Past Exhibitions

The culmination of the Everson Museum of Art’s 50^th anniversary year, YOKO ONO: REMEMBERING THE FUTURE situates the groundbreaking conceptual artist’s landmark 1971 exhibition at the Everson (her first solo museum show) within her enduring artistic work devoted to healing human connections and exposing social and political injustices. The survey spans more than six decades, bringing together significant works in film, music, performance, and visual art that are presented both inside and outside the museum building. From germinal early works to recent, large-scale installations, REMEMBERING THE FUTURE traces Ono’s experimental approach to engaging audiences as a means of contributing to a more accepting and peaceful world.

In 1911, the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts (known today as the Everson) made history as the first museum in the country to declare that it would focus on collecting works made by American artists. This decision, implemented by Museum Director Fernando Carter, was the first of many made by directors that ultimately defined the Everson’s collection as it exists today. This exhibition examines over one hundred years of the Museum’s collecting priorities, from the Museum’s earliest acquisitions in 1911 to work acquired in 2019.

Featuring the work of six Syracuse University studio arts MFA candidates working across media and disciplines, Rubbish questions what waste materials can say about our collective history. This exhibition is presented through the Everson’s Community Exhibitions Program.

The Everson’s legendary ceramics collection contains everything from treasured antiquities to cutting edge sculptures and conceptual art. Mixed Doubles pairs artworks by contemporary artists with historical works from the cultures that inspired them.

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.