Past Exhibitions

Coordinated by ARISE, a non-profit agency based in Syracuse, UNIQUE celebrates the artistic talents of Central New Yorkers living with disabilities. The works included in this exhibition eloquently speak to the myriad thoughts, ideas, and feelings that all humans share, regardless of individual ability or circumstance. The annual competition invites submissions of art and literature which are then selected for display by a panel of judges, and the works are exhibited in several venues throughout CNY.

CNY Arts’ 46th annual On My Own Time exhibition connects Central New York businesses in a collaboration that promotes the benefits of the creative process across community sectors. Original works created by amateur artists working in a variety of professions were displayed at their work sites. This professional juried selection recognizes the outstanding works by employees of Central New York companies and organizations.

Driven by a group of women finished with the silence surrounding sexual harassment and violence, the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements unified survivors and empowered women to speak up and speak out. This exhibition features a diverse group of local artists who create work in support of these campaigns.

Named after Yoko Ono’s 1963 Earth Piece, a score that invites the reader to “Listen to the sound of the earth turning,” this exhibition examines artists who have combined clay and ceramics with performance art, photography, conceptual art, and even land art. Far from being used as “just another material,” clay comes freighted with millennia of associations with material culture. Earth Piece highlights the work of well-known figures from the art world, as well as lesser-known artists whose work shaped the field of ceramics into a vibrant discipline that is equally at home in both domestic and contemporary spheres.

Late Night Space Force features new work by Adam Milner that draws upon emerging NASA technology, the aesthetics of science and history museums, and the Moon’s presence in our daily lives through popular culture as a way to examine the Moon as a central figure in modern life. From late night talk shows to government and corporate space agencies, the Moon’s presence in our cultural landscape is the underpinning for Milner’s investigation into how our romantic attachment to the Moon so quickly slips into physical conquest.

In the 1980s, Juan Cruz began investigating his past as a method to understand where the tribal and the modern world collide. Born in Puerto Rico, Cruz briefly attended the Art Students League in 1975 and in 1995 he graduated from Syracuse University’s School of Visual and Performing Arts. This career-spanning exhibition focuses on Cruz’s work as a painter, sculptor, muralist, and community activist.

The youngest of eight children, Eddie Dominguez grew up in Tucumcari, New Mexico, between Albuquerque and Amarillo on historic Route 66. He came to national prominence in the mid–1980s for highly stylized dinnerware sets that also stack into sculptural forms. In his work, Dominguez frequently references his home state’s vegetation, landforms, weather, and Hispano–Catholic culture. The dual nature of Dominguez’s objects, which inhabit the gray area between utility and art for art’s sake, reflects his personal experience as a New Mexican who studied ceramics in the Anglo– dominated East: whether we see “art” or “craft,” local Hispano or melting pot American depends completely on the immediate context.

This exhibition is curated by the Everson Teen Arts Council, a group of high school students from Onondaga County, using the Museum’s collection as inspiration for this exhibition. Teen Council members collaborated to choose a theme, select works from the Museum’s collection, write wall text, and design the layout. This exploration provided Council members with insight into how museum exhibitions come to life.

Time Returns: A Continuous Now presents a cross section of photographs that span the early twentieth century through 2019. In our current moment of peaked social activism and political engagement, the exhibition suggests new connections among seemingly disparate topics such as the horrors of war, the impact of the Anthropocene, shifting identities, and the necessity of intimacy. Time Returns: A Continuous Now features work rife with immediacy by artists living through tumultuous times that reevaluate societal divisions and reinforce the relevance and power of photography today. Co-curated by artist Judy Natal and the Everson’s Curator of Art & Programs DJ Hellerman, the exhibition is assembled from the collections of the Everson Museum and Light Work.

Dating back to the Ceramic National exhibitions, which began in 1932, the Everson has a rich history of supporting artists who explore the figure. Artists like Viktor Schreckengost, Edris Eckhardt, and Waylande Gregory routinely received awards and critical acclaim for their work. Key Figures examines the larger-than-life artists who shaped an art movement, and features select works from a new generation of artists who are building on this legacy by using the figure to explore identity, narrative, and allegory.