity to truly fulfill our mission to foster diverse and inclusive perspectives by uniting students across campus with each other and the local and global community, engaging with artwork to bring us together, and examining the forces that keep us apart.”

From left: Romita Ray, Rina Banerjee and Joan Bryant

Inspired by “Take Me to the Palace of Love” a 2003 art installation by contemporary artist Rina Banerjee about home and diaspora, Ray accumulated a group of work from the Syracuse University Art Museum permanent art collection as well as from other Central New York museums, to install in the museum galleries in conjunction with Banerjee’s monumental sculptures. “Viola, from New Orleans” a work that explores inter-racial marriage in America, and “A World Lost,” an installation that critiques climate change, anchored the galleries and was placed in dialogue with work from the collections.

As a part of the robust slate of public programs associated with the exhibition, the museum invited the University community, new Americans and under-represented communities in the city of Syracuse (a resettlement city for Afghans, Nepalese, Bhutanese, Somalians and Syrians) to document their own stories about identity and place—individually and collectively—in dialogue with Banerjee who was the University’s Jeannette K. Watson Distinguished Visiting Professor in the Humanities. “Take Me To The Palace of Love” was generously supported by the Syracuse University Humanities Center, along with 33 university departments and units at the University, The Republic of Tea and the National Endowment for the Arts.

“James Little’s contributions to contemporary American art have made him a standout among our talented alumni artists. His gift to the Art Museum expands its already impressive collection and increases our students’ exposure to important and diverse artistic works,” says Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer .

Emily Dittman, interim director of the museum, says the acquisition “is truly transformational to the museum collection, as well as our community of emerging artists, scholars, University students and colleagues and the central New York area. ‘Euclidian Squares’ joins other abstraction works in the permanent collection and adds an important voice of a critical artist. We are truly grateful to James for his generosity and commitment to the museum.”

Painting image credit: James Little, “Euclidean Squares,” 2022. Gift of the artist.

One of Little’s “white paintings,” “Euclidean Squares” is an oval canvas placed in a handsome diamond-shaped frame. Featuring an off-kilter grid of squares, the painting rewards close looking by revealing its densely and carefully painted surface. To make the art, Little first laid down a ground using dark paint populated with multicolor speckles. He then masked off the surface before pouring a thick layer of white pigment onto the canvas, waiting until it partially dried to expose the grid pattern. Areas along the margin also highlight the oil paint’s material quality, with tiny peaks disclosing the paint’s tackiness when the grid is revealed.

For this and his other works, Little draws on the repetition seen in the different patterns that populate New York City, where he lives and works.

James Little. (Photo courtesy of Sophia Little ‘15)

In a 2022 interview with Memphis Magazine, he shared: “There’s no narrative [to my painting.] It’s based on imagination…” Little’s commitment to abstraction, therefore, depends on a nuanced and sophisticated understanding of an interplay of color and shapes that relies on color theory and design principles. It also is in line with the rich history of teaching abstraction in painting at Syracuse. While earning a master’s degree in fine arts at the University in the late 1970s, Little studied with George Vander Sluis; their paintings share a similar tactility in surface. As Little also says in a 2022 Artforum interview, “You have to constantly investigate and engage with the surface; the movement is perpetual—it won’t stop.”

“Euclidean Squares” will be on view in the 2024-2025 reinstallation of the Collection Galleries at the museum and anchor one of its thematic sections.

Dittman says the painting continues the important shift in the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collecting plan over the past three years, which is a continuation of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s strategic plan and reflects a commitment to collecting and preserving works of art as a research tool and serving as a community educational space with the power to reflect and shape society. Through a critical examination of the scope of the permanent collection, the museum recognized large gaps in the representation of all voices, cultures and themes practiced in the visual arts, Dittman says, and Little’s painting adds to the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s strength in abstraction while complementing paintings by Black abstract painters currently in the permanent collection. Dittman says this gift continues to expand the museum’s holdings of works of art that reflect the global community and examine interdisciplinary interests such as science, history, politics and social justice.

Little earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Memphis Academy of Art and a master of fine arts degree from Syracuse University. He is a 2009 recipient of the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Painting. His work is featured prominently in the 2022 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and it has been exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions around the world. Those venues include MoMA P.S.1 in New York; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas; Studio Museum in Harlem; St. Louis Art Museum; and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. His work has been included in “The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse” at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond.

Recent solo exhibitions include “Homecoming: Bittersweet” at Dixon Gallery & Gardens: Art Museum in Memphis and an exhibition at Kavi Gupta in Chicago. Little also participated in a 2022 historic collaboration for Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts series. His paintings are represented in numerous public and private collections, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Art; Studio Museum; the Menil Collection in Houston; Library of Congress; Maatschappij Arti Et Amicitiae in Amsterdam; Saint Louis Art Museum, Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse; New Jersey State Museum in Trenton; Tennessee State Museum in Nashville; Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock; Newark Museum in New Jersey; and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.

“We are seeking a skilled, experienced arts professional who will leverage the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s existing strengths to expand its impact on campus and beyond,” Haddix says.

Miranda Traudt, assistant provost for arts and community programming, is chair of the committee.

Members are:

• Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach, Syracuse University Art Museum
• Samuel Johnson, assistant professor and director of graduate studies in art history, College of Arts and Sciences
• Juan Juarez, associate professor of studio arts, College of Visual and Performing Arts
• David Seaman, dean of Libraries and University Librarian

The search firm m/Oppenheim will assist the committee in all aspects of recruitment and selection. To , visit the Syracuse University Job Board. To apply or nominate individuals for the position, contact Lee Kappelman at 202.803.6674 or leek@moppenheim.com or Oscar Quiros at 415.762.2643 or oscarq@moppenheim.com.

“Assembly: Syracuse University Voices on Art and Ecology’ features artworks made by faculty and recent alumni that contribute to emergent forms of ecological understanding. By placing these works in dialogue with objects from the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s permanent collection, the installation considers a broad cultural evolution from an environmentalism of the sublime to an ecology of intimacy.

Sarah McCoubrey, “Floating Oil,” 2012. Courtesy of the artist.

The exhibition is curated by Sayler/Morris (Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris, co-directors of The Canary Lab at Syracuse University), with Mike Goode, William P. Tolley Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in the College of Arts and Sciences and Melissa Yuen, the art museum’s interim chief curator, assisted by Jeffrey Adams (Ph.D. Candidate in English), Jeanelle Cho ’24 (architecture and art history) and Abi Greenfield�� ’25 (history and political philosophy).

As stated by Sayler/ Morris, “The theme of this exhibition is ecology and any ecology properly regarded is an assembly of disparate beings, each with a distinct voice. We like the word assembly in this context
because it connotes more than a mere collection of voices; it implies that each voice will be heard and given space. Beyond this general meaning, we also intend the title to stand for the specific assembly of artistic voices all working within the Syracuse community that we have brought together here.”

In correlation to the exhibition, and in partnership with Goode, the museum will launch the Art,
Ecology and Climate Project, composed of 15 online galleries highlighting works from the collection,
each devoted to a different ecological topic, idea or issue. A general instructor’s guide offers
assignments applicable to any of the e-museums, and detailed guides to individual e-museums offer
additional tools for teaching ecology and climate through art, as well as instructional techniques for
approaching art in the classroom–or on your own–through the lenses of ecology and climate.

“I have focused my Tolley Professorship on helping create tools for Humanities courses to
engage more with ecological and climatological issues, and Sayler/Morris have been working tirelessly
for years to foster ecological thought and activism through their amazing art and their connections to
other ecologically minded artists,” says Goode.�� “It made perfect sense to partner with them to curate an exhibit whose cross-artwork dialogues could at once anchor courses and foster greater ecological mindfulness in museum visitors more generally.”

Robert Rauschenberg, “Calf Startena,” 1977. Gift of Mr. Gerald B. Cramer,’52, H’10, 1978.

The exhibition and related programs have been made possible by generous support from the Humanities
Center (Syracuse Symposium); Department of English; The Canary Lab; College of Engineering and
Computer Science; Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering; Undergraduate Program in
Environment, Sustainability and Policy; and the Environmental Storytelling of Central New York.

Featured events accompanying the exhibition include:

Art Break: ‘Assembly’ gallery tour with Melissa Yuen
Jan. 31, 12:15 to 1 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum

All Art is Ecological
Feb. 22, 4 to 8 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum and Shemin Auditorium
Art and Ecology Teaching Guides Launch (4 to 5 p.m.)
Gallery reception (5 to 6:30 p.m.)
Public lecture by Timothy Morton from Rice University (6:30 to 8 p.m.)

Environmental Storytelling CNY: Forging Ecological Awareness Through Art
March 7, 6 to 7:30 p.m.

Art Break: Bird Collisions in the Anthropocene with Holly Greenberg
March 19, noon to 4 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum

Community Day
April 13, noon to�� 4 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum

Visit the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s for more public programs surrounding the exhibition.

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks, “Pool Hall,” 1950, printed 2017, gelatin silver print, 8 3/8 x 12 in., Kansas State University, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, gift of Gordon Parks and the Gordon Parks Foundation, 2017.445. Image courtesy of and copyright by the Gordon Parks Foundation.

The grant of more than $93,000 will support exhibition production costs and programming. It will also fund the hiring of two project-related positions: a project K-12 engagement specialist, who will work closely with the museum educator to engage Central New York students with the exhibition through tours and lesson plans, and a program assistant to aid in the planning and execution of programs both on campus at the museum and in the Syracuse community. Planned events include a screening of one of Gordon Parks’ films at a public park in Syracuse, with local vendors and artists present to contribute to a festive, community-focused atmosphere.

(1912-2006) was a prominent 20th century photographer whose work, spanning the 1940s through the early 2000s, documents American life and culture with a focus on race relations, poverty, civil rights and urban life. “Homeward to the Prairie I Come” is considered by many curators to be his self portrait. The collection’s title comes from the first line of a poem written by Parks, a Kansas native, who was also a composer, author and filmmaker.

“This exhibition leverages the power of art to catalyze dialogue about the wide range of issues that Parks engaged with in his photography, from systemic racism to the labor and ethics of the global fashion industry to ideas of celebrity and home,” says Melissa Yuen, the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s interim chief curator.

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks, “Mrs. Jefferson,” 1950, printed 2017, gelatin silver print, 16 7/8 x 14 in., Kansas State University, Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, gift of Gordon Parks and the Gordon Parks Foundation, 2017.373. Image courtesy of and copyright by the Gordon Parks Foundation.

Interim museum director Emily Dittman says the project will allow the museum to experiment with new interpretation strategies and expand other existing interpretation plans. For example, museum staff members are planning to produce large-type labels and a family guide and incorporate audio, she says. Other plans include dedicated spaces for reading and reflection and features like a sound cone so that visitors will “not only be surrounded by his photographs, but also hear his music and read his writings for a multisensory experience of his wide-ranging output,” Dittman says.

Additionally, an open-access digital community catalogue will allow members of the University and local arts communities to record their responses to the work. Through this project, and in partnership with venues, the museum will seek to establish new connections with area photographers and the Syracuse Black Artist Collective, Dittman says.

The dialogue will occur at an all-day symposium, “Monumental Concerns.” It is being presented by University artist in residence Carrie Mae Weems H’17 and the University’s Office of Strategic Initiatives in conjunction with the Syracuse University Art Museum.

“Lincoln Memorial, 2015-2016” ©Carrie Mae Weems (Photo courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York)

The symposium will take place on Saturday, Oct. 7, beginning at 8:30 a.m. in Watson Theater, located in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, 316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse. The symposium is free and open to the public; guests are asked to . Communication Access Real-Time Translation (CART) will be available both days.

An opening presentation featuring Hank Willis Thomas and Eric Gottesman from the For Freedoms Collective will be held Friday, Oct. 6, at 4 p.m. in the Shaffer Art Building’s Shemin Auditorium. A reception will follow in the , also located in Shaffer Art Building.

The discussion will focus on:

• the role of monuments in contemporary society and their contested histories;
• the pros and cons of monument adjustment, removal or displacement;
• why racial conflicts erupt over the meanings and representations of monuments and how they can be addressed; and
• how the emotional and nationalistic role that monuments often play can be acknowledged, even while advocacy occurs for more inclusive historical framing.

Among the participants will be Weems; Willis Thomas; Gottesman; Paul M. Farber, director of Monument Lab in Philadelphia; Idris Brewster, executive director of Kinfolk and an artist using artificial intelligence to create interventions in public spaces; Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh; and Julie Ehrlich, director of presidential initiatives and chief of staff with the Mellon Foundation.

“The October convening brings together some of the leading thinkers and practitioners around monuments in the United States. In delving into the many histories that these public artworks commemorate, we will be addressing important and timely issues,” says Melissa Yuen, interim chief curator at the Syracuse University Art Museum. “It is our hope that the event will be the first step in helping us to build community and create a sense of belonging across the University in ways that will allow us to have productive conversations about these difficult topics.”

Below, Weems addresses why it is important to have this discussion, and how it can help move us forward.

Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach at the Syracuse University Art Museum, provides a tour during an open house.

Established in 2005, the mission of CMAC is to support the legacy network of cornerstone art organizations at Syracuse University by celebrating and exploring the arts and humanities culture through robust programming, exhibitions, publications, education, scholarship and public engagement.

CMAC consists of eight University and affiliated organizations: Syracuse University Art Museum, the Louise and Bernard Palitz Gallery, the Community Folk Art Center, Light Work (which includes the Urban Video Project), Point of Contact, La Casita, the Special Collections Research Center, and the Photography and Literacy Project.

Get to know CMAC and its coalition members, and be sure to visit their respective websites for a full listing of upcoming programs and exhibitions.��You can also stay up-to-date on by visiting the Syracuse University events calendar.

Syracuse University Art Museum

Located in the Shaffer Art Building, the acquires and preserves important works of art, serving as a museum-laboratory for exploration, experimentation and discussion. The teaching museum fosters diverse and inclusive perspectives by uniting students across campus with each other and the local and global community, engaging with artwork to bring us together and examining the forces that keep us apart.

Tanisha Jackson, Ph.D., executive director of the Community Folk Art Center, poses with art from Shaniqua Gay’s “Carry the Wait” exhibition.

Community Folk Art Center

The . (CFAC) was founded in 1972 by the late Herbert T. Williams, a professor of African American studies, in collaboration with University faculty, students, local artists and Syracuse city residents. CFAC promotes and cultivates artists from the African diaspora, celebrating cultural and artistic pluralism by collecting, exhibiting, teaching and interpreting the visual and expressive arts. CFAC is a proud unit of the Department of African American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, serving as a beacon of artistry, creativity and cultural expression.

Light Work

Housed in the Robert B. Menschel Media Center, was founded as an artist-run, nonprofit organization in 1973. Its mission is to provide direct support through residencies, publications, exhibitions, a community-access digital lab facility and other related projects to emerging and underrepresented artists working in the media of photography and digital imaging.

Urban Video Project

(UVP) is a Light Work program in partnership with the Everson Museum of Art and Onondaga County. UVP is an outdoor architectural projection venue dedicated to the public presentation of film, video and moving image arts, enhancing Central New York’s reputation as one of the birthplaces of video art.

Point of Contact

, Inc. fosters a collaborative model to explore contemporary visual and verbal arts, working across disciplines and cultures. Founded in 1975, Point of Contact is an organization in residence at Syracuse University, with offices in the Nancy Cantor Warehouse in downtown Syracuse and is an open forum for diverse identities to engage in open dialogue, working expansively across intellectual, social and geographic boundaries.

La Casita

is a program of Syracuse University established to advance an educational and cultural agenda of civic engagement through research, cultural heritage preservation, media and the arts—bridging the Hispanic communities of the University and Central New York. La Casita Cultural Center is located in the historic Lincoln Building in the city of Syracuse’s Near Westside neighborhood.

Special Collections Research Center

Located on the sixth floor of Bird Library, the (SCRC) advances scholarship and learning by collecting, preserving and providing access to rare books, manuscripts and other primary source materials. SCRC’s collections document the history of the University and our global society through printed materials, photographs, artworks, audio and moving image recordings, University records and more.

Photography and Literacy Project

The (PAL) brings University students into Syracuse City Schools to develop projects involving photography, video, audio recording and writing. The objective is to improve student’s writing and reading skills by linking these studies with photography, video and poetry. PAL Project also connects graduate and undergraduate student mentors and educators-in-training to community youth in an experiential learning environment.

CMAC is an initiative that falls under strategic initiatives in academic affairs at Syracuse University. To learn more, contact Miranda Traudt G’11, assistant provost for arts and community programming.

The semester kicks off with several key events next week. All are free and open to the public.

Thursday, Sept. 14

4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building

• Onondaga Nation artist ceramic works exhibition, “,” is part of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s 2023-24 Syracuse Symposium, “Landscape.” His work illustrates Haudenosaunee culture as a continuum that has resisted and persisted despite attacks on the confederacy’s lands, sovereignty and cultural identity.

5 to 7 p.m.
Light Work, Watson Hall, 316 Waverly Ave.

• Photographs by taken in his childhood hometown of Phoenix, Arizona explore personal histories of family, community and environment.

5 to 7 p.m.
Light Work, Watson Hall, 316 Waverly Ave.

• Photographs from 2023 Grant in Photography award recipients Amy Kozlowski, Linda Moses and Tahila Mintz are featured.

Friday, Sept. 15

12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building

• Onondaga Nation artist Peter B. Jones will discuss how his art comments on the Haudenosaunee cultural continuance and the challenges the Haudenosaunee people have faced through time.

6 to 8 p.m.
La Casita Cultural Center, 109 Otiso St., Syracuse

• Highlighting the works of Chicano artists Cayetano Valenzuela (Syracuse) and Zeke Peña (El Paso, Texas) “” focuses on Latino futurism and includes art by La Casita’s summer program youth. This community event kicks off La Casita’s fall season and observes Latine Heritage Month, which runs Sept. 15 to Oct. 15.

6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
Community Folk Art Center, 805 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

• Local musicians perform music by African American jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane.

In addition, another exhibition opens the following week.

September 21

:
“In Pursuit of Justice: Pan Am Flight 103”
4:30 to 6 p.m.
Bird Library, 6^th floor gallery, 222 Waverly Ave.

• The exhibition documents the Dec. 21, 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland that claimed the lives of 270 individuals, including 35 students returning from studying abroad through Syracuse University. Featuring materials donated to Libraries’ Research Center by victims’ loved ones and investigative team members, the exhibition provides an overview of the disaster, investigation and first trial.

For details about current and upcoming exhibitions and other events hosted by the Coalition for Museums and Art Centers, refer to the throughout the year.

(Featured photo: “Bomba, 2022 by Eduardo L. Rivera)

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.��

Maika Pollack, photograph courtesy Franco Salmoiraghi

Art historian, critic and curator Maika Pollack will join Syracuse University this fall as executive director and chief curator of the .

“Maika Pollack brings the talent and vision to support and expand the important role that Syracuse University Art Museum plays in campus life and in the greater Syracuse community. I look forward to working with her and watching the museum flourish under her leadership,” says Vice Chancellor, Provost and Chief Academic Officer Gretchen Ritter.

In her new role, Pollack will report to Marcelle Haddix, associate provost for strategic initiatives. Haddix’s portfolio includes, among other things, all University-wide arts and humanities affiliates and programs.

“We are excited to welcome Maika to campus this fall,” Haddix says. “She is an experienced, collaborative leader and talented arts professional whose contributions to the museum and the University will greatly benefit our students, faculty and staff.”

Pollack, who grew up in Central New York, comes to Syracuse from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in Honolulu, where she is the director and chief curator at John Young Museum of Art and University Galleries. She says she is looking forward to joining the Syracuse University community and returning to her native New York State.

“I am honored to take this role,” Pollack says. “Syracuse University has a long history of graduates who are enormously influential in the arts, from Clement Greenberg and Sol LeWitt to LaToya Ruby Frazier. I’m excited to help make this unique history more visible through exhibitions and publications, and to work with the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s talented staff and leadership.”

At the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in Honolulu, she established a founding endowment of nearly half a million dollars, created an imprint with nationally reviewed publications and curated shows with such artists as Ken Okiishi, Tadashi Sato, Stephanie Syjuco, Hadi Fallahpisheh, David Salle and Tetsuo Ochikubo and others.

She expanded diversity in programming and put together exhibitions lauded in local and national media, resulting in an attendance of almost 40,000 unique visitors in 2022-2023. She also oversaw the creation of a scholarly study room, the rehousing of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s permanent collection, the transition to an updated collections management system and renovations to improve facilities.

Prior to Honolulu, Pollack was co-founder and director of Southfirst, a contemporary art gallery in Brooklyn that presented experimental exhibitions for almost two decades, where her curated shows were reviewed by major publications. Previously, Pollack worked as the curatorial assistant to the chief curator at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in Queens, where in 2000 she was part of the original curatorial team for the highly popular “Warm Up” summer performance series. Additionally, she founded the imprint Object Relations. Her writing on contemporary art and culture has been widely published. She was the museum exhibition critic for the New York Observer from 2011 to 2015.

Pollack earned Ph.D. and master’s degrees in the history of art and architecture at Princeton University and an A.B. in art history and social studies at Harvard University. She has taught art history and curatorial studies at Sarah Lawrence College, Pratt University, New York University, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa and Princeton. Her research focuses on the history of photography, late 19th-century European art, feminist art, American art of the 1960s and 70s, contemporary art and postcolonial studies.

, an innovative female artist of her time and an outspoken champion of arts education, is regarded as one of the most important American Abstract Expressionist painters and printmakers of the 20th century. She established and endowed the foundation to advance her legacy and inspire a new generation of practitioners through philanthropic, educational and research initiatives.

The University’s art museum is now one of just 20 academic art museums in the U.S. to receive the award, says Emily Dittman, the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s interim director. The museum will receive 10 published prints, a full set of process proofs for one of those prints and the funds to host a project or program for the study, presentation and interpretation of the artworks. This is the second time the grants have been given.

Frankenthaler Prints Initiative grantees are chosen based on the institution’s demonstrated commitment to making the prints a significant collection area and teaching tool, according to Elizabeth Smith, the foundation’s executive director.

“These gifts advance the study of Frankenthaler’s work and invite new scholarly investigation about her printmaking practice. We are excited to see what fresh insights arise from the prints’ inclusion in curricula, curatorial programming and other new academic and artistic contexts at universities fostering the next generation of artists and scholars,” Smith says.

One of Helen Frankenthaler’s abstract works housed at the Syracuse University Art Museum.

“This grant is very exciting. It distinguishes our art museum as a top-level institution in the country and adds prominent recognition for the strategic work at the museum to build its large and impressive print collections that are used by our University community for interdisciplinary research and projects,” Dittman says.

Melissa Yuen, interim chief curator of SUArt Museum, says the University is extremely fortunate to receive the materials. “Frankenthaler is world-renowned as one of the most prominent American artists of the second half of the 20th century. She came of age when printmaking took off after World War II, then expanded her techniques to push the envelope artistically. She used traditional methods such as lithography, screen printing and woodblock, but added the use of diverse objects such as chainsaws and dental tools in the printmaking process to really upend how prints are made,” says Yuen.

Andrew Saluti, assistant professor and program coordinator of museum studies in the School of Design in��the College of Visual and Performing Arts, who with Dittman contacted the foundation upon initially hearing of the initiative, believes the award “is a validation of many years of advocacy for the museum and the extensive print collection that’s been built over the last 50 years. It will act as a conduit for research that crosses archive and art within the University’s holdings.”

The 10 museums selected as a part of the second cohort have few, if any, Frankenthaler prints in their collections. The art ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection currently includes three Frankenthaler works: a painting gifted by alumnus Clement Greenberg ’30 and two screen prints. Syracuse University Libraries’ also maintains the Grace Hartigan papers, which contain correspondence and connections to Frankenthaler. Hartigan was an American Abstract Expressionist painter.

Selections of work going to each museum have yet to be determined. While waiting for the materials to arrive, museum staff members are developing ideas for educational programming and activities about the artist, her processes and her legacy in American art. They plan to involve students and faculty from programs across the University, including museum studies, art history, art education, studio arts, women’s and gender studies, language arts, architecture and anthropology. They also plan to explore ways to engage with the greater Central New York community, including activities for K-12 students and youth outreach efforts, to broaden the gift’s impact.

More than 650 guests from the art world and beyond gathered to celebrate Weems at the event, which is the Brooklyn Museum’s largest fundraiser. This year, a record $2.8 million was raised to support the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s programming, including special exhibitions, reimagined collection installations and educational programs.

Carrie Mae Weems, second from right, and guests at the Brooklyn Artists Ball, presented by Dior. (Credit: BFA, Joe Schildhorn, Ben Rosser)

“We are overjoyed to be honoring Carrie Mae Weems, an artist who has made a profound impact on our contemporary culture,” said Anne Pasternak, the Shelby White and Leon Levy Director of the Brooklyn Museum, in a news release prior to the event. “Over the years, the museum has collaborated with Weems in numerous ways—from mounting exhibitions to supporting her important COVID-19 relief efforts—and we’re thrilled to highlight her remarkable achievements at this year’s Artists Ball.”

In her remarks to guests that evening, Pasternak said, “Faced with a world shaken by inequality, division and crisis, [Weems] sought to change our field, and invited hundreds of artists to join her in magnifying the potential for cultural and social change.”

“Almost 20 years ago, I began photographing myself standing in front of museums, wondering about their function, failures and future, and remembering the forgotten ones,” Weems says. “Museums are meant to collect, serve, preserve, reveal and educate; the best of them open their arms in welcome providing respite, deep reflection and consideration. The least of them close us out and seem to exist to remind us of the power of privilege.”

“I have stood outside many museums and other cultural institutions—wondering how to get in,” she says. “Then one day, someone who understood the limits of power, and the winds of change, heard me knocking and led me in.”

The event’s creative art advisor, Brooklyn Museum trustee and artist Mickalene Thomas, worked with Dior to select table settings and décor inspired by Weems’ series “Slow Fade to Black” (2010), which highlights Black women in popular culture.

In celebration of the evening, Weems’ immersive video installation “Leave! Leave Now!” (2022) will enter the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection. The artwork is currently on view in the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s exhibition “A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration.”

A����(a.k.a. “Genius” grant) recipient and the first African American woman to have a retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum,��Weems has used multiple mediums (photography, video, digital imagery, text, fabric and more) throughout her career to explore themes of cultural identity, sexism, class, political systems, family relationships and the consequences of power.

Weems has created a complex body of work that centers on her overarching commitment to helping us better understand our present moment by examining our collective past. Determined as ever to enter the picture—both literally and metaphorically—Weems has sustained an ongoing dialogue within contemporary discourse for over 35 years.

In 2019, in Weems’ first solo exhibition in Toronto, Canada, curator Sarah Robayo Sheridan wrote of her work, “With a sensibility honed to the rhythms and workings of power, Weems points to a tidal pull of oppressions, inextricably linked, recurrent and indelible.”

Weems was recently named a 2023 Hasselblad Award laureate by the��, a prize that is often referred to as the “Nobel Prize” of photography. An award ceremony will take place on Oct. 13 in Gotherburg, Sweden.

As artist in residence at Syracuse University, Weems engages with faculty and students in a number of ways, including working with students in the design, planning and preparation of exhibitions. The artist in residence program is overseen by the Office of Academic Affairs.

The table settings and décor for the evening were inspired by Weems’ series “Slow Fade to Black” (2010), which highlights Black women in popular culture. (Credit: BFA, Joe Schildhorn, Ben Rosser)

Weems first came to Syracuse in 1988 to participate in Light Work’s artist-in-residence program. Over the years, she has participated in several programs at Light Work and has a long history of engaging with students and the University community.

She taught at Syracuse University previously, and out of her two courses Art in Civic Engagement and Art and Social Dialogue came the innovative and popular��. She previously was artist-in-residence in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (2005-06) and she was a distinguished guest of the University Lectures in 2014.

In 2018, the Syracuse University Art Galleries (now Syracuse University Art Museum) acquired three significant works by Weems through a generous gift from alumnus Richard L. Menschel ’55 and the artist: “People of a Darker Hue” (2016), a 15-minute video, and “All the Boys (Blocked 1)” and “All the Boys (Blocked 2)” (2016), archival photographic prints with screenprint.

Recently, through her nonprofit organization, Social Studies 101, Weems created RESIST COVID/TAKE 6!, a public-art campaign that addresses the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black, Latino and Indigenous communities, which has been activated by museums across the nation and abroad. In July 2020, she was honored by the City of Syracuse for the project.

Weems has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions at major national and
international museums, including the Brooklyn Museum, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Frist Art Museum, Nashville; Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, Spain.

She has received numerous awards, grants and fellowships, including the MacArthur Fellowship, U.S. State Department’s Medals of Arts, Joseph H. Hazen Rome Prize Fellowship from the American Academy in Rome, National Endowment of the Arts fellowship and Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, among many others.

Weems is represented in public and private collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Modern, London; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Weems has been represented by Jack Shainman Gallery since 2008.

She was bestowed an honorary doctorate by the University in 2017 (along with honorary degrees from Bowdoin College, the California College of Art, Colgate University, the New York School of Visual Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art and Smith College).

Weems earned a B.F.A. degree at the California Institute of the Arts and an M.F.A. degree at the University of California, San Diego, and studied in the Graduate Program in Folklore at the University of California, Berkeley.

But this semester, the baskets have taken the spotlight in a class taught by Heather Law Pezzarossi, assistant professor of anthropology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. Pezzarossi is one of six faculty members from across the University selected to participate in a pilot Faculty Fellows Program hosted by the museum.

The Faculty Fellows Program includes a workshop, faculty presentations and requires the creation of a museum-visit lesson plan with an object-based learning assignment. It is a way for the museum to promote innovative curriculum development and facilitate the fuller integration of its collection in Universitywide instruction, says Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach.

One of the Akimel O’odham baskets studied by Heather Law Pezzarossi’s Native Americans and Museums course offered this semester at the Maxwell School.

“I think for me, the beauty and simplicity of object-based teaching is that it encourages curiosity and questions through simple observation,” says Pezzarossi. “When a student approaches an object for the first time, they start making a list of things that they notice. They may overlook some elements, but others stand out to them and begin to inspire questions in the students’ minds: What is this made of? How was this made? How did these baskets end up here? A big part of object-based teaching is encouraging students to ask those questions that come from their initial responses in academically rigorous ways.”

Pezzarossi designed her museum plan around the baskets for her Native Americans and Museums course. The baskets were likely purchased on Akimel O’odham territory in Arizona in the second half of the 20th century, but little else is known about their origins.

The indigenous Akimel O’odham people have made baskets for harvests, storage and even holding water. They are also well-known as masterful irrigators, spreading the waters of the Gila and Salt Rivers across their homelands through a complex network of canals to produce bountiful harvests in the Arizona desert.

In the late 19th century, much of Akimel O’odham lands were claimed by settlers and rivers were diverted for western agricultural enterprises. O’odham people, unable to maintain their agricultural livelihoods, catered to a booming tourist market for basketry in the early 20th century. By mid-century however, basket prices dwindled, and materials were harder to find in the parched riverbeds. It was more cost effective to work in local cotton fields, and as a result, basketmaking was less common among the Akimel O’odham, says Pezzarossi, an anthropologically trained archaeologist who has collaborated with Indigenous communities in North America on community-led heritage and archaeological projects.

Under supervision, students have been able to closely study the baskets, examining elements such as the weave pattern, materials used and workmanship. They researched the unique combination of plant properties and weaving techniques that creates a water-tight vessel and studied how basketry knowledge passes from one generation to the next.

Additionally, they researched the teachings of contemporary O’odham basket makers and the knowledge contained in each vessel—from ecological, to mathematical, to allegorical. They highlighted a revival of this knowledge in recent years since Indigenous-led riparian reform efforts have brought the waters back to Akimel O’odham territory, says Pezzarossi.

“The assignment encourages students to ask questions about the materials, the social relationships, the places, and the dominant and not-so-dominant historical narratives with which these baskets are associated,” she says. “They are asked to think carefully about why these baskets are here to begin with. And perhaps most importantly, who is an expert in these objects? Where does that knowledge come from, and where does it lead?”

The ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection is among the largest academic art collections in the United States, encompassing more than 45,000 artworks and cultural artifacts from across the globe that span 5,500 years of human history.

The museum has installed a selection of course-related objects chosen by each faculty fellow in one of its study galleries. For courses being taught in spring 2023, objects will be on display through May 2023.

This story was written by Jewell Bohlinger.

Working with obsidian mirrors, and using movement, meditations and reflections, the artists will explore Smithson’s biography and land art. They will embody the deeper meanings of Smithson’s piece, which is commonly seen as a clear example of his indoor earthworks. Tracing histories of colonialism, extraction and the landscape, Rojas and Melo’s performance will attempt to contest Smithson’s idea of the non-site by connecting with layered notions of site, land sovereignty, and ritual.

Emilio Rojas

After the performance, Rojas and Melo will be in conversation with Assistant Professor , in the Department of English, at 4 p.m. This daylong performance and dialogue are free and open to the public.

On Thursday, April 6, the museum will host a workshop with Rojas. Taking Smithson’s “Double Nonsite, California and Nevada” as a starting point, the workshop will look at the history of obsidian in Smithson’s practice and will lead participants in a series of exercises to embody the symbolism of this rock in its pre-Hispanic context. The participants will discuss the history of land art as well as ideas and contemporary critiques around indigeneity, colonialism, landscape and the environment. Open to the Syracuse University and SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry communities. is required for the workshop, and more details are available on the museum

These programs have been generously supported by a Learning and Engagement Grant provided by .

About Emilio Rojas

Emilio Rojas is a multidisciplinary artist working primarily with the body in performance, using video, photography, installation, public interventions, and sculpture. As a queer, Latinx immigrant with Indigenous heritage, it is essential to his practice to uncover, investigate, and make visible and audible undervalued or disparaged sites of knowledge. He utilizes his body in a political and critical way, as an instrument to unearth removed traumas, embodied forms of decolonization, migration, and poetics of space. His research-based practice is heavily influenced by queer and feminist archives, border politics, botanical colonialism, and defaced monuments.

He holds an M.F.A. in Performance from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a B.F.A. in Film from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada. He is currently a visiting professor at Cornell University in the School of Art, Architecture and Planning. His traveling survey exhibition “Tracing A Wound Through My Body,” accompanied by a bilingual catalogue, is currently exhibited in its third iteration at the Usdan Gallery at Bennington College in Vermont. It will also travel to SECCA, North Carolina, and Artspace, New Heaven.

About Katiushka Melo��

Katiushka Melo

Katiushka Melo is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist, born in New York and raised by Chilean parents. Her work often addresses the challenging questions about the role and representation of women in modern society. She gathers historical artifacts from other women, incorporating them into her performance practice. She finds meaning in the daily rituals of different cultures, collaborating with woman from different tribes and breaking bread in order to understand cultures distant from her own.

Melo’s work dissects issues of gender identity and beauty ideals as well as challenging the domestic roles of women in modern society. Her work creates a space for contemplation, whilst her own emphasis on physical endurance provides a backdrop for more visceral understanding of the body as material and its capabilities. Her work has been exhibited in the Americas, Europe and Asia, most recently at Miami Art Basel and a solo show at Veracruzana Cultural Center for the Arts in Mexico.

About Robert Smithson and “Double Nonsite, California and Nevada”

Born in Passaic, New Jersey, Robert Smithson (1938-1973) produced paintings, drawings, sculpture, earthworks, architectural scheme, films and video, photographs and slideworks, and writings.

In 1969, Smithson traveled to Chiapas and Yucatán, in Mexico, retracing the travels of writer John Lloyd Stephens. He believed he was impersonating the Aztec deity Tezcatlipoca, whom he claims spoke to him. After returning from his trip, he finished “Double Nonsite, California and Nevada” using obsidian from Truman Springs, Nevada. Obsidian is the rock that symbolizes Tezcatlipoca, or Smoking Mirror, an indigenous Mexican god of death, war, beauty, youth, and fatality.

The program focuses on object-based teaching and research to promote innovative curriculum development and to facilitate the fuller integration of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection in Universitywide instruction. The fellows program consists of a three-day intensive workshop from May 22-24, followed by Faculty Fellows presentations on Sept. 8. Each Faculty Fellow will receive a $3,000 stipend or research subsidy, a hands-on introduction to the collection by museum staff and ongoing curricular support. Fellows will be expected to develop a museum visit lesson plan and at least one object-based student assignment to be integrated into their teaching in the 2023-24 academic year.

The program is open to all tenure-track and full-time non-tenure-track faculty members who are teaching in fall 2023 or spring 2024. Proposals may originate from any discipline and must include an existing course syllabus and a checklist of two to four museum collection objects for exploration.

The deadline for applications is 5 p.m. ET on Friday, April 14. For additional information about the Faculty Fellows Program, contact Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach, at keholoha@syr.edu. More information on the museum Faculty Fellows Program can be found on its .

The Syracuse University Art Museum invites gifts to support its Faculty Fellows Program. Each $3,000 gift will support a fellow and their work for a semester-long class. Contact Emily Dittman, interim director, at ekdittma@syr.edu or 315.443.4097 for more information about making a gift.

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The workshop will examine food culture, production and consumption through the interrelated lenses of diaspora and rice, a staple food around the globe. Along with staff from the museum, participants will examine and discuss Shih’s ceramic rice bag sculptures and related objects associated with rice culture from the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s permanent collection. The workshop also includes a hands-on art-making activity.

Participants are invited to join the larger community for a public reception at 3 p.m. featuring rice snacks and tea immediately following the workshop. This program is generously co-sponsored by the and the in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

About Stephanie H. Shih

Shih

Shih’s painted ceramic sculptures explore the way cultural identities transform as they migrate with a diaspora. She has had solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco and at the Syracuse University Art Museum. Her practice has received support from the American Museum of Ceramic Arts, Lighthouse Works and Silver Art Projects. Activism is central to Shih’s practice, and since 2017 she’s raised over $110,000 for marginalized communities experiencing instability related to home through her art and platform.

About Lily Wong

Lily Chishan Wong joins the School of Architecture at Syracuse University as the 2022-23 Harry der Boghosian Fellow. As a transplant between Asia and America, she is interested in how global systems shape building cultures and vice versa.

Wong

Her project “Producing Nature” explores the use of plants in architecture and its planetary effects. It considers vegetation as atmospheric design—grown, stored and shipped globally—and charts the spaces and species involved in the production of “nature.” Inherently interdisciplinary, this exploration seeks to foster cross-pollination between architecture and other fields and to speculate on new environmental engagements.

Wong received a master of architecture from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation and was nurtured with the Kohn Pedersen Fox Traveling Fellowship, Award for Excellence in Total Design, Lucille Smyser Lowenfish Memorial Prize, William Kinne Fellows Travelling Prize and Fred L. Liebmann Book Award. She cofounded : (pronounced “colon”), a publication and workshop dissecting the rhetoric and media that are rooted in the field of architecture.

For additional information or images, please contact Emily Dittman, interim director, at 315.443.4097 or ekdittma@syr.edu.

Rob Swainston and Zorawar Sidhu, “July 4th 2020” (2021), museum purchase

“Dreams Deferred: Reflections on Liberty, Equality and Sovereignty in U.S. Art” is now on view at the . The exhibition examines the idea of freedom in the United States as expressed in art, including its possibilities, its oversights, its uneven implementation and its attacks on Indigenous sovereignty.

Curated by incoming master of arts students in art history and under the direction of Associate Professor , the exhibition is on view through May 14.

Featuring work drawn from the museum’s extensive permanent collection, including newly acquired artwork, the exhibition highlights how structural inequities, oppressive histories, disenfranchisement and degradation of personhood are variously perpetuated, elided and disrupted in U.S. art.

“Dreams Deferred” also highlights art that advocates for equality, accentuates personhood and unmasks structural racism and histories of misogyny, enslavement and dispossession—violences that are still felt today.

Associate Professor Scott says, “It was a pleasure to guide this project, as the first-year graduate students in art history honed their research, writing and interpretive skills throughout the fall semester. The student-curators of ‘Dreams Deferred’ offer compelling interpretations of artworks produced in the United States from the 19th century to the present, addressing the possibilities, exclusions and failures of concepts of freedom in the United States.”

Featured Event

Lunchtime Lecture: “Dreams Deferred” tour with the curators
March 23, 1 p.m.
Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building

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 ���ܲ���ܳ�’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).

Madelaine Thomas

Thomas (she/her) is a third-year graduate student pursuing consecutive master’s degrees in art history and museum studies. She graduated with a bachelor’s in art history with a minor in global studies from the University of Arkansas in 2019. She currently works as a reference assistant at the Special Collections Research Center at Syracuse University Libraries and in the collections department at the Everson Museum of Art. Her studies center on medieval manuscript illumination and the complex visual and textual narratives of Europe’s collective cultural heritage and patrimony.

As the Palitz Art Scholar, Thomas is currently developing a pilot project for hyperspectral imaging of medieval manuscripts on campus. In digital archaeology and art preservation, the non-invasive digital technique she plans to use can reveal hidden materials, pigments and inks that are invisible to the naked eye, which can be used as evidence that researchers can study to discuss how art, literature and religion developed together during the Middle Ages.

The forum will offer University community members the opportunity to have input regarding the position and the desired characteristics and experience of someone in that role, says Marcelle Haddix, associate provost for strategic initiatives.

The virtual Zoom meeting takes place from 10:30 a.m. to noon .

Search Committee Named

The Office of Academic Strategic Initiatives also announced the formation of a committee consisting of faculty, staff and students to take part in the search process. Committee members are the following:

• Evan Starling Davis G’20, doctoral student in the School of Education and coordinator of the University’s Coalition of Museums and Art Centers
• Courtney (Asztalos) Hicks G’17, G’22, lead curator and curator of plastics and historical artifacts at Syracuse University Libraries
• Heather Nolin ’94, G’04, chair of the Syracuse University Art Museum Board
• Raj-Ann Rekhi Gill ’98, member of the Syracuse University Board of Trustees
• Andrew J. Saluti ’99, G’09, assistant professor and program coordinator of the museum studies program in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)
• Sascha Scott, associate professor and director of the art history graduate studies program in the College of Arts and Sciences
• Michael A. Speaks, professor and dean of the School of Architecture, search committee chair
• Robert Wysocki, associate professor of studio arts and director of VPA’s School of Art

Installation view of “Collections Highlights: 5,500 Years of Art. (Photo by Lily LaGrange)

Haddix says the University seeks a leader “who will continue to raise the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s visibility, student engagement and scholarly impact to position Syracuse University to become the national standard for a research-focused academic museum.”

The person will also be looked to for creative and strategic leadership to foster collaborative, co-curricular partnerships contributing to excellence in teaching, research and the student experience.

Meow Gallery Talk at the Syracuse University Art Museum (Photo by Jeremy Brinn)

Former Art Museum Director Vanja Malloy left the role in the fall for a position at the University of Chicago. Emily Dittman G’06 is currently serving as interim executive director and Melissa Yuen is serving as interim chief curator.

The Syracuse University Art Museum holds one of the largest and most global art collections of any academic museum in the country, with more than 45,000 objects. As a member of the University’s , the art museum serves as the main campus venue for the visual arts, hosting temporary and permanent exhibitions that showcase interdisciplinary perspectives and engage diverse campus and community audiences.

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 ���ܲ���ܳ�’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.

The grant has been awarded to the project’s co-directors, faculty member , associate professor and director of the art history graduate studies program, and (citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation), associate professor of English and director of the Native American Studies program. They will coordinate with , interim director of the and instructor of museum studies in the School of Design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts.

Sascha Scott

Scott Manning Stevens

Undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom are of Indigenous heritage, have played a central role in the research, design and curation of the exhibition. The student research team includes 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 (citizen of the Diné Nation, M.F.A. in creative writing); Jaden N. Dagenais (M.A. in art history; M.S. in library and information science); and Ana Borja Armas (Quechua, Ph.D. in the cultural foundation of education). The research team is also developing an exhibition catalog and is working with Jones on an oral history project.

mission is to strengthen civil society and the bonds of community by using the humanities to foster engaged inquiry and dialogue around social and cultural concerns. The organization’s offer funding to implement humanities projects that encourage public audiences to reflect on values, explore new ideas and engage with others in their community.

Peter B. Jones – “Twins,” from the Sky People Series, 1989
(Stoneware – 11.25 x 10.25 in., photo courtesy Everson Museum of Art, PC 2010.9)

Jones has ceramic works in museums nationwide, including the National Museum of the American Indian and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He was among the first class of students at the Institute of American Indian Art. In subsequent decades he has been instrumental in reviving historical styles and techniques of Haudenosaunee pottery making. He has also developed a form of figurative pottery that highlights Haudenosaunee history and culture and that represents indigenous dispossession, oppression, genocide, resistance and resilience.

Future Template

According to Scott and Stevens, the project aims to provide a template for future student- and community-engaged exhibitions of contemporary Haudenosaunee art at the University. A second goal is to draw more Indigenous students to humanistic work and museum professions and illustrate how those professions can serve Native communities and inspire and enact social change. “Our Indigenous student-curators have seen their cultures and histories either misrepresented or not represented at all in school curricula and museums. These students are learning more about Haudenosaunee art and culture, sharing their perspectives with the research team, which is also comprised of non-Indigenous students, and guiding how Indigenous art, history and culture is represented on campus and shared with the local community,” says Scott.

Emily Dittman

Community Education

The project also involves several community educational components. The museum will host public lectures by scholars and contemporary artists and a workshop for University faculty to illustrate how they can incorporate the exhibit into their courses. In addition to working with faculty, the curator of education and academic outreach Kate Holohan will also conduct a community outreach day. Wider community outreach efforts will include student researcher visits to local grade school classrooms.

Spring Course

Scott and Stevens will also co-teach a cross-listed course for undergraduate and graduate students in spring 2023, “Indigenizing Museums.” It focuses on the history, critique and interventions of museum practices related to the collection, stewardship and display of Indigenous visual and material culture. One unit of the course will focus on Jones’s work and the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s exhibition.

“The Syracuse University Art Museum is a wonderful setting for hosting this exciting exhibition and for bringing about the important awareness, outreach and educational activities associated with this project,” says Marcelle Haddix, associate provost for strategic initiatives. “We look forward to showcasing Haudenosaunee culture, art and history through this exhibition and to cultivating the important dialogues and understandings these events will help generate. We appreciate the funding that Humanities New York has provided for this worthwhile project.”

Alesandra (Sasha) Temerte

Through the philanthropic gift of Syracuse University alumni and prominent artists Luise ’46, G’51 and Morton Kaish ’49, the Kaish Fellowship program was established in 2021. The program provides funding for undergraduate students from every discipline to undertake original research on the permanent art collection and to work with museum staff on exhibitions, scholarly publications and public programming.

Temerte is a senior at Syracuse University, double majoring in economics and writing and rhetoric studies, with minors in Spanish and strategic management. She is a Coronat Scholar, a member of the Renée Crown Honors Program and a 2022-23 Remembrance Scholar.

As a writer, Temerte has been interested in the concept of storytelling through fragments. Through her courses at Syracuse University, her fragmented storytelling approach continues to take shape in prose, depicting stories through the lens of passing moments and snippets of meaning that tell a greater narrative.

Recently, she has explored writing in multimedia forms, often combining prose, poetry, images, and video together. Temerte’s interest in the abstract and the surreal drew her to apply for the Kaish fellowship, and she envisions creating a small booklet of poems for her final project.

Through this opportunity, Temerte plans to work alongside interim Chief Curator Melissa Yuen to explore works of art by both Luise and Morton Kaish, as well as other artists in the permanent collection, which engage with collision and interruption.

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.

Ed Kashi “Uchapalli, India,” 2016 (Courtesy of the artist)

Featuring 15 photographs recently gifted to the museum by the artist, this exhibition considers Kashi’s practice of what he terms “advocacy journalism”. It highlights three projects, ranging in subjects from aging in America, to oil in the Niger Delta, to the global epidemic of chronic kidney disease. In each of these bodies of work, Kashi depicts individuals with great sensitivity and compassion. Through his creative framing and compelling method of visual storytelling, Kashi seeks to instill a sense of hope in the viewer.

Organized by museum interim chief curator Melissa Yuen, the special weeklong exhibition will be accompanied by programming, including a teaching workshop and a lunchtime lecture, both with the artist, in the pop-up exhibition space. All programs are free and open to the public. Advance registration is required for the teaching workshop and information is available on the .
This exhibition and related programs are organized in conjunction with the Newhouse School’s 2022 Alexia Fall Workshop and is co-sponsored by the Center for Global Engagement, Newhouse School of Public Communications and Light Work, and supported in part by the Robert B. Menschel ’51, H’91 Photography Fund.

About the Artist

Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker and educator who has been making images and telling stories for 40 years. His restless creativity has continually placed him at the forefront of new approaches to visual storytelling. Dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times, a sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship to his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. As a member of VII Photo Agency, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition.

Kashi’s innovative approach to photography and filmmaking has produced a number of influential short films and earned recognition by the POYi Awards as 2015’s Multimedia Photographer of the Year. Kashi’s embrace of technology has led to creative social media projects for clients including National Geographic, The New Yorker and MSNBC. From implementing a unique approach to photography and filmmaking in his 2006 Iraqi Kurdistan Flipbook, to paradigm shifting coverage of Hurricane Sandy for TIME in 2012, Kashi continues to create compelling imagery and engage with the world in new ways.

Along with numerous awards from World Press Photo, POYi, CommArts and American Photography, Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His editorial assignments and personal projects have generated eleven books. In 2002, Kashi, in partnership with his wife, writer and filmmaker Julie Winokur, founded Talking Eyes Media. The nonprofit company has produced numerous award-winning short films, exhibits, books and multimedia pieces that explore significant social issues.

Special Events

Teaching Workshop
Oct. 24, 2-4 p.m.
Co-taught by Ed Kashi and Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach, this workshop will provide Syracuse University faculty and graduate students with key information and pedagogical tools that will help them to teach with Kashi’s work as well as with related objects in the Museum’s collection. .

Lunchtime Lecture: Ed Kashi ’79
Oct. 25, 12:15-1 p.m.
Hear Kashi speak about his work. Space is limited to 25 people, first come, first served.��

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

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 ���ܲ���ܳ�’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 ���ܲ���ܳ�’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 .

“Vanja has done an outstanding job leading the Syracuse University Art Museum and provided creative and operational prowess that enabled the growth of the museum,” says Haddix. “I appreciate her leadership and expertise and wish her the very best in her new role. I also appreciate and extend my deep gratitude to both Melissa and Emily for their eagerness to step up and co-lead such a treasured part of the Syracuse University learning community. I look forward to working with them in their new roles.”

“We are indebted to Vanja for her leadership, for bringing us together as an advisory board and for her dedication to creating a visionary strategic plan and commitment to accreditation,” says Heather Nolin ’94, G’04, chair of the Syracuse University Art Museum Advisory Board. “We are excited to build upon Vanja’s strong commitment to these initiatives and are in good hands with Emily Dittman and Melissa Yuen.”

Dittman G’06, an alumna and a longtime member of the Syracuse University community, was first hired in 2004 as a research assistant in the museum (previously known as Syracuse University Art Galleries). Since then, she has held multiple roles within the museum, including as a collection and exhibition manager and most recently as associate director. She’s also an instructor of museum studies in the School of Design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. In her role as interim director, Dittman will provide leadership and oversight of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s daily operations; administration and financial management of collections activity; collections care and management; security; marketing and communications; and donor and alumni engagement.

As interim chief curator, Yuen is responsible for conducting scholarly research, generating exhibitions and facilitating access and awareness of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection of more than 45,000 objects. Yuen joined the Syracuse University Art Museum in December 2021 as its curator after serving as associate curator of exhibitions and art historian at the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. Prior to her role at Sheldon, Yuen was the Curatorial Fellow for European and American Art to 1900 at Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with a specialty in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art.

“Anni Albers: Work with Materials” features over 100 drawings, prints, textile samples, commercial fabrics and rugs from the collection of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. With a focus primarily on the extraordinarily productive and varied second half of her long career, the exhibition illuminates her ability to move easily between her work as both an artist and as a designer of functional materials. One of Albers’ looms and an interactive “triangle table” will also be featured.

“Anni Albers Connections 1925/1983–Study for Unexecuted Wall-hanging, 1983.” Courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation.

The exhibition runs through Dec. 11 and is curated by Fritz Horstman, education director at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. An illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition and will be available at the museum as well as online at the .

Upcoming events surrounding the exhibition include a Special Events Lunchtime Lecture, “New Exhibitions with Museum Curator Melissa Yuen,” on Sept. 7 from 12:15-1 p.m.; a “Work with Materials” Curator Talk with Fritz Horstman on Sept. 19 from 5:30–7:30 p.m. in 214 Slocum Hall, with a reception to follow at the art museum; Community Day at the Museum Celebrating Anni Albers, Oct. 2 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and a lunchtime lecture on Anni Albers with curator of education Kate Holohan on Nov. 16 from 12:15–1 p.m. Check the for more public programs that will be added in the coming weeks.

“Anni Albers: Work with Materials” will give the Syracuse University community a deep look into the drawings, prints, textiles and writing of this important artist and designer,” Horstman says. “Visitors of all ages will have access to her work from the German Bauhaus, Black Mountain College and the 44 years she lived in New Haven, Connecticut.”

Taking its title from her 1937 essay of the same name, the exhibition highlights the nimbleness with which Albers moved between mediums, and her fluid transitions between creating artwork and designing more functional and commercial objects. Foregrounding the transition from weaver to printmaker that Albers made in the 1960s, the exhibition begins with Connections, a series of nine silkscreen prints from 1983 in which Albers recreated images from every decade of her long career.

The exhibition proceeds in greater detail to show the visual and material connections that drove her evolving studio practice. In weaving, designing and printmaking, Albers’ faith in the power of abstraction and her reliance on material knowledge never wavered. Throughout her widely varied, yet consistent and focused output, we see an artist who understood material not only as a vehicle to carry ideas, but more importantly for its physical and structural potential. “If we want to get from materials the sense of directness, the adventure of being close to the stuff the world is made of, we have to go back to the material itself, to its original state, and from there on partake in its stages of change,” Albers said.

“We are delighted to partner with Fritz and the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation to bring Anni Albers’ work to Syracuse University,” says Syracuse University Art Museum Curator Melissa Yuen. “Her longtime interest in exploring the material possibilities of textiles and printmaking showcases an innovative spirit that will find resonance with the campus community. We hope our rich community of scholars will be able to connect with each other through the interdisciplinary conversations fostered by the artworks on view.”

Faculty from all disciplines are invited to apply for a pilot Faculty Fellows Program being hosted this summer by the .

Gourd-Shaped Rattle (gift from Professor Andrei Nitecki)

[Editor’s Note: The six faculty members selected are Chaya Lee Charles, assistant teaching professor of nutrition and food studies in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics; Rawiya Kameir, assistant professor of magazine, news and digital journalism in the Newhouse School of Public Communications; Delali Kumavie, assistant professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences; Heather Law Pezzarossi, assistant professor of anthropology in the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs; Ethan Madarieta, assistant professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences; ��and Ruth Opara, assistant professor of art and music histories in the College of Arts and Sciences.]

The program focuses on object-based teaching and research. It is both a way for the art museum to promote innovative curriculum development and to facilitate the fuller integration of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection in Universitywide instruction, says Kate Holohan, curator of education and academic outreach.

Object-based teaching and research uses existing objects, such as works of art, manuscripts, archival documents, archaeological artifacts and natural specimens as the center of active, experiential and student-centered learning. In this way, students can think deeply about materials and materiality and objects’ makers and users, connecting people, places and experiences across space and time. They also can develop and hone observational skills; build vocabulary; bridge the divide between theory and practice; and increase empathy for people and experiences different from their own.

, associate provost for strategic initiatives, whose responsibilities include oversight for the art museum, is enthusiastic about the pilot program’s capacity to mesh artifacts and treasures in the campus collections with new learning opportunities.

“The art museum is a wonderful educational resource for faculty and students of all disciplines, and this pilot program spotlights how collection objects can serve as useful and creative tools for research and instruction. The unique, tangible objects housed here help us reach across cultures, continents and centuries,” Haddix says. “They offer insights about how materials are used and how makers have imagined diverse expressions of human voices and ideas. They provide a true added dimension to researching and learning about the arts and humanities, as well as history, inquiry and understanding.”

Toy Elephant (Town of Patan, India, 20th Century)

Three Parts

There are three program components: an intensive workshop that takes place June 1-3, faculty fellow presentations in August and development of a museum visit lesson plan and at least one object-based student assignment. Each faculty fellow will receive a $3,000 stipend or research subsidy. Up to six fellow awards are planned.

The program is open to all tenure-track and full-time non-tenure-track faculty members who are teaching in fall 2022 or spring 2023. Proposals may originate from any discipline and must include an existing course syllabus and a checklist of two to four for exploration. Courses that can integrate object-based teaching into the curriculum and can be taught on a recurring basis will receive award preference, says Holohan.

The deadline for applications is 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, May 18. They can be submitted to suart@syr.edu. , a program description and . Anyone needing more information or with questions can contact Holohan at keholoha@syr.edu or 315.443.4097. Decision notifications will be made by Monday, May 23.

45,000 Items

The ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection is among the largest academic art collections in the United States, encompassing more than 45,000 artworks and cultural artifacts from across the globe that span 5,500 years of human history, says Vanja Malloy, the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s director and chief curator.

The museum will install a selection of course-related objects chosen by each faculty fellow in one of its study galleries. For courses being taught in fall 2022, objects will be displayed from August through December this year; and for courses being taught in spring 2023, objects will be on display from January through May 2023.

The program is being hosted by the Syracuse University Art Museum with support from the Office of Strategic Initiatives and the Office of Research in Academic Affairs.

The Syracuse University Art Museum, located in the Shaffer Art Building, will pilot a new Faculty Fellows Program this summer.

“Steady/ Retcon” is a part of a multi-venue exhibition divided among three University exhibition spaces and features 27 artists. The venues include the Syracuse University Art Museum, Point of Contact Gallery and the Sue and Leon Genet Gallery.

The ���ܲ���ܳ�’s presentation of the exhibition is free and open to the public beginning Thursday, March 31, and closing Sunday, May 15, in the Shaffer Art Building. The museum will host a reception on Thursday, April 7, from 5 to 7 p.m., followed by a talk with the exhibition curator, Laura Dvorkin ’06, at 7 p.m. in Shemin Auditorium. Museum hours are Tuesday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Thursdays until 8 p.m., and closed Mondays and University holidays.

Exhibition Overview

Traditionally a literary and cinematic technique, retcon is the abbreviation of retroactive continuity and means a new piece of information introduced to a story that alters the interpretation of a previously established narrative. Although it is a word infrequently used, it is omnipresent. Retcon is not just employed in a fictional context, read in a book, or viewed on a screen, but experienced in the world around us. In the current climate, we are absorbing new information constantly (like it or not!), and it is challenging the way we see everything—day to day, hour to hour. Our internal database is developing at record speed. What was recognized as commonplace merely a year ago is being reexamined, and at times, by the entire world in unison.

The artists in this exhibition are evaluating and reframing their personal histories, traditional standards of art-making, and history as a whole. While in everyday life, the constant introduction of so-called facts and opinions appear erratic, the investigations held within the artworks in the exhibition are much more intentional, slower-paced, steady. They are careful and curious assessments removed from the web of media and into meticulously-presented ideas.

Here we have two applications of retcon—one that refers to the daily and ever-changing knowledge that we receive, and one that reflects the new details put forth by these artists through their work that will alter our perceptions. However small, each bit of information sets into motion a new interpretation of our environment, past, present, and future.

Exhibition Venues

Syracuse University Art Museum
Shaffer Art Building
Exhibition dates: March 31-May 15
Opening reception: April 7, 5-7 p.m.
Curatorial Talk: 7 p.m.

Point of Contact Gallery
The Warehouse
350 West Fayette Street
Exhibition dates: March 31-May 15
Opening reception: April 14, 5-7 p.m.

Sue and Leon Genet Gallery
The Warehouse
350 West Fayette Street
Opening reception: April 21, 5-7 p.m.

Holohan will be responsible for the development and implementation of learning and engagement opportunities to further integrate the museum into the academic mission of the University.�� She will also work closely with the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s existing team to create public programs for interaction with the collection and special collections. Holohan will also oversee outreach for regional groups, and youth and K-12 schools like the Photography and Literacy Project.

“This is a pivotal position for the museum that will help us fill our academic mission as part of Syracuse University. Kate’s track record at Stanford University’s Cantor Arts Center shows an impressive commitment to building relationships through campus and community outreach. I look forward to her leadership in growing our partnerships on campus and in the Central New York Community,” says Vanja Malloy, the museum’s director and chief curator.

Kate Holohan

Holohan’s most recent role at Stanford University was as interim director of academic and public programs, where she managed the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s academic programs. Holohan partnered with faculty for class visits and work with the collection, oversaw the student guides training program and managed several student-centered research and curatorial programs that reached over 1,000 students annually.�� Holohan also managed public programs such as curator and artist talks, symposia, hands-on art-making events and interdisciplinary conversations.

“With one of the largest collections among university-affiliated museums, the Syracuse University Art Museum offers deep and rich ways for faculty and students to collaborate both within and across disciplines. This position will be dedicated to forging those connections and we are thrilled to welcome Kate Holohan to Syracuse University,” says Gretchen Ritter, provost and chief academic officer.

Prior to her role at Stanford, Holohan was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in the department of the arts of Africa, Oceana and the Americas at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She holds a Ph.D. in art history from New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts.

“I look forward to drawing on Syracuse’s significant collection of works on paper, ceramics, and textiles to further develop my interdisciplinary teaching, research, and curatorial practice. One of the true joys of a diverse collection like Syracuse’s is discovering objects that can spark exciting conversations in the classroom, in the galleries, and through public programming,” says Holohan.

Elizabeth Su

When she saw the Kaish Fellowship opportunity with the Art Museum, Su decided to apply. “I have always been interested in art. I took a couple of art history classes and I volunteered at an art museum in high school. I saw that they were looking for interdisciplinary research,” Su says.

When she interviewed, she zeroed in on a topic that she has always been interested in—dreams. “In my career, I want to find a way to understand dreams—and maybe even record them. They’re my passion.”

Syracuse University Art Museum Director Vanja Malloy knew what direction to point Su in. “For me, as an art historian, surrealism was obviously the place to start,” Malloy says.

Su took that idea and ran with it. “I started researching the surrealist movement and got really invested in it—particularly in how people see themselves in an irrational way,” Su says. “Then I looked through the Syracuse University Art Museum collection and was inspired by a few pieces. There are self-portraits that aren’t drawn in a traditional style, but not strictly abstract either. That’s the way surrealism is. I started looking into how surrealists come to understand self-portraits.”

This experience seems to be exactly what Syracuse University alumni and prominent artists Luise ’46, G’51 and Morton ’49 Kaish had in mind when they made a major gift to the University. In addition to establishing the Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery Endowed Fund, the gift created the Kaish Fellows program.

The program provides funding to enable undergraduate students from every discipline to undertake original research on the permanent art collection and to work with museum staff on exhibitions, scholarly publications and public programming. The philanthropic gift to support undergraduate research at Syracuse University is unique as few programs such as this are available for undergraduate level students at peer academic museums.

“This is my first real independent research project,” Su says. “I’ve learned how to contextualize research questions and conclusions. I wouldn’t have had time to follow my interests without the Kaish Fellowship.”

Following her interests led Su to look at the connections between perception and neuroscience. She found examples of artists with altered perception. One condition—prosopagnosia—is the inability to recognize familiar faces (including one’s own) without any accompanying visual impairment or visual processing issues.

Another—hemispatial neglect—causes a condition in which those affected can’t perceive the left side of their face, without any vision loss. “In thinking about surrealism, it’s interesting to think about thinking irrationally in a spontaneous way or how artists may put themselves in a mindset where they fundamentally perceive things differently or they understand the world through different kinds of logic,” Su says.

Su particularly enjoyed working with the artists’ files, bringing context to their work. “It’s really exciting, actually. I see those old newspaper clippings of an artwork that I have right in front of me, with the handwritten letters the artists have written to Syracuse University, then I’m able to follow what the artist does later in life,” Su says. “There are also materials that give insight into what the artist was doing when they created the work, like interviews with family members who sometimes infer inspiration even when the artist doesn’t seem to be aware of it.”

Su’s work—and the connections she is making—is exactly what the Kaish Fellows program was meant to evoke in its fellows.

“As the first Kaish Fellow to be chosen, Elizabeth has stepped up and really made the most of the opportunity to work with the art and artist materials, and applied her research interests to reveal the fascinating interdisciplinary connections that inform the creation and appreciation of artwork in the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s collection,” Malloy says.

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.

Featuring works from more than 30 artists from across the country including MaPó Kinnord, Amy Elkins, Lee Diegaard, L. Kasimu Harris, Devin Reynolds, Jackie Sumell, Carl Joe Williams and Cherice Harrison-Nelson, “Per(Sister)” runs through March 11.

“These artworks, with their wide range of media, highlight the power of storytelling and foreground their ability to spark interdisciplinary conversations about not only the complexities and inequities of the American justice system but also the continued and generational impact of incarceration,” says Melissa Yuen, curator of the Syracuse University Art Museum.

We look forward to sharing the PerSisters’ lived experiences and the art they inspired with the Syracuse campus community. —Melissa Yuen, Syracuse University Art Museum curator

Amy Elkins, “Mother and Young Children,” 2019

“Per(Sister)”�� is a traveling exhibition produced by the in New Orleans, Louisiana. The exhibition was curated under the leadership of former museum director Monica Ramirez-Montagut (current executive director of Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum) and assisted by curator Laura Blereau. It was developed in equal partnership with Syrita Steib and Dolfinette Martin with additional support provided by Operation Restoration and Women with a Vision.

The exhibition presents works from more than 30 artists based on the personal stories of 30 formerly and currently incarcerated women as interviewed by museum staff. “Per(Sister)” aims to look beyond the statistics and bring their stories to light as a way to comprehend the injustice of the criminal justice system in the United States.

The exhibition is divided into four sections that explore the causes of female incarceration, the impact of incarcerating mothers, the physical and behavioral toll of incarceration and the challenges of and opportunities for reentry for formerly incarcerated women.

These themes bring together diverse works—including voice recordings, photographic portraits, informative illustrations, sculptures, paintings, songs and performances—to create an exhibition that incorporates the voices of the Persisters and artists while highlighting statistics collected from the Vera Institute of Justice, Prison Policy Initiative, the Sentencing Project, the Bureau of Justice Statistics and others. Individuals from Tulane’s faculty and students, individuals directly impacted and community stakeholders contributed time and knowledge to the exhibition.

Special Upcoming “Per(Sister)” Events

• Per(Sister) Curator Talk with Monica Ramirez-Montagut
  Saturday, Jan. 29, 1-2 p.m. ET
  
• Per(Sister) In Conversation
  Melissa Yuen and PerSister co-producers of the exhibition Dolfinette Martin and Syrita Steib
  Wednesday, Feb. 9, 3 p.m. ET
  
• Collaging Community: Art Making as a Restorative Practice
  Thursday, Feb. 10, 6 p.m. ET
  
  AND
• Thursday, Feb. 24, 6 p.m.
  Syracuse University Art Museum
  Shaffer Art Building
• Women’s Incarceration and Prison Reform Priorities
  Thursday, Feb. 17, 5:30 p.m.
  214 Slocum Hall
  Reception to follow at Syracuse University Art Museum

“Dr. Yuen shares our passion for the mission of an academic museum to act as a universitywide connector that supports curricular engagement, research and experimental learning,” says Vanja Malloy, director and chief curator of the museum. “Through her work at other university museums, including the Sheldon Museum of Art and the Cantor Arts Center, she has applied her academic rigor to bring new insights to the art collection that forge interdisciplinary conversations about important topics, such as housing inequity. I am delighted to welcome her to the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s staff and look forward to working with her in shaping the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s exhibition program.”

Melissa Yuen

As curator of the Syracuse University Art Museum, Yuen will be responsible for conducting scholarly research, generating exhibitions, and facilitating access and awareness of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s permanent collection of more than 45,000 objects. The collection surveys the international history of printmaking and has extensive holdings in photography and social cartooning, as well as strong collections in 18th-, 19th– and 20th-century American and European painting and sculpture. Yuen’s appointment allows the museum to expand many of its established curatorial and educational programs, including the inaugural Art Wall Project that commissions emerging contemporary artists to create site-specific installations each academic year.

Yuen’s most recent role is the associate curator of exhibitions at the Sheldon Museum of Art, where she is part of the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s leadership team. At Sheldon, she is responsible for generating all exhibition content for the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s 13 galleries, which are re-installed twice each academic year. In spring 2021, she partnered with several Lincoln nonprofits and University of Nebraska-Lincoln units to address eviction and housing affordability through the organization of the exhibition, “Barriers and Disparities: Housing in America,” which explored selected moments in the history of inequitable access to shelter.

Prior to her role at Sheldon, she served as the curatorial fellow for European and American Art to 1900 at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. In 2017 at Cantor, Yuen co-organized the exhibition “Rodin: The Shock of the Modern Body” with Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, interim co-director, McMurtry curator and director of the curatorial fellowship program, to celebrate the centenary of Rodin’s death. Featuring almost 100 works, the installation highlighted how Rodin made the figurative sculpture modern by refining the expressive capacity of the human form.

Yuen holds a Ph.D. in art history from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, with a specialization in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art. Her research was supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Fondazione Lemmermann (Rome), and culminated in her 2017 dissertation, “The Young Mattia Preti in Rome: Style, Baroque Painting, and the Art Market, c. 1630-1653.”

In addition to Yuen’s curatorial background, her study room and classroom teaching experiences at academic museums such as Sheldon and Cantor have prepared her to research and present the Syracuse University Art Museum’s objects to members of the university and greater civic community. Her experience training docents and students on new seasons of exhibitions, presenting lectures to faculty and students, and serving as a liaison for Sheldon’s curricular engagement with the University of Nebraska community strongly align with the Syracuse University Art Museum’s initiative to position and communicate the museum as a center for research and teaching.

“I am excited about the role of curator at the Syracuse University Museum of Art as it will provide the opportunity for me to engage with a global collection of art and develop exhibitions that can foster interdisciplinary conversations on the university’s campus,” Yuen says. “I am energized by the ���ܲ���ܳ�’s mission [to serve] as the university’s ‘museum-laboratory’ and [its] commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

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.

Madeline Krumel (Ph.D. student, English) used the Syracuse University ’s collections to create teaching-specific finding aids that will make it easier for instructors to teach with art objects. Emily Dittman, associate director of the Art Museum, emphasized the range of topics covered by the objects that Krumel worked with, “from pedagogical tools to critical race theory, from literary afterlives to psychoanalysis” and their potential educational value. According to Krumel, “My hope is that these finding aids will make Humanities instructors (and beyond) feel encouraged and empowered to reinvigorate their teaching via SU Art’s extensive collections.”

Alex Hanson (Ph.D. candidate, composition and cultural rhetoric) interned at , working with several of its departments–Acquisitions, Marketing, and Editorial/Production–and carrying out a wide variety of work, such as writing proposals for the editorial board, researching outside readers for manuscripts and securing permissions for reprinted text and images. “I am so grateful for the very clear directions Peggy [Solic], Deb [Manion], and Kelly [Balenske] provided, their patient, kind, and generous mentorship. I felt like this was a very ‘intern-centered’ experience, ” says Hanson. Deb Manion, acquisitions editor, added that the internship was “a tremendous collaborative opportunity for the Press, the Graduate School and, most importantly, the graduate student, who can train in an academic-adjacent field that they have real interest in as part of their job market goals.”

The Graduate School also partnered with the College of Arts and Sciences’ Engaged Humanities Network and Dean’s Professor of Community Engagement Brice Nordquist to create four additional Engaged Humanities Summer Internships. These internships are connected to ongoing Engaged Communities projects across the city and region.

Jordan Brady Loewen (Ph.D. candidate, religion) worked at the , editing and producing the “Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery” podcast series, in addition to developing the Virtual Onondaga Project, overseeing a team of programmers, artists and designers. “It was wonderful to have focused time to do creative and public-facing scholarship,” Loewen says. “The pay was also an important motivator.”

Zakery Muñoz (Ph.D. candidate, composition and cultural rhetoric) worked at , digitizing and producing content for the organization’s Cultural Memory Archive and an upcoming exhibition. In addition, Muñoz led a writing workshop for Latinx youth from the local community. Teresita Paniaguia, executive director of cultural engagement for the Hispanic Community, enthused that Muñoz’s work was “absolutely critical to the agency at this particular time, as we were preparing to reopen our Center after closure due to Covid19. His contributions had a direct and very positive impact on the life of Center, on the lives of these kids, their families, and on the relationships between La Casita and its community partners.”

Jacob Gedetsis (MFA student, creative writing), worked with directors and teachers at the on the ongoing community writing project “Write Out,” leading daily writing sessions for middle-school students. Kofi Addai, associate director at North Side Learning Center, notes that Gedetsis helped the students “to think outside the box and be creative in their writing,” while Gedetsis affirmed that “this internship challenged and excited me like nothing else during my academic career.”

Aley O’Mara (Ph.D., English, 2021), worked with Joann Yarrow, ’s director of community engagement and education, on the theater’s housing policy project, “” O’Mara collected oral histories to fill archival gaps around housing insecurities and reform in Syracuse, contributing to the larger project of using art to shift current housing policy in the Syracuse area.

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.

That shared passion is the motivation behind their multifaceted gift to the Syracuse University Art Museum to create the Luise and Morton Kaish Gallery Endowed Fund. This gift to the will foster interdisciplinary research, name a gallery in the museum that will display selections of their artwork and establish a Fellows program to provide students opportunities to use their work as a basis for original scholarship.

“I envision the gallery as opening a world of infinite possibilities to the art student and the non-artist alike,” says Morton. “The exploration of art can open doors to experiences of unimaginable variety.” Morton and Luise married in 1948, and, with their education as a foundation for growth and inspiration, they travelled the globe and created artwork featured in the world’s most prestigious museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the British Museum.

The pursuit of interdisciplinary knowledge drove both artists. Their daughter, Melissa Kaish Dorfman, recalls being surrounded by scholars, composers, writers and architects who were part of her parents’ social and intellectual lives while she was growing up. That is the sort of environment she and her father envision for the Kaish Fellows and their named gallery. Luise Kaish passed away in 2013.

“The arts must not be siloed,” says Melissa, who grew up in her parents’ studio, with her own easel set up in a corner from the time she was 4 years old. “Multidisciplinary experiences enrich the artist’s world view.” In describing how her parents influenced her as a child, she says, “They helped me listen to the world with my eyes. They encouraged me to learn not just to look, but to see new levels of understanding—how art drew upon science, philosophy, politics, religion, music, nature.”

The Syracuse University Art Museum’s commitment to interdisciplinary research and scholarship resonated with Morton, Luise and Melissa. Featuring 45,000 works from around the globe that date from 3500 B.C.E. to present day, it brings together the campus community for study, research and discussion. “We are so grateful to Morton and Melissa for their deeply meaningful gift,” says Vanja Malloy, museum director and chief curator. “The endowment will provide current and future students the opportunity to undertake original research and experience firsthand the power of art to act as a catalyst that transcends all the usual disciplines and boundaries.”

Morton and Luise’s professors at Syracuse helped them develop both the discipline and the imagination required to create great work. Luise once said of her mentor Professor Ivan Meštrović: “He brought to us in the autumn of his life a quality of spirit, a way of seeing form and light, and a total commitment to hard work.”

Morton’s college education was interrupted by service in World War II, and when he returned to campus, the art department had changed dramatically, with new faculty. “They couldn’t have cared less about the disciplined nature of composition or cast-drawing that originally drew me there,” recalls Morton. “They were interested in color, design, imagination.” This new faculty gave Morton permission to take risks and be courageous, something he later would teach his own students. Arts Magazine called his work: “A fascinating blend of the abstract and the figurative… his command of the subject is nothing less than masterful.”

Syracuse University also gave Luise chances to summon her courage and break new ground as a female sculptor in what was then very much a man’s world, tackling monumental scale and diverse mediums. “She was fearless,” says Morton. “She had tremendous confidence.” Her journey as an artist is detailed in a new publication, “,” a scholarly resource for diverse disciplines, including philosophy, religion, art history and fine arts.

In 1989, Luise was awarded the Arents Medal, Syracuse’s highest alumni honor. In the same year, in his Commencement speech to graduates of the College of Visual and Performing Arts, Morton noted that the courage to take risks is “at the very center of the creative life, its core and essence.”

The Kaish Endowment is intended to help students pursue their passions courageously, by offering them the kinds of experiences and opportunities that allowed Morton and Luise Kaish to thrive, leaving a legacy for generations to come.

About Syracuse University

Syracuse University is a private research university that advances knowledge across disciplines to drive breakthrough discoveries and breakout leadership. Our collection of 13 schools and colleges with over 200 customizable majors close the gap between education and action, so students can take on the world. In and beyond the classroom, we connect people, perspectives and practices to solve interconnected challenges with interdisciplinary approaches. Together, we’re a powerful community that moves ideas, individuals and impact beyond what’s possible.

About Forever Orange

Orange isn’t just our color. It’s our promise to leave the world better than we found it. Forever Orange: The Campaign for Syracuse University is poised to do just that. Fueled by 150 years of fearless firsts, together we can enhance academic excellence, transform the student experience and expand unique opportunities for learning and growth. Forever Orange endeavors to raise $1.5 billion in philanthropic support, inspire 125,000 individual donors to participate in the campaign, and actively engage one in five alumni in the life of the University. Now is the time to show the world what Orange can do. Visit to learn more.

“Unfinished Journeys 2” by Helen Zughaib. Collection Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

The virtual sessions—moderated by museum curatorial staff and faculty from the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA)—enable the audience to listen to innovative and diverse visual artists discussing stimulating issues in culture today, including how the current events such as the COVID-19 pandemic have affected their art careers and message. Chosen for their creative brilliance and fresh perspectives, the speakers will share their vision, working process and insights on the societal, cultural and thematic trends they represent.

The first session, “Unfinished Journeys,” features Vanja Malloy, director of the museum, interviewing Helen Zughaib ’81. It’s Thursday, Aug. 6, from 4 to 5 p.m. ET. The event is free but registration is required at .

“Ephemeral Propinquity,” 2017, by Jave Yoshimoto.

“Self Portrait #3,” 2019, by Richard Pasquarelli.

Upcoming conversations:

• Jave Yoshimoto G’12 (Tuesday, Aug. 11, 4 to 5 p.m. ET)
• Richard Pasquarelli ’90 (Tuesday, Aug. 18, 4 to 5 p.m. ET)
• Deborah Roberts G’14 (Thursday, Aug. 20, 4 to 5 p.m. ET)

The series is a collaboration of the Syracuse University Art Museum, VPA and the Office of Alumni Engagement in NYC.

“Hip Bone,” 2019, by Deborah Roberts. © Deborah Roberts. Courtesy of the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London.

About the artists

Helen Zughaib ’81 was born in Beirut, Lebanon, living mostly in the Middle East and Europe before coming to the United States to study art at Syracuse University. She paints primarily in gouache and ink on board and canvas. More recently, she has worked with wood, shoes and cloth and mixed media installations. Her work has been widely exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, Europe and Lebanon. Her paintings are included in many private and public collections, including at the White House.

Jave Yoshimoto G’12 was born in Japan to Chinese parents, immigrating to the United States at a young age. Yoshimoto received his M.F.A. in painting from Syracuse University. He served as an artist-in-residence at various artist colonies across the United States. His work has appeared in multiple publications, and he has exhibited internationally. Among his honors, Yoshimoto received a letter of recognition from the United Nations and was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation’s Painters and Sculptors Grant in 2015. He is currently an assistant professor of arts and foundations coordinator at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Richard Pasquarelli ’90 has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions in museums, galleries and art fairs throughout the United States and Europe. His work is represented globally in many public and private collections. His selected residencies and awards include The Cleveland Museum of Art/Print Club of Cleveland Annual Presentation Print commission for 2017, MASS MoCA, The Ragdale Foundation, The Bronx Museum of the Arts and multiple public installations for the city of New York.

Deborah Roberts G’14 is a mixed media artist whose work challenges the notion of ideal beauty. Her work has been exhibited internationally across the United States and Europe. Roberts’ pieces are included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem and The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery in Saratoga Springs. Roberts is recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2016) and a Ginsburg-Klaus Award Fellowship (2014).

For information on upcoming virtual programs such as gallery talks with the curators of virtual exhibitions and close looking object sessions with museum staff examining artworks from the permanent collection, as well as additional virtual exhibitions and activities, visit and follow @SUArtMuseum on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

“Grand Canal, Venice,” no date, by Franz-Richard Unterberger, part of Syracuse University’s permanent art collection.

The Syracuse University Art Galleries has changed its name to the Syracuse University Art Museum. In order to communicate to the public a clearer sense of its identity and to draw attention to its arts holdings, this name change from “galleries” to “museum” more accurately describes the institution’s mission and programs. The museum will also adopt a new logo and expand its digital platform.

The dedicated museum staff serve as stewards of the University’s permanent art collection, which contains artworks from 3500 B.C.E. to present day, including important holdings from many areas and cultures of the world. These artworks are more than a group of cataloged objects; they are carefully preserved, curated, interpreted and exhibited for scholarship, education and art appreciation.

“American Hi-Fi,” 1971, by Robert Cottingham,

With the permanent art collection as the core of the museum’s mission, the museum strives to be a place of rigorous interdisciplinary research, creative thinking and mindfulness, as well as an inclusive space that serves as a forum for a broad range of discussions that bring people together, uniting the wider community with students, faculty and staff. The museum promotes interdisciplinary scholarship and discussion through its robust schedule of exhibitions, public programming and class visits.

An added benefit to this name change is that the museum and its collections will become more discoverable, particularly in virtual exhibitions, programs and online searches, with the upcoming launch of the new online searchable database using Museum System’s eMuseum software. This emphasis on emerging digital platforms is an integral advancement in the museum’s strategic plan to widen its audiences and accessibility both inside and outside of the museum walls.