Past Exhibitions

CNY Arts’ 45th 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 exhibition, the first museum retrospective of American artist Jeff Donaldson (1932-2004), explores four decades of the artist’s career, spanning from his activist roots in Chicago as a founding member of the AfriCOBRA movement to his influence on future generations of artists as a professor at Howard University. Donaldson’s work is an amalgamation of energetic colors, intricate patterns, and African iconography that celebrates the history of African art and the roots of black culture.

Peter Held, Guest Curator

From Funk to Punk: Left Coast Ceramics surveys the rich continuing history of California, Oregon, and Washington artists working in a wide variety of aesthetics, scale, and conceptual styles. The exhibition provides a survey of iconic works from the Museum’s collection beginning in the 1950s, to work created in today’s dynamic cultural and artistic landscape, capturing the spirit and innovations synonymous with West Coast art over the last six decades.

Ripple Effect is a critical exploration of the changing relationship between humans and nature sparked by industrialization.

Featuring ceramics acquired in the last few years, this exhibition provides insight into the Everson’s current collecting practices and illustrates the Museum’s continued dedication to expanding the breadth and depth of our ceramics holdings.

Love, Peace and Soul focuses on the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, serving as a catalyst for African American artists and musicians to express their voices in the mass media, as well as in their communities. Notable artists of this time include Faith Ringgold, Earnie Barnes, Jeff Donaldson, Emory Douglas, LeRoi Jones and many others.

TR Ericsson uses the story of his mother to present a searing, soft, and complex portrait of post-industrial life in America. "I Was Born To Bring You Into This World" begins as an intimate encounter with an artist’s family archive and becomes a potent opportunity to reflect and scrutinize the trials and tribulations of our own lives.

Based in Los Angeles, Suné Woods works in multi-channel video installations, photography, and collage. Presenting intimate vignettes of couples or solitary actions of individuals in two video installations, When a heart scatter, scatter, scatter is a vulnerable exploration of desire, forgiveness, and resilience.

The Everson’s expansive exhibition spaces, designed by I.M. Pei, allow the Museum to acquire and display monumentally sized artwork. With this opportunity comes the unique challenges of caring for and exhibiting oversized work.

That Day Now centers around a special visit to Syracuse by Keiko Ogura, a survivor of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima in 1945 and the official a-bomb storyteller for the city. The exhibition examines today’s relevance of the atomic attack on Hiroshima and combines material dating from 1945 drawn from the Everson, Syracuse University Art Galleries, and Syracuse University Special Collections.