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Syracuse, believe it or not, is a great place to be young; you just have to be out there, on the streets. You won’t catch a commercial for some awesome play at Syracuse Stage in between reruns of The Office. Handbills and flyers still exist, and yes, The Westcott Theater continues to advertise concerts on its marquee.
Welcome to a new, semiregular feature of The New Times in which a recent master’s degree graduate of Syracuse University’s Newhouse School hits the streets to find events that may appeal to his generation. Not that all adults can’t enjoy the nightlife, but these are selected by a 20-something, for 20-somethings.
Admission details, including ticket prices, can be found in Times Table.
Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints
SU Art Galleries, Shaffer Art Building,
Syracuse University Quad
Through Jan. 6, 2013
Printmaking is one of the most democratic forms of visual art—an unobstructed connection between artist and viewer, no brooding security personnel required. SU Galleries is celebrating this tradition with Pulled, Pressed and Screened: Important American Prints. The exhibit encompasses 50 years of printmaking, starting with the 1930s, with original prints from well known artists like Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein.
The exhibit flows chronologically. John Stuart Curry’s “John Brown” (1939), a black-and-white lithograph featuring the famous abolitionist, is an early highlight. Modernist and pop-art forefather Stuart Davis is represented with “Anchor” (1936), a jazz-age, gray-toned abstraction.
Mauricio Lasansky, a master manipulator of the printing plate, holds down the 1950s section of the exhibit. “The Vision” (1956) has a tonality and texture you wouldn’t expect from an early print—the piece looks as though it’s been carefully shaded.
Andy Warhol’s “Birmingham Race Riot” (1964), a black-and-white screenprint, is a major draw near the exhibit’s end. The piece depicts a black protester as he’s attacked by police dogs during a 1963 riot in Birmingham, Ala. The print was produced using a flipped photo negative, lending it an intense, almost frightening contrast.
John Rauschenberg’s iconic print “Signs” (1970) buttresses the exhibit’s final group of works. It’s a postmodern collage of important American moments—Vietnam, Apollo 11, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and John Kennedy—printed in a vibrant yet gritty photographic jumble. Photorealist Robert Cottingham has a nice piece near the end, as well. “Orph” (1972) was his first lithograph, a colorful snippet of the marquee at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles.
Cutting Up Capitalism
Norton Putter Gallery, ArtRage,
505 Hawley Ave.
Through Dec. 22
Seattle-based collagist Deborah Faye Lawrence has never been interested producing pretty pictures. A strident political artist, Lawrence, 59, creates some of the most visceral activist art around. For the next few weeks Syracuse gallery ArtRage is presenting this retrospective exhibition of her most striking pieces.
Lawrence constructs mixed-media collages that touch on myriad sociopolitical issues. Corporatism, obesity, war, women’s rights—she’s addressed them all in a polarizing, usually satirical fashion. “I feel like artists have a responsibility to society,” she said in an interview. “I’m just trying to serve.”
Lawrence’s propensity to serve has led her to create an alter-ego named Dee Dee Lorenzo, a picket-line rousing activist. “{Dee Dee} is a lot like me but she doesn’t give a damn what people think,” said Lawrence. “She’s wholly focused on being an agent of change.”
One of the prints on display, “Blind Execution,” explores gun control and its connection to perceptions of patriotism through a feminist lens. A female, eyes hidden by a starred and striped blindfold, smiles against a background of blue sky and white clouds. A bull’s-eye hangs from her chest and the pages of a shredded gun catalog frame her. “I’m not interested in anesthetizing people,” she said. “I set out with the intention of trying to understand the world, especially the evil {people}.”
In October 2008 Lawrence got national attention when she constructed a controversial Christmas ornament for the White House Christmas tree. The 9-inch ball swirled in red and white paper, displayed a brief biography of Rep. Jim McDermott (D–Wash.). The anecdote mentioned McDermott’s call to impeach then President George W. Bush. “I had an opportunity to express, in a big way, my political position and my discontent with the Bush administration,” she said. “I was very fortunate.” Lawrence’s ornament was removed from the tree when a Washington Post gossip columnist revealed the content of its textual decoration. Lawrence requested the “leak.”
From Foster Care to Fabulous,
by Patrick Burns
The Redhouse, 201 S. West St.
Thursday, Nov. 15, to
Saturday, Nov. 17
Actor and playwright Patrick Burns wrote a one-man musical about his teenage experience in the Oakland, Calif., foster care system, and he will perform the piece himself. From Foster Care to Fabulous grew out of Burns’ time studying acting at the University of California Irvine, where his classmates’ questions about home or activities during school breaks would lead to interesting responses.
“I would say things that were, to me, completely normal. Like, ‘Oh, I’m going to my foster mom’s house because my dad’s in jail right now,’” he said in an interview. “And they’re like, ‘What?’”
Burns performed the show—in workshop format—for the first time in 2009. He’s since performed the piece in a variety of places and formats. In June, Burns performed at the Planet Connections Theatre Festivity in New York City.
Although the Los Angeles-based actor doesn’t sweat the sensitive, personal nature of his show, he does worry about its impact on the audience, especially those who’ve experienced similar circumstances.
“It’s still hard sometimes,” noted Burns. “I did a show at the Bleecker Street Theater in June and there was a night where a lot of foster kids were coming: 18- and 19-year-old foster kids. And, that was nerve-wracking for me. What if these kids don’t relate to my story?”
Burns’ latest long-term gig was working as assistant conductor for the national tour of Spamalot, which means the musical aspects of From Foster Care to Fabulous are sure to be top-notch. He mixes pop and jazz standards with self-written tunes.
While Burns has been performing the show for almost three
years now, he said he never gets tried of the material. “It’s fun to see
how it grows,” he said. “You’re always going to have a completely
different exchange with each audience.”
