Friday, March 87, 2025

Under Open Sky
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Nikolay Mikushkin: recent plein air paintings
Peter Valenti: nature based series of ceramics
Bead Society of CNY: bead works in nature themes

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal's completion. The Canal transformed New York State in the 19th century. Today, 80% of the upstate population lives within 25 miles of the waterway, yet in much of the public's imagination, the canal remains confined to the past. The 2024 Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence — Alon Koppel, Judit German-Heins, and Clara Riedlinger — each embarked on a year-long photographic exploration contemplating the Canal's current condition, activating the landscape, and considering the waterway's lasting impacts on present-day American culture. "At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal" highlights the culmination of these artists' projects.

"At Water's Edge" is organized by the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The Artist-in-Residence program was created through a partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum.

   

Simply Simon: Pottery from the Collection of Michael Simon and Susan Roberts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Over the course of five decades, Georgia-based potter Michael Simon's name became synonymous with American functional pottery. Simon was born in Minnesota and studied with legendary pottery Warren MacKenzie. After building his own kiln near Athens, Georgia in 1980, Simon began setting one exemplary piece from each kiln firing aside for posterity. These "pick of the kiln" pieces are a testimony to Simon's enduring influence on the field of ceramics.

In 2018, Simon donated one of his favorite "pick of the kiln" vases to the Everson's permanent collection. With the vase came a donation of more than 30 functional pots by other artists that Simon and his wife Susan Roberts had collected over the years. Simon passed away in August of 2021, but left an immense legacy through his work, which now graces the collections of more than 20 museums across the United States. The works exhibited in "Simply Simon" reflect the qualities that Simon valued as a potter, while also illuminating his enduring relationships with his friends and colleagues.

   

It Came from the '70s
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The 1970s were a time of radical change in the field of ceramics. Artists began to grasp clay's potential when it came to Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Land Art, Performance Art, and other movements of the era.

In the wake of the 1960s, artists felt free to use humor for self-expression, shock value, or to serve as a "spoonful of sugar" to deliver a message. While the 1970s are usually seen as a time of wild individual expression, the decade also saw the development of a network of galleries and collectors that would ultimately professionalize the field and develop grudging respect from the fine art world. "It Came From the '70s" features groovy works from the Everson collection that tell these stories.

   

CNY Artist Initiative: Courtney Rile: Moments in Between
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Courtney Rile was the mother of a toddler when the emergence of COVID-19 triggered mandatory stay-at-home orders in March of 2020. The change, confusion, and uncertainty of that time mirrored the feelings she experienced during her "fourth trimester" — the 12 weeks in a mother and baby's life after the baby is born. Rile turned to photography to help process both motherhood and grief, and to cope with the changes in the world around her. The resulting portraits of friends with young children, as well as portraits of her daughter and other images captured in Rile's home, made during lockdown and its immediate aftermath, explore the passage of time and the duality of inward and outward looking.

   

Off the Rack
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Off the Rack" is the happy by-product of a major renovation of the Everson's on-site art storage.

As hundreds of paintings and framed works are displaced from their racks while renovations take place, the public has an unprecedented opportunity to view objects that have been in deep storage for years, never-before-seen recent acquisitions, and some perennial favorites — all hung together salon-style in our exhibition galleries.

This smorgasbord of paintings and works on paper showcases the breadth and depth of the Museum's collections and provides a glimpse into the world of collections management and care.

   

Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976" presents more than 70 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art, which have played a demonstrable role in shaping conversations about the nation's history and identity. The exhibition explores new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color within a visual and thematic structure that also features iconic works traditionally associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Making American Artists" presents PAFA's formidable collection of well-known historic works alongside pieces by traditionally underrepresented artists to pose questions about what it meant to be an American artist from when the institution was founded to the late 20th century.

"Making American Artists" features works from PAFA's esteemed collection that helped define new chapters in the history of American art, including works by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gilbert Stuart, Henry O. Tanner, and Andrew Wyeth. The exhibition also features icons of PAFA's history and collection, such as Stuart's "George Washington" (Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) and Charles Wilson Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" (1822).

   

Scholastic Art Awards of Central New York 2025
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation's longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, thousands of students representing 14 counties in Central New York submitted 4,555 works of art, which were then judged by professional artists and educators. The judges awarded first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), and honorable mentions to nearly 1,300 works in 17 different categories. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, and a small selection of the Silver Key winners and honorable mentions are displayed at the Everson.

   

Manuel Hernandez: The Singing Wall
Brewer Harris Projects

138 Bank Alley (University Building)
Syracuse

Gorgeously composed and filled with vibrant color, the mural paintings of Manuel Hernandez celebrate Indigenous American roots and address a range of subjects, from migration, to contemporary stories of Indigenous people in Latin America, to gender and family. Combining western and Indigenous histories and myths, Hernandez Sanchez challenges established narratives and visual styles, drawing on a tradition dating back to the ancient frescos found in the temples of Teotihuacán, Mexico.

   

Off the Wall
ArtRage Gallery

Price: Free
ArtRage Gallery
505 Hawley Ave., Syracuse

An exhibition and sale of community-donated progressive art that inspires resistance, promotes social awareness, supports social justice, challenges preconceptions, or encourages cultural change, to benefit ArtRage. All pieces will sell for $25.

   

Joiri Minaya and Miryam Charles: Lines of Flight
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Light Work's Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition Lines of Flight featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles exploring the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.

The exhibition will run as an architectural projection on the Everson Museum facade. Screening begins at dusk.

Labadee, by Joiri Minaya, is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately-managed space, which is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean cruises until 2050. The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we're seeing. It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance, and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus' Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonization. (2017, 7:06 minutes)

In Fly, Fly Sadness, by Miryam Charles, a nuclear explosion mysteriously transforms the voices of all the inhabitants of an island. A journalist travels to the island to learn more and finds herself transformed. (2015, 5:23 minutes)

   

Student and Member Open Mic
Downtown Writer's Center

Price: Free
YMCA
340 Montgomery St., Syracuse

Join us at our Winter open mic night, and strut your stuff... or just listen in! To be added to the list of readers, email Tim Carter. Please plan to read 1-2 pages of poetry, or a bit of prose that you can read in approximately two minutes.

   

Beyond Therapy
Central New York Playhouse
Jim Sharples, director

Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Christopher Durang's delightful off-Broadway hit concerns two modern, neurotic urbanites searching for love and sanity – with the questionable help of their offbeat therapists.

Bruce and Prudence are deeply into therapy. Prudence's macho therapist is urging her to be more assertive, while Bruce's wacky female therapist wants him to meet women by placing a personal ad. She does not fully comprehend that Bruce has a male lover who is not pleased by Bruce's desire to date a woman. Bruce doesn't know how to handle poor, nervous Prudence, and Prudence doesn't know what to make of her unpredictable new boyfriend.

Tickets

   

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Covey Theatre Company

Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Big business means big laughs in this delightfully clever lampoon of life on the corporate ladder. A tune-filled comic gem that took Broadway by storm, winning both the Tony Award for Best Musical and a Pulitzer Prize, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying boasts an exhilarating score by Frank Loesser, including "I Believe in You," "Brotherhood of Man," and "The Company Way."

A satire of big business and all it holds sacred, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying follows the rise of J. Pierrepont Finch, who uses a little handbook called How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying to climb the corporate ladder from lowly window washer to high-powered executive, tackling such familiar but potent dangers as the aggressively compliant "company man," the office party, backstabbing coworkers, caffeine addiction, and, of course, true love.

Tickets

   

Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Thornden Park Amphitheater
Ostrom Ave., Syracuse

It's 1934, and Shakespeare's most famous fairies, Oberon and Puck, have magically materialized on the Warner Bros. Hollywood set of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instantly smitten by the glitz and glamour of show biz, the two are ushered onto the silver screen to play (who else?) themselves. With a little help from a feisty flower, blonde bombshells, movie moguls, and arrogant "asses" are tossed into loopy love triangles, with raucous results. The mischievous magic of moviedom sparkles in this hilarious comic romp.

Tickets

   

American Hero
LeMoyne College
Alisha Espinosa, director

Price: $20 regular, $15 seniors, $10 LeMoyne faculty and staff, $5 students
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

At a toasted subs franchise in the local mall, three up-and-coming "sandwich artists" — a teenager, a single mom and a downsized refugee from corporate banking — are perfecting the mustard-to-cheese ratio according to the company manual. But when their shot at the American dream is interrupted by a series of strange events, they become unlikely allies in a post-recession world. American Hero is a supersized dark comedy about life, liberty, and the pursuit of sandwiches. By Bess Wohl.

Tickets

   

Preview: What the Moon Saw, or I Only Appear to Be Dead
Syracuse University Drama Department
Danyon Davis, director

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

A fantastical collage of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales told through a post-9/11 lens, by Stephanie Fleishman. Traveling to Shanghai to celebrate his 200th birthday, Andersen encounters mermaids, a street urchin, a supermodel, teenagers in love, a cabdriver, firemen, and husks of humans who appear as ghouls in this "kaleidoscopic meditation on how we move through calamity" inspired by Andersen's fragile, timeless tales.

Tickets

   

Saturday, March 88, 2025

Under Open Sky
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Nikolay Mikushkin: recent plein air paintings
Peter Valenti: nature based series of ceramics
Bead Society of CNY: bead works in nature themes

   

Scholastic Art Awards of Central New York 2025
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation's longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, thousands of students representing 14 counties in Central New York submitted 4,555 works of art, which were then judged by professional artists and educators. The judges awarded first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), and honorable mentions to nearly 1,300 works in 17 different categories. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, and a small selection of the Silver Key winners and honorable mentions are displayed at the Everson.

   

Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976" presents more than 70 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art, which have played a demonstrable role in shaping conversations about the nation's history and identity. The exhibition explores new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color within a visual and thematic structure that also features iconic works traditionally associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Making American Artists" presents PAFA's formidable collection of well-known historic works alongside pieces by traditionally underrepresented artists to pose questions about what it meant to be an American artist from when the institution was founded to the late 20th century.

"Making American Artists" features works from PAFA's esteemed collection that helped define new chapters in the history of American art, including works by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gilbert Stuart, Henry O. Tanner, and Andrew Wyeth. The exhibition also features icons of PAFA's history and collection, such as Stuart's "George Washington" (Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) and Charles Wilson Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" (1822).

   

Off the Rack
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Off the Rack" is the happy by-product of a major renovation of the Everson's on-site art storage.

As hundreds of paintings and framed works are displaced from their racks while renovations take place, the public has an unprecedented opportunity to view objects that have been in deep storage for years, never-before-seen recent acquisitions, and some perennial favorites — all hung together salon-style in our exhibition galleries.

This smorgasbord of paintings and works on paper showcases the breadth and depth of the Museum's collections and provides a glimpse into the world of collections management and care.

   

It Came from the '70s
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The 1970s were a time of radical change in the field of ceramics. Artists began to grasp clay's potential when it came to Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Land Art, Performance Art, and other movements of the era.

In the wake of the 1960s, artists felt free to use humor for self-expression, shock value, or to serve as a "spoonful of sugar" to deliver a message. While the 1970s are usually seen as a time of wild individual expression, the decade also saw the development of a network of galleries and collectors that would ultimately professionalize the field and develop grudging respect from the fine art world. "It Came From the '70s" features groovy works from the Everson collection that tell these stories.

   

CNY Artist Initiative: Courtney Rile: Moments in Between
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Courtney Rile was the mother of a toddler when the emergence of COVID-19 triggered mandatory stay-at-home orders in March of 2020. The change, confusion, and uncertainty of that time mirrored the feelings she experienced during her "fourth trimester" — the 12 weeks in a mother and baby's life after the baby is born. Rile turned to photography to help process both motherhood and grief, and to cope with the changes in the world around her. The resulting portraits of friends with young children, as well as portraits of her daughter and other images captured in Rile's home, made during lockdown and its immediate aftermath, explore the passage of time and the duality of inward and outward looking.

   

Simply Simon: Pottery from the Collection of Michael Simon and Susan Roberts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Over the course of five decades, Georgia-based potter Michael Simon's name became synonymous with American functional pottery. Simon was born in Minnesota and studied with legendary pottery Warren MacKenzie. After building his own kiln near Athens, Georgia in 1980, Simon began setting one exemplary piece from each kiln firing aside for posterity. These "pick of the kiln" pieces are a testimony to Simon's enduring influence on the field of ceramics.

In 2018, Simon donated one of his favorite "pick of the kiln" vases to the Everson's permanent collection. With the vase came a donation of more than 30 functional pots by other artists that Simon and his wife Susan Roberts had collected over the years. Simon passed away in August of 2021, but left an immense legacy through his work, which now graces the collections of more than 20 museums across the United States. The works exhibited in "Simply Simon" reflect the qualities that Simon valued as a potter, while also illuminating his enduring relationships with his friends and colleagues.

   

At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal's completion. The Canal transformed New York State in the 19th century. Today, 80% of the upstate population lives within 25 miles of the waterway, yet in much of the public's imagination, the canal remains confined to the past. The 2024 Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence — Alon Koppel, Judit German-Heins, and Clara Riedlinger — each embarked on a year-long photographic exploration contemplating the Canal's current condition, activating the landscape, and considering the waterway's lasting impacts on present-day American culture. "At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal" highlights the culmination of these artists' projects.

"At Water's Edge" is organized by the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The Artist-in-Residence program was created through a partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Manuel Hernandez: The Singing Wall
Brewer Harris Projects

138 Bank Alley (University Building)
Syracuse

Gorgeously composed and filled with vibrant color, the mural paintings of Manuel Hernandez celebrate Indigenous American roots and address a range of subjects, from migration, to contemporary stories of Indigenous people in Latin America, to gender and family. Combining western and Indigenous histories and myths, Hernandez Sanchez challenges established narratives and visual styles, drawing on a tradition dating back to the ancient frescos found in the temples of Teotihuacán, Mexico.

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

Joiri Minaya and Miryam Charles: Lines of Flight
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Light Work's Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition Lines of Flight featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles exploring the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.

The exhibition will run as an architectural projection on the Everson Museum facade. Screening begins at dusk.

Labadee, by Joiri Minaya, is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately-managed space, which is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean cruises until 2050. The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we're seeing. It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance, and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus' Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonization. (2017, 7:06 minutes)

In Fly, Fly Sadness, by Miryam Charles, a nuclear explosion mysteriously transforms the voices of all the inhabitants of an island. A journalist travels to the island to learn more and finds herself transformed. (2015, 5:23 minutes)

   

Dave Novak Five
Steeple Coffee House

Price: $15-$20 suggested donation covers entertainment, dessert, coffee/tea
United Church of Fayetteville
310 E. Genesee St., Fayetteville

   

Pops Series: Jimmy Van Heusen: Swingin’ in Hollywood with Frank and Friends
Syracuse Orchestra (formerly Symphoria)
Sean O'Loughlin, conductor
Featuring Nick Ziobro and Julia Goodwin, vocalists

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

Come fly with four-time Oscar-winning songwriter and Syracuse native Jimmy Van Heusen, as his music comes to life as never before in classic Hollywood films accompanied by live symphony orchestra.

All-time hits such as Love and Marriage, All The Way, Come Fly With Me, and My Kind of Town are featured as originally debuted on film by Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis, Jr., among others.

The unique film-with-symphony concert, including special live guest vocalists, tells the story
of the remarkable life and music of Jimmy Van Heusen, who test-piloted fighter planes while creating some of the most beloved melodies of the Great American Songbook. His storied musical partnership with close friend and Rat Pack pal Frank Sinatra resulted in over 80 of his songs recorded by Sinatra, more than by any other songwriter.

Sean O'Loughlin is music director and arranger of the program. Producer and writer is Jim Burns, who directed and wrote the PBS documentary Jimmy Van Heusen – Swingin' with Frank & Bing. Executive producer is Brook Babcock, grandnephew of Jimmy Van Heusen and president of Van Heusen Music Group.

Tickets

   

Beyond Therapy
Central New York Playhouse
Jim Sharples, director

Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Christopher Durang's delightful off-Broadway hit concerns two modern, neurotic urbanites searching for love and sanity – with the questionable help of their offbeat therapists.

Bruce and Prudence are deeply into therapy. Prudence's macho therapist is urging her to be more assertive, while Bruce's wacky female therapist wants him to meet women by placing a personal ad. She does not fully comprehend that Bruce has a male lover who is not pleased by Bruce's desire to date a woman. Bruce doesn't know how to handle poor, nervous Prudence, and Prudence doesn't know what to make of her unpredictable new boyfriend.

Tickets

   

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Covey Theatre Company

Hosmer Auditorium, Everson Museum
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Big business means big laughs in this delightfully clever lampoon of life on the corporate ladder. A tune-filled comic gem that took Broadway by storm, winning both the Tony Award for Best Musical and a Pulitzer Prize, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying boasts an exhilarating score by Frank Loesser, including "I Believe in You," "Brotherhood of Man," and "The Company Way."

A satire of big business and all it holds sacred, How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying follows the rise of J. Pierrepont Finch, who uses a little handbook called How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying to climb the corporate ladder from lowly window washer to high-powered executive, tackling such familiar but potent dangers as the aggressively compliant "company man," the office party, backstabbing coworkers, caffeine addiction, and, of course, true love.

Tickets

   

Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Thornden Park Amphitheater
Ostrom Ave., Syracuse

It's 1934, and Shakespeare's most famous fairies, Oberon and Puck, have magically materialized on the Warner Bros. Hollywood set of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instantly smitten by the glitz and glamour of show biz, the two are ushered onto the silver screen to play (who else?) themselves. With a little help from a feisty flower, blonde bombshells, movie moguls, and arrogant "asses" are tossed into loopy love triangles, with raucous results. The mischievous magic of moviedom sparkles in this hilarious comic romp.

Tickets

   

American Hero
LeMoyne College
Alisha Espinosa, director

Price: $20 regular, $15 seniors, $10 LeMoyne faculty and staff, $5 students
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

At a toasted subs franchise in the local mall, three up-and-coming "sandwich artists" — a teenager, a single mom and a downsized refugee from corporate banking — are perfecting the mustard-to-cheese ratio according to the company manual. But when their shot at the American dream is interrupted by a series of strange events, they become unlikely allies in a post-recession world. American Hero is a supersized dark comedy about life, liberty, and the pursuit of sandwiches. By Bess Wohl.

Tickets

   

Opening: What the Moon Saw, or I Only Appear to Be Dead
Syracuse University Drama Department
Danyon Davis, director

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

A fantastical collage of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales told through a post-9/11 lens, by Stephanie Fleishman. Traveling to Shanghai to celebrate his 200th birthday, Andersen encounters mermaids, a street urchin, a supermodel, teenagers in love, a cabdriver, firemen, and husks of humans who appear as ghouls in this "kaleidoscopic meditation on how we move through calamity" inspired by Andersen's fragile, timeless tales.

Tickets

   

Sunday, March 89, 2025

It Came from the '70s
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The 1970s were a time of radical change in the field of ceramics. Artists began to grasp clay's potential when it came to Conceptual Art, Minimalism, Land Art, Performance Art, and other movements of the era.

In the wake of the 1960s, artists felt free to use humor for self-expression, shock value, or to serve as a "spoonful of sugar" to deliver a message. While the 1970s are usually seen as a time of wild individual expression, the decade also saw the development of a network of galleries and collectors that would ultimately professionalize the field and develop grudging respect from the fine art world. "It Came From the '70s" features groovy works from the Everson collection that tell these stories.

   

CNY Artist Initiative: Courtney Rile: Moments in Between
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Courtney Rile was the mother of a toddler when the emergence of COVID-19 triggered mandatory stay-at-home orders in March of 2020. The change, confusion, and uncertainty of that time mirrored the feelings she experienced during her "fourth trimester" — the 12 weeks in a mother and baby's life after the baby is born. Rile turned to photography to help process both motherhood and grief, and to cope with the changes in the world around her. The resulting portraits of friends with young children, as well as portraits of her daughter and other images captured in Rile's home, made during lockdown and its immediate aftermath, explore the passage of time and the duality of inward and outward looking.

   

At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal's completion. The Canal transformed New York State in the 19th century. Today, 80% of the upstate population lives within 25 miles of the waterway, yet in much of the public's imagination, the canal remains confined to the past. The 2024 Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence — Alon Koppel, Judit German-Heins, and Clara Riedlinger — each embarked on a year-long photographic exploration contemplating the Canal's current condition, activating the landscape, and considering the waterway's lasting impacts on present-day American culture. "At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal" highlights the culmination of these artists' projects.

"At Water's Edge" is organized by the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The Artist-in-Residence program was created through a partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum.

   

Simply Simon: Pottery from the Collection of Michael Simon and Susan Roberts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Over the course of five decades, Georgia-based potter Michael Simon's name became synonymous with American functional pottery. Simon was born in Minnesota and studied with legendary pottery Warren MacKenzie. After building his own kiln near Athens, Georgia in 1980, Simon began setting one exemplary piece from each kiln firing aside for posterity. These "pick of the kiln" pieces are a testimony to Simon's enduring influence on the field of ceramics.

In 2018, Simon donated one of his favorite "pick of the kiln" vases to the Everson's permanent collection. With the vase came a donation of more than 30 functional pots by other artists that Simon and his wife Susan Roberts had collected over the years. Simon passed away in August of 2021, but left an immense legacy through his work, which now graces the collections of more than 20 museums across the United States. The works exhibited in "Simply Simon" reflect the qualities that Simon valued as a potter, while also illuminating his enduring relationships with his friends and colleagues.

   

Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976" presents more than 70 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art, which have played a demonstrable role in shaping conversations about the nation's history and identity. The exhibition explores new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color within a visual and thematic structure that also features iconic works traditionally associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Making American Artists" presents PAFA's formidable collection of well-known historic works alongside pieces by traditionally underrepresented artists to pose questions about what it meant to be an American artist from when the institution was founded to the late 20th century.

"Making American Artists" features works from PAFA's esteemed collection that helped define new chapters in the history of American art, including works by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gilbert Stuart, Henry O. Tanner, and Andrew Wyeth. The exhibition also features icons of PAFA's history and collection, such as Stuart's "George Washington" (Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) and Charles Wilson Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" (1822).

   

Scholastic Art Awards of Central New York 2025
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation's longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, thousands of students representing 14 counties in Central New York submitted 4,555 works of art, which were then judged by professional artists and educators. The judges awarded first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), and honorable mentions to nearly 1,300 works in 17 different categories. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, and a small selection of the Silver Key winners and honorable mentions are displayed at the Everson.

   

Off the Rack
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Off the Rack" is the happy by-product of a major renovation of the Everson's on-site art storage.

As hundreds of paintings and framed works are displaced from their racks while renovations take place, the public has an unprecedented opportunity to view objects that have been in deep storage for years, never-before-seen recent acquisitions, and some perennial favorites — all hung together salon-style in our exhibition galleries.

This smorgasbord of paintings and works on paper showcases the breadth and depth of the Museum's collections and provides a glimpse into the world of collections management and care.

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Special Event: Community Side-by-Side Concert
Syracuse Orchestra (formerly Symphoria)
Ho-Yin Kwok, conductor

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

Concert performed by community members along with members of the Syracuse Orchestra.

Glinka Ruslan and Ludmilla
Frescobaldi Toccata
O'Loughlin Art of Racing in the Rain
Bizet Selections from L'Arlésienne
Powell/O'Loughlin How to Train Your Dragon
Dvorak Movement 4 from Symphony No. 9, "New World"

Tickets

   

Beyond Therapy
Central New York Playhouse
Jim Sharples, director

Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Christopher Durang's delightful off-Broadway hit concerns two modern, neurotic urbanites searching for love and sanity – with the questionable help of their offbeat therapists.

Bruce and Prudence are deeply into therapy. Prudence's macho therapist is urging her to be more assertive, while Bruce's wacky female therapist wants him to meet women by placing a personal ad. She does not fully comprehend that Bruce has a male lover who is not pleased by Bruce's desire to date a woman. Bruce doesn't know how to handle poor, nervous Prudence, and Prudence doesn't know what to make of her unpredictable new boyfriend.

Tickets

   

Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Thornden Park Amphitheater
Ostrom Ave., Syracuse

It's 1934, and Shakespeare's most famous fairies, Oberon and Puck, have magically materialized on the Warner Bros. Hollywood set of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instantly smitten by the glitz and glamour of show biz, the two are ushered onto the silver screen to play (who else?) themselves. With a little help from a feisty flower, blonde bombshells, movie moguls, and arrogant "asses" are tossed into loopy love triangles, with raucous results. The mischievous magic of moviedom sparkles in this hilarious comic romp.

Tickets

   

What the Moon Saw, or I Only Appear to Be Dead
Syracuse University Drama Department
Danyon Davis, director

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

A fantastical collage of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales told through a post-9/11 lens, by Stephanie Fleishman. Traveling to Shanghai to celebrate his 200th birthday, Andersen encounters mermaids, a street urchin, a supermodel, teenagers in love, a cabdriver, firemen, and husks of humans who appear as ghouls in this "kaleidoscopic meditation on how we move through calamity" inspired by Andersen's fragile, timeless tales.

Tickets

   

Monday, March 90, 2025

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Tuesday, April 91, 2025

Under Open Sky
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Nikolay Mikushkin: recent plein air paintings
Peter Valenti: nature based series of ceramics
Bead Society of CNY: bead works in nature themes

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

Wednesday, April 92, 2025

Under Open Sky
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Nikolay Mikushkin: recent plein air paintings
Peter Valenti: nature based series of ceramics
Bead Society of CNY: bead works in nature themes

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

Simply Simon: Pottery from the Collection of Michael Simon and Susan Roberts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Over the course of five decades, Georgia-based potter Michael Simon's name became synonymous with American functional pottery. Simon was born in Minnesota and studied with legendary pottery Warren MacKenzie. After building his own kiln near Athens, Georgia in 1980, Simon began setting one exemplary piece from each kiln firing aside for posterity. These "pick of the kiln" pieces are a testimony to Simon's enduring influence on the field of ceramics.

In 2018, Simon donated one of his favorite "pick of the kiln" vases to the Everson's permanent collection. With the vase came a donation of more than 30 functional pots by other artists that Simon and his wife Susan Roberts had collected over the years. Simon passed away in August of 2021, but left an immense legacy through his work, which now graces the collections of more than 20 museums across the United States. The works exhibited in "Simply Simon" reflect the qualities that Simon valued as a potter, while also illuminating his enduring relationships with his friends and colleagues.

   

At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal's completion. The Canal transformed New York State in the 19th century. Today, 80% of the upstate population lives within 25 miles of the waterway, yet in much of the public's imagination, the canal remains confined to the past. The 2024 Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence — Alon Koppel, Judit German-Heins, and Clara Riedlinger — each embarked on a year-long photographic exploration contemplating the Canal's current condition, activating the landscape, and considering the waterway's lasting impacts on present-day American culture. "At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal" highlights the culmination of these artists' projects.

"At Water's Edge" is organized by the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The Artist-in-Residence program was created through a partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum.

   

Off the Rack
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Off the Rack" is the happy by-product of a major renovation of the Everson's on-site art storage.

As hundreds of paintings and framed works are displaced from their racks while renovations take place, the public has an unprecedented opportunity to view objects that have been in deep storage for years, never-before-seen recent acquisitions, and some perennial favorites — all hung together salon-style in our exhibition galleries.

This smorgasbord of paintings and works on paper showcases the breadth and depth of the Museum's collections and provides a glimpse into the world of collections management and care.

   

Scholastic Art Awards of Central New York 2025
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation's longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, thousands of students representing 14 counties in Central New York submitted 4,555 works of art, which were then judged by professional artists and educators. The judges awarded first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), and honorable mentions to nearly 1,300 works in 17 different categories. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, and a small selection of the Silver Key winners and honorable mentions are displayed at the Everson.

   

Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976" presents more than 70 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art, which have played a demonstrable role in shaping conversations about the nation's history and identity. The exhibition explores new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color within a visual and thematic structure that also features iconic works traditionally associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Making American Artists" presents PAFA's formidable collection of well-known historic works alongside pieces by traditionally underrepresented artists to pose questions about what it meant to be an American artist from when the institution was founded to the late 20th century.

"Making American Artists" features works from PAFA's esteemed collection that helped define new chapters in the history of American art, including works by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gilbert Stuart, Henry O. Tanner, and Andrew Wyeth. The exhibition also features icons of PAFA's history and collection, such as Stuart's "George Washington" (Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) and Charles Wilson Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" (1822).

   

Hayan Charara
Raymond Carver Reading Series

Price: Free
Watson Theater, Menschel Media Center
316 Waverly Ave. (Syracuse University), Syracuse

Born in Detroit to Arab immigrants, Hayan Charara is a poet, children's book author, essayist, and editor. His latest poetry collection, These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit, was published by Milkweed Editions. His children's book, The Three Lucys (Lee and Low 2019), received the New Voices Award Honor, and he edited Inclined to Speak, an anthology of contemporary Arab American poetry. With Fady Joudah, he is also a series editor of the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. Hayan lives in Texas, where he teaches at The Honors College at the University of Houston.

His newest work, Hush, Little Children, will be published by Flexible Press in Fall 2025. His novel follows a couple trying to get pregnant just as a child suicide epidemic breaks out and a fringe group led by a charismatic leader uses disinformation and fear to advance ideologies rooted in hatred.

The reading will be preceded by a question-and-answer session beginning at 4:00 pm.

   

What the Moon Saw, or I Only Appear to Be Dead
Syracuse University Drama Department
Danyon Davis, director

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

A fantastical collage of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales told through a post-9/11 lens, by Stephanie Fleishman. Traveling to Shanghai to celebrate his 200th birthday, Andersen encounters mermaids, a street urchin, a supermodel, teenagers in love, a cabdriver, firemen, and husks of humans who appear as ghouls in this "kaleidoscopic meditation on how we move through calamity" inspired by Andersen's fragile, timeless tales.

Tickets

   

Thursday, April 93, 2025

Under Open Sky
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Nikolay Mikushkin: recent plein air paintings
Peter Valenti: nature based series of ceramics
Bead Society of CNY: bead works in nature themes

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal's completion. The Canal transformed New York State in the 19th century. Today, 80% of the upstate population lives within 25 miles of the waterway, yet in much of the public's imagination, the canal remains confined to the past. The 2024 Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence — Alon Koppel, Judit German-Heins, and Clara Riedlinger — each embarked on a year-long photographic exploration contemplating the Canal's current condition, activating the landscape, and considering the waterway's lasting impacts on present-day American culture. "At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal" highlights the culmination of these artists' projects.

"At Water's Edge" is organized by the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The Artist-in-Residence program was created through a partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum.

   

Simply Simon: Pottery from the Collection of Michael Simon and Susan Roberts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Over the course of five decades, Georgia-based potter Michael Simon's name became synonymous with American functional pottery. Simon was born in Minnesota and studied with legendary pottery Warren MacKenzie. After building his own kiln near Athens, Georgia in 1980, Simon began setting one exemplary piece from each kiln firing aside for posterity. These "pick of the kiln" pieces are a testimony to Simon's enduring influence on the field of ceramics.

In 2018, Simon donated one of his favorite "pick of the kiln" vases to the Everson's permanent collection. With the vase came a donation of more than 30 functional pots by other artists that Simon and his wife Susan Roberts had collected over the years. Simon passed away in August of 2021, but left an immense legacy through his work, which now graces the collections of more than 20 museums across the United States. The works exhibited in "Simply Simon" reflect the qualities that Simon valued as a potter, while also illuminating his enduring relationships with his friends and colleagues.

   

Off the Rack
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Off the Rack" is the happy by-product of a major renovation of the Everson's on-site art storage.

As hundreds of paintings and framed works are displaced from their racks while renovations take place, the public has an unprecedented opportunity to view objects that have been in deep storage for years, never-before-seen recent acquisitions, and some perennial favorites — all hung together salon-style in our exhibition galleries.

This smorgasbord of paintings and works on paper showcases the breadth and depth of the Museum's collections and provides a glimpse into the world of collections management and care.

   

Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976" presents more than 70 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art, which have played a demonstrable role in shaping conversations about the nation's history and identity. The exhibition explores new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color within a visual and thematic structure that also features iconic works traditionally associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Making American Artists" presents PAFA's formidable collection of well-known historic works alongside pieces by traditionally underrepresented artists to pose questions about what it meant to be an American artist from when the institution was founded to the late 20th century.

"Making American Artists" features works from PAFA's esteemed collection that helped define new chapters in the history of American art, including works by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gilbert Stuart, Henry O. Tanner, and Andrew Wyeth. The exhibition also features icons of PAFA's history and collection, such as Stuart's "George Washington" (Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) and Charles Wilson Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" (1822).

   

Scholastic Art Awards of Central New York 2025
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation's longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, thousands of students representing 14 counties in Central New York submitted 4,555 works of art, which were then judged by professional artists and educators. The judges awarded first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), and honorable mentions to nearly 1,300 works in 17 different categories. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, and a small selection of the Silver Key winners and honorable mentions are displayed at the Everson.

   

Joiri Minaya and Miryam Charles: Lines of Flight
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Light Work's Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition Lines of Flight featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles exploring the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.

The exhibition will run as an architectural projection on the Everson Museum facade. Screening begins at dusk.

Labadee, by Joiri Minaya, is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately-managed space, which is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean cruises until 2050. The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we're seeing. It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance, and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus' Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonization. (2017, 7:06 minutes)

In Fly, Fly Sadness, by Miryam Charles, a nuclear explosion mysteriously transforms the voices of all the inhabitants of an island. A journalist travels to the island to learn more and finds herself transformed. (2015, 5:23 minutes)

   

American Hero
LeMoyne College
Alisha Espinosa, director

Price: $20 regular, $15 seniors, $10 LeMoyne faculty and staff, $5 students
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

At a toasted subs franchise in the local mall, three up-and-coming "sandwich artists" — a teenager, a single mom and a downsized refugee from corporate banking — are perfecting the mustard-to-cheese ratio according to the company manual. But when their shot at the American dream is interrupted by a series of strange events, they become unlikely allies in a post-recession world. American Hero is a supersized dark comedy about life, liberty, and the pursuit of sandwiches. By Bess Wohl.

Tickets

   

What the Moon Saw, or I Only Appear to Be Dead
Syracuse University Drama Department
Danyon Davis, director

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

A fantastical collage of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales told through a post-9/11 lens, by Stephanie Fleishman. Traveling to Shanghai to celebrate his 200th birthday, Andersen encounters mermaids, a street urchin, a supermodel, teenagers in love, a cabdriver, firemen, and husks of humans who appear as ghouls in this "kaleidoscopic meditation on how we move through calamity" inspired by Andersen's fragile, timeless tales.

Tickets

   

Friday, April 94, 2025

Under Open Sky
Edgewood Gallery

Edgewood Gallery
216 Tecumseh Rd., Syracuse

Nikolay Mikushkin: recent plein air paintings
Peter Valenti: nature based series of ceramics
Bead Society of CNY: bead works in nature themes

   

Peppy Downer
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Peppy Downer" draws exclusively from the Light Work Collection and pulls together works whose makers might have never imagined exhibiting together. It is a portrait through difference as much as similarity, but its music is a mixtape of our time, laid down by our importantly diverse and complicated cohort. Power to the people.

The exhibit contains a selection of photographs by Vikky Alexander, Mike Barth, Robert Benjamin, Phil Block, David Broda, John Collier, Larry Cook, Peter De Lory, Lucinda Devlin, Lydia Ann Douglas, Alex Harsley, Biff Henrich, Jeffrey Hoone, Saiman Li, Pipo Nguyen-duy, Diane Neumaier, Ernesto Pujol, Jon Reis, Patricia Reynolds, Coreen Simpson, Aaron Siskind, Lenard Smith, Miso Suchy, and James Welling.

   

Nabil Harb: Mater si, magistra no
Light Work Gallery

Light Work Gallery
316 Waverly Ave., Syracuse University, Syracuse

Nabil Harb's project "Mater si, magistra no" (a macaronic phrase that translates as "Mother yes, teacher no") presents photographs that describe and depict moments and scenes within his hometown of Lakeland in Polk County, FL. This Central Florida location is both the backdrop and main character of Harb's visual narrative: a story that emits surreal qualities which twist ideas of the region through photography's formal language into a conceptual idea — an idea of how to describe the atmosphere of a place without words. Harb writes, "The landscape is the perfect reflection of our society, our ultimate index — it holds our histories, our secrets, our failures, and our hopes for the future."

   

Fruits of Their Labor: Work and Leisure at the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Fruits of Their Labor" seeks to reexamine depictions of labor and leisure in the Syracuse University Art Museum's permanent collection. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed systemic problems in the workplace, mirroring the societal shifts in the labor industry during the Great Depression. Through thematic groupings such as those that depict women's work in and out of the home or behind the scenes views into the entertainment industry, this exhibition challenges conventional depictions of labor.

   

Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

"Joiri Minaya: Unseeing the Tropics at the Museum" brings together artwork by the acclaimed New York City-based Dominican artist and objects from the collection to examine how Minaya critiques Western ideas of tropicality, which are rooted in otherness and exoticism. Through these comparisons, the exhibition explores how nature, landscape, culture, and race have been historically constructed and deployed as tropes in visual culture.

   

The Earth Laughs in Flowers: Plants in the Syracuse University Art Museum
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

Drawing upon Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous line "the earth laughs in flowers" from his poem, "Hamatreya" (1846), this exhibition explores images of plants, as well as plant-based objects, in the collections of the Syracuse University Art Museum. This exhibition is co-curated by senior art history majors under the supervision of Professor Romita Ray (Art and Music Histories), in collaboration with Melissa Yuen, PhD, and Kate Holohan, PhD. It is the outcome of the annual art history Senior Seminar taught in the College of Arts and Sciences.

   

Faculty Fellows Curate
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

In Summer 2022, the Syracuse University Art Museum launched a Faculty Fellows program to support innovative curriculum development, experiential learning, and the fuller integration of the museum's collection into academic life at the University. The program focuses on object-based teaching and research, which is active and student-centered. This exhibition features artworks that the 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows, Lyndsay Gratch (Communication and Rhetorical Studies) and Elizabeth Wimer (Management), will teach with during the Spring 2025 semester.

   

Surrealism and Photography: "Where I Dream, It is Awake"
Syracuse University Art Museum

Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building
Syracuse University, Syracuse

This exhibition examines the role of Surrealism in modern photography, tracking the movement's love of chance, fragmentation, and uncanny dream imagery from its origins in Paris to Britain, Mexico, and Japan over the course of the 20th century. Curated by graduate students in the Department of Art & Music Histories under the direction of Sam Johnson (associate professor and director of graduate studies in Art History), the exhibition features photographs from collections of the SU Art Museum alongside Surrealist books and periodicals from the Special Collections Research Center of the Syracuse University Libraries.

   

Simply Simon: Pottery from the Collection of Michael Simon and Susan Roberts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Over the course of five decades, Georgia-based potter Michael Simon's name became synonymous with American functional pottery. Simon was born in Minnesota and studied with legendary pottery Warren MacKenzie. After building his own kiln near Athens, Georgia in 1980, Simon began setting one exemplary piece from each kiln firing aside for posterity. These "pick of the kiln" pieces are a testimony to Simon's enduring influence on the field of ceramics.

In 2018, Simon donated one of his favorite "pick of the kiln" vases to the Everson's permanent collection. With the vase came a donation of more than 30 functional pots by other artists that Simon and his wife Susan Roberts had collected over the years. Simon passed away in August of 2021, but left an immense legacy through his work, which now graces the collections of more than 20 museums across the United States. The works exhibited in "Simply Simon" reflect the qualities that Simon valued as a potter, while also illuminating his enduring relationships with his friends and colleagues.

   

At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

2025 marks the 200th anniversary of the Erie Canal's completion. The Canal transformed New York State in the 19th century. Today, 80% of the upstate population lives within 25 miles of the waterway, yet in much of the public's imagination, the canal remains confined to the past. The 2024 Erie Canal Artists-in-Residence — Alon Koppel, Judit German-Heins, and Clara Riedlinger — each embarked on a year-long photographic exploration contemplating the Canal's current condition, activating the landscape, and considering the waterway's lasting impacts on present-day American culture. "At Water's Edge: Reflections on 200 Years of the Erie Canal" highlights the culmination of these artists' projects.

"At Water's Edge" is organized by the Erie Canal Museum in Syracuse. The Artist-in-Residence program was created through a partnership between the New York State Canal Corporation and the Erie Canal Museum.

   

Off the Rack
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Off the Rack" is the happy by-product of a major renovation of the Everson's on-site art storage.

As hundreds of paintings and framed works are displaced from their racks while renovations take place, the public has an unprecedented opportunity to view objects that have been in deep storage for years, never-before-seen recent acquisitions, and some perennial favorites — all hung together salon-style in our exhibition galleries.

This smorgasbord of paintings and works on paper showcases the breadth and depth of the Museum's collections and provides a glimpse into the world of collections management and care.

   

Scholastic Art Awards of Central New York 2025
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation's longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, thousands of students representing 14 counties in Central New York submitted 4,555 works of art, which were then judged by professional artists and educators. The judges awarded first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), and honorable mentions to nearly 1,300 works in 17 different categories. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, and a small selection of the Silver Key winners and honorable mentions are displayed at the Everson.

   

Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1776-1976" presents more than 70 of the most acclaimed and recognizable works of American art, which have played a demonstrable role in shaping conversations about the nation's history and identity. The exhibition explores new narratives of the history of American art, embracing stories about women artists, LGBTQ+ artists, and artists of color within a visual and thematic structure that also features iconic works traditionally associated with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. "Making American Artists" presents PAFA's formidable collection of well-known historic works alongside pieces by traditionally underrepresented artists to pose questions about what it meant to be an American artist from when the institution was founded to the late 20th century.

"Making American Artists" features works from PAFA's esteemed collection that helped define new chapters in the history of American art, including works by Mary Cassatt, Barkley L. Hendricks, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gilbert Stuart, Henry O. Tanner, and Andrew Wyeth. The exhibition also features icons of PAFA's history and collection, such as Stuart's "George Washington" (Lansdowne Portrait) (1796) and Charles Wilson Peale's "The Artist in His Museum" (1822).

   

Joiri Minaya and Miryam Charles: Lines of Flight
Urban Video Project

Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

Light Work's Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition Lines of Flight featuring short films by multimedia artist Joiri Minaya and filmmaker Miryam Charles exploring the tangled trajectories of displacement, immigration, invasion, exploration and escape.

The exhibition will run as an architectural projection on the Everson Museum facade. Screening begins at dusk.

Labadee, by Joiri Minaya, is a short video documenting parts of a Royal Caribbean cruise trip in Labadee, Haiti, and the dynamics that unfold in this privately-managed space, which is fenced off and leased to Royal Caribbean cruises until 2050. The subtitles in the video begin with text from the diary of Christopher Columbus when they first saw land, moving into a contemporary recount of the trip we're seeing. It meditates on the exploitation, self-exploitation, performance, and access control created by the system of tourism in the Caribbean, and, in linking it to Columbus' Invasion through the first sentences in the subtitles, it traces the lineage of these contemporary spaces to colonization. (2017, 7:06 minutes)

In Fly, Fly Sadness, by Miryam Charles, a nuclear explosion mysteriously transforms the voices of all the inhabitants of an island. A journalist travels to the island to learn more and finds herself transformed. (2015, 5:23 minutes)

   

Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
NYS Baroque

Price: $30 regular, $10 student/low income
St. Paul's Syracuse
220 E. Fayette St., Syracuse

The iconic masterpiece, performed here for the first time in 10 years! Paul O'Dette conducts 25 brilliant Pegasus musicians, including singers, trombones, cornettos, strings, and theorbos.

There will be a pre-concert talk at 6:45 pm.

Tickets

   

Lucy Kaplansky
Folkus Project

Price: $25 regular, $22 Folkus members
May Memorial Unitarian Society
3800 E. Genesee St., Syracuse

Lucy Kaplansky started out singing in Chicago folk music clubs as a teenager. With a beautiful flair for harmony, Lucy was everyone's favorite singing partner, but most often she found herself singing as a duo with Shawn Colvin. Kaplansky draws from personal experiences for her lyrical subject matter. Universal themes of loss, longing and loneliness, as well as love, joy, friendship and hope, are all propelled musically by roots-based instruments including acoustic guitars, mandolin, piano, and percussion. She has released nine solo albums and several collaborations with others, including Dar Williams, Richard Shindell, John Gorka, and Eliza Gilkyson.

Tickets

   

Beyond Therapy
Central New York Playhouse
Jim Sharples, director

Atonement Lutheran Church
116 W. Glen Ave., Syracuse

Christopher Durang's delightful off-Broadway hit concerns two modern, neurotic urbanites searching for love and sanity – with the questionable help of their offbeat therapists.

Bruce and Prudence are deeply into therapy. Prudence's macho therapist is urging her to be more assertive, while Bruce's wacky female therapist wants him to meet women by placing a personal ad. She does not fully comprehend that Bruce has a male lover who is not pleased by Bruce's desire to date a woman. Bruce doesn't know how to handle poor, nervous Prudence, and Prudence doesn't know what to make of her unpredictable new boyfriend.

Tickets

   

The Flick
Redhouse
Katherine McGerr, director

Price: $40
Redhouse at City Center
400 S. Salina St., Syracuse

In a run-down movie theater in central Massachusetts, three young minimum-wage workers mop the floors and attend to one of the last 35mm film projectors in the state. A hilarious and heart-rending cry for authenticity in a fast-changing world. 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Drama, by Annie Baker.

Tickets

   

Ken Ludwig's Shakespeare in Hollywood
Syracuse Shakespeare-in-the-Park
Dan Stevens, director

Thornden Park Amphitheater
Ostrom Ave., Syracuse

It's 1934, and Shakespeare's most famous fairies, Oberon and Puck, have magically materialized on the Warner Bros. Hollywood set of Max Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Instantly smitten by the glitz and glamour of show biz, the two are ushered onto the silver screen to play (who else?) themselves. With a little help from a feisty flower, blonde bombshells, movie moguls, and arrogant "asses" are tossed into loopy love triangles, with raucous results. The mischievous magic of moviedom sparkles in this hilarious comic romp.

Tickets

   

American Hero
LeMoyne College
Alisha Espinosa, director

Price: $20 regular, $15 seniors, $10 LeMoyne faculty and staff, $5 students
Coyne Center for the Performing Arts
LeMoyne College, Syracuse

At a toasted subs franchise in the local mall, three up-and-coming "sandwich artists" — a teenager, a single mom and a downsized refugee from corporate banking — are perfecting the mustard-to-cheese ratio according to the company manual. But when their shot at the American dream is interrupted by a series of strange events, they become unlikely allies in a post-recession world. American Hero is a supersized dark comedy about life, liberty, and the pursuit of sandwiches. By Bess Wohl.

Tickets

   

What the Moon Saw, or I Only Appear to Be Dead
Syracuse University Drama Department
Danyon Davis, director

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

A fantastical collage of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales told through a post-9/11 lens, by Stephanie Fleishman. Traveling to Shanghai to celebrate his 200th birthday, Andersen encounters mermaids, a street urchin, a supermodel, teenagers in love, a cabdriver, firemen, and husks of humans who appear as ghouls in this "kaleidoscopic meditation on how we move through calamity" inspired by Andersen's fragile, timeless tales.

Tickets