Thursday, May 7, 2026

We're Just Here for the Bad Guys: Brian Van Lau
Light Work Gallery

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

We're Just Here for the Bad Guys chronicles Brian Van Lau's relationship with his estranged father. Lau's father was absent during his childhood due to his incarceration. After his release, he rebuilt his life in Vietnam, remarried, and gradually disappeared from Lau's life. Nearly a decade later, Lau traveled to Vietnam following his father's sudden illness, and learned of his terminal cancer. During their final week together, they collaborated on a photographic project that documented his father's unsuccessful path toward recovery. After his father's passing, Lau returned to his hometown in Hawai'i seeking closure, uncovering hidden correspondence that revealed previously unknown parts of his father's life. Entrusted with dispersing his father's ashes across O'ahu, the artist began working with his grandparents to reconstruct this fragmented family history through photography.

   

Arcanite Pictures: Oracle in the Aperture
Light Work Gallery

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

Arcanite Pictures was started to highlight emerging artists, emphasizing the personal narrative angle and diaristic storytelling in photography. Through online features and group shows, a library of small personal projects began to build, and, excitingly, as more people were invited to share their work, a lineage and an echoing formed, discoveries were made, and the distance between people diminished as a web of connections was established. The pictures shared constituted a language, and a portal to the various practices now joined across different cities, subcultures, and decades-old archives. For Oracle in the Aperture, artists were selected to join with peers, personal influences, and emerging lens-based artists to amplify and enhance each other's stories, emphasizing interpersonal and private relationships and the talismanic ability of photography to illuminate familial and gestural scenes.

   

Possible Worlds: 20 Years of the Wynn Newhouse Awards
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

This landmark exhibition marks the 20th anniversary of the Wynn Newhouse Award, a pioneering initiative that has recognized and elevated artists of excellence who happen to live with disabilities. Established in 2006 by Wynn Newhouse, the award has championed bold, boundary-defying voices in contemporary art — highlighting practices that are as varied in form as they are unified in vision: a vision of art as a space where representation, identity, and access are not peripheral concerns, but central to the discourse.

At the heart of the exhibition is a curatorial inquiry: How do artists with disabilities navigate the art world, and the world at large, on their terms? And how does that navigation inform their work, influence its reception, and expand the field of cultural production? The goal is not to position disability as a central or singular theme, but to acknowledge it as one of many intersecting conditions that inform artistic practice. In doing so, this exhibition prompts us to reconsider who gets seen, whose experiences shape the canon, and how institutions can create more equitable conditions for artistic participation and recognition.

Exhibiting artists include Beverly Baker, Derrick Alexis Coard, Courttney Cooper, Joseph Grigley, Em Kettner, Reverend Joyce McDonald, William Scott, Kambel Smith, Katz Tepper, Melvin Way, and Peter Williams.

   

Undressed: The Nude in Dutch Art, circa 1550-1800
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

This exhibition, encompassing 21 works in various media, surveys the portrayal of nudity and semi-nudity in a variety of subjects rendered by Dutch artists over several centuries. It will explore how the nude has been articulated, both artistically and contextually, to disrupt traditional ideas of nudity in art, which were primarily argued by Sir Kenneth Clark in The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956).

In this influential text, Clark posited that the presence of the nude in art, existed above and beyond cultural circumstances, as a timeless, almost abstract ideal. He advanced a distinction between "naked" and "nude," with the latter explained as an idealization, or an evocation of timeless ideals. To the contrary, this exhibition presents nudity in art as a phenomenon that is time-bound and culturally determined.

   

Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Iconoclasts" marks the American museum debut for French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. Over the past decade, Craste has committed a wide range of indignities and abuse against his ornate vases and urns, including pummeling them with baseball bats and crowbars and piercing them with arrows. Despite the violence that runs through his work, Craste has a great passion for historical porcelain. Working with porcelain allows Craste to explore the prestige and power of upper-class society, but also inequality and the strain that is placed on working people. The anthropomorphic nature of Craste's vases echoes the human body, making it no surprise that people feel strong emotions when seeing a helpless vase struck by a baseball bat. Triggering these strong emotions in his audience allows Craste to connect on a deeper level as he asks questions about class, money, and power.

   

Alisha B Wormsley: The Temple of Our Survival
Urban Video Project

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Temple of Our Survival is new video work commissioned by Light Work for projection at UVP exploring what survival means and looks like through a series of interviews conducted by the artist with local care workers, land stewards, and cultural workers in her nomadic film set and project space.

Screening begins at dusk.

   

Friday, May 8, 2026

Undressed: The Nude in Dutch Art, circa 1550-1800
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

This exhibition, encompassing 21 works in various media, surveys the portrayal of nudity and semi-nudity in a variety of subjects rendered by Dutch artists over several centuries. It will explore how the nude has been articulated, both artistically and contextually, to disrupt traditional ideas of nudity in art, which were primarily argued by Sir Kenneth Clark in The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956).

In this influential text, Clark posited that the presence of the nude in art, existed above and beyond cultural circumstances, as a timeless, almost abstract ideal. He advanced a distinction between "naked" and "nude," with the latter explained as an idealization, or an evocation of timeless ideals. To the contrary, this exhibition presents nudity in art as a phenomenon that is time-bound and culturally determined.

   

Possible Worlds: 20 Years of the Wynn Newhouse Awards
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

This landmark exhibition marks the 20th anniversary of the Wynn Newhouse Award, a pioneering initiative that has recognized and elevated artists of excellence who happen to live with disabilities. Established in 2006 by Wynn Newhouse, the award has championed bold, boundary-defying voices in contemporary art — highlighting practices that are as varied in form as they are unified in vision: a vision of art as a space where representation, identity, and access are not peripheral concerns, but central to the discourse.

At the heart of the exhibition is a curatorial inquiry: How do artists with disabilities navigate the art world, and the world at large, on their terms? And how does that navigation inform their work, influence its reception, and expand the field of cultural production? The goal is not to position disability as a central or singular theme, but to acknowledge it as one of many intersecting conditions that inform artistic practice. In doing so, this exhibition prompts us to reconsider who gets seen, whose experiences shape the canon, and how institutions can create more equitable conditions for artistic participation and recognition.

Exhibiting artists include Beverly Baker, Derrick Alexis Coard, Courttney Cooper, Joseph Grigley, Em Kettner, Reverend Joyce McDonald, William Scott, Kambel Smith, Katz Tepper, Melvin Way, and Peter Williams.

   

Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Iconoclasts" marks the American museum debut for French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. Over the past decade, Craste has committed a wide range of indignities and abuse against his ornate vases and urns, including pummeling them with baseball bats and crowbars and piercing them with arrows. Despite the violence that runs through his work, Craste has a great passion for historical porcelain. Working with porcelain allows Craste to explore the prestige and power of upper-class society, but also inequality and the strain that is placed on working people. The anthropomorphic nature of Craste's vases echoes the human body, making it no surprise that people feel strong emotions when seeing a helpless vase struck by a baseball bat. Triggering these strong emotions in his audience allows Craste to connect on a deeper level as he asks questions about class, money, and power.

   

Alisha B Wormsley: The Temple of Our Survival
Urban Video Project

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Temple of Our Survival is new video work commissioned by Light Work for projection at UVP exploring what survival means and looks like through a series of interviews conducted by the artist with local care workers, land stewards, and cultural workers in her nomadic film set and project space.

Screening begins at dusk.

   

1776: Female Version
Baldwinsville Theatre Guild

First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville
64 Oswego St., Baldwinsville

Come along as we travel back to the sweltering and bustling city of Philadelphia, at a moment when a nation is on the brink of formation. A group of passionate and conflicted men must face the future of a new world. BTG brings this timeless musical to life with the voices of those who were left out of the discussion.

Directed and choreographed by Shannon Tompkins; music directed by Caryn Patterson; assistant music directed by Dan Williams.

Tickets

   

Saturday, May 9, 2026

Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Iconoclasts" marks the American museum debut for French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. Over the past decade, Craste has committed a wide range of indignities and abuse against his ornate vases and urns, including pummeling them with baseball bats and crowbars and piercing them with arrows. Despite the violence that runs through his work, Craste has a great passion for historical porcelain. Working with porcelain allows Craste to explore the prestige and power of upper-class society, but also inequality and the strain that is placed on working people. The anthropomorphic nature of Craste's vases echoes the human body, making it no surprise that people feel strong emotions when seeing a helpless vase struck by a baseball bat. Triggering these strong emotions in his audience allows Craste to connect on a deeper level as he asks questions about class, money, and power.

   

Possible Worlds: 20 Years of the Wynn Newhouse Awards
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

This landmark exhibition marks the 20th anniversary of the Wynn Newhouse Award, a pioneering initiative that has recognized and elevated artists of excellence who happen to live with disabilities. Established in 2006 by Wynn Newhouse, the award has championed bold, boundary-defying voices in contemporary art — highlighting practices that are as varied in form as they are unified in vision: a vision of art as a space where representation, identity, and access are not peripheral concerns, but central to the discourse.

At the heart of the exhibition is a curatorial inquiry: How do artists with disabilities navigate the art world, and the world at large, on their terms? And how does that navigation inform their work, influence its reception, and expand the field of cultural production? The goal is not to position disability as a central or singular theme, but to acknowledge it as one of many intersecting conditions that inform artistic practice. In doing so, this exhibition prompts us to reconsider who gets seen, whose experiences shape the canon, and how institutions can create more equitable conditions for artistic participation and recognition.

Exhibiting artists include Beverly Baker, Derrick Alexis Coard, Courttney Cooper, Joseph Grigley, Em Kettner, Reverend Joyce McDonald, William Scott, Kambel Smith, Katz Tepper, Melvin Way, and Peter Williams.

   

Undressed: The Nude in Dutch Art, circa 1550-1800
Syracuse University Art Museum

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

This exhibition, encompassing 21 works in various media, surveys the portrayal of nudity and semi-nudity in a variety of subjects rendered by Dutch artists over several centuries. It will explore how the nude has been articulated, both artistically and contextually, to disrupt traditional ideas of nudity in art, which were primarily argued by Sir Kenneth Clark in The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956).

In this influential text, Clark posited that the presence of the nude in art, existed above and beyond cultural circumstances, as a timeless, almost abstract ideal. He advanced a distinction between "naked" and "nude," with the latter explained as an idealization, or an evocation of timeless ideals. To the contrary, this exhibition presents nudity in art as a phenomenon that is time-bound and culturally determined.

   

Alisha B Wormsley: The Temple of Our Survival
Urban Video Project

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Temple of Our Survival is new video work commissioned by Light Work for projection at UVP exploring what survival means and looks like through a series of interviews conducted by the artist with local care workers, land stewards, and cultural workers in her nomadic film set and project space.

Screening begins at dusk.

   

Dave Novak
Steeple Coffee House

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

   

Masterworks Series: Grand Finale
Syracuse Orchestra (formerly Symphoria)
Gerard Schwarz, conductor
Featuring Julian Schwarz, cello

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

Diamond Music for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
Jennifer Higdon Concerto for Cello
Strauss Rosenkavalier Suite

   

1776: Female Version
Baldwinsville Theatre Guild

First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville
64 Oswego St., Baldwinsville

Come along as we travel back to the sweltering and bustling city of Philadelphia, at a moment when a nation is on the brink of formation. A group of passionate and conflicted men must face the future of a new world. BTG brings this timeless musical to life with the voices of those who were left out of the discussion.

Directed and choreographed by Shannon Tompkins; music directed by Caryn Patterson; assistant music directed by Dan Williams.

Tickets

   

Sunday, May 10, 2026

Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Iconoclasts" marks the American museum debut for French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. Over the past decade, Craste has committed a wide range of indignities and abuse against his ornate vases and urns, including pummeling them with baseball bats and crowbars and piercing them with arrows. Despite the violence that runs through his work, Craste has a great passion for historical porcelain. Working with porcelain allows Craste to explore the prestige and power of upper-class society, but also inequality and the strain that is placed on working people. The anthropomorphic nature of Craste's vases echoes the human body, making it no surprise that people feel strong emotions when seeing a helpless vase struck by a baseball bat. Triggering these strong emotions in his audience allows Craste to connect on a deeper level as he asks questions about class, money, and power.

   

1776: Female Version
Baldwinsville Theatre Guild

First Presbyterian Church of Baldwinsville
64 Oswego St., Baldwinsville

Come along as we travel back to the sweltering and bustling city of Philadelphia, at a moment when a nation is on the brink of formation. A group of passionate and conflicted men must face the future of a new world. BTG brings this timeless musical to life with the voices of those who were left out of the discussion.

Directed and choreographed by Shannon Tompkins; music directed by Caryn Patterson; assistant music directed by Dan Williams.

Tickets

   

Tuesday, May 12, 2026

TJ Klune
Friends of the Central Library Author Series

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

TJ Klune is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author. Klune has written 37 books of fantasy and romantic fiction featuring gay and LGBTQ+ characters. Popular titles include The House in the Cerulean Sea, Somewhere Beyond the Sea, Under the Whispering Door, the Green Creek Series, and his latest work The Bones Beneath my Skin.

Tickets

   

Wednesday, May 13, 2026

Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Iconoclasts" marks the American museum debut for French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. Over the past decade, Craste has committed a wide range of indignities and abuse against his ornate vases and urns, including pummeling them with baseball bats and crowbars and piercing them with arrows. Despite the violence that runs through his work, Craste has a great passion for historical porcelain. Working with porcelain allows Craste to explore the prestige and power of upper-class society, but also inequality and the strain that is placed on working people. The anthropomorphic nature of Craste's vases echoes the human body, making it no surprise that people feel strong emotions when seeing a helpless vase struck by a baseball bat. Triggering these strong emotions in his audience allows Craste to connect on a deeper level as he asks questions about class, money, and power.

   

Preview: Disney's Frozen: The Broadway Musical
Syracuse Stage

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

Sisterhood, stirring songs, and spectacular adventure.

In the Kingdom of Arendelle, Anna and Elsa enjoy a sheltered royal life, as they prepare to one day inherit a throne that is rightfully theirs. But when Elsa's budding powers almost lead to tragedy, she's forced to bury her icy talents — until they erupt, unleashing an eternal winter that threatens to destroy everything she loves. Determined to save her home and her sister, Anna ventures into the treacherous storm, where she must reunite with Elsa if she ever hopes to thaw the cold hearts intent on keeping them apart. A story of sisterhood and embracing your true self, Disney's majestic musical riff on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" is a thrilling theatrical event with stirring songs, spectacular adventure, and one magical snowman.

Music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez, book by Jennifer Lee.

   

Thursday, May 14, 2026

Laurent Craste: Iconoclasts
Everson Museum of Art

Everson Museum of Art
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

"Iconoclasts" marks the American museum debut for French-born Canadian ceramist Laurent Craste. Over the past decade, Craste has committed a wide range of indignities and abuse against his ornate vases and urns, including pummeling them with baseball bats and crowbars and piercing them with arrows. Despite the violence that runs through his work, Craste has a great passion for historical porcelain. Working with porcelain allows Craste to explore the prestige and power of upper-class society, but also inequality and the strain that is placed on working people. The anthropomorphic nature of Craste's vases echoes the human body, making it no surprise that people feel strong emotions when seeing a helpless vase struck by a baseball bat. Triggering these strong emotions in his audience allows Craste to connect on a deeper level as he asks questions about class, money, and power.

   

Alisha B Wormsley: The Temple of Our Survival
Urban Video Project

Price: Free
Everson Museum of Art Plaza
401 Harrison St., Syracuse

The Temple of Our Survival is new video work commissioned by Light Work for projection at UVP exploring what survival means and looks like through a series of interviews conducted by the artist with local care workers, land stewards, and cultural workers in her nomadic film set and project space.

Screening begins at dusk.

   

Preview: Disney's Frozen: The Broadway Musical
Syracuse Stage

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

Sisterhood, stirring songs, and spectacular adventure.

In the Kingdom of Arendelle, Anna and Elsa enjoy a sheltered royal life, as they prepare to one day inherit a throne that is rightfully theirs. But when Elsa's budding powers almost lead to tragedy, she's forced to bury her icy talents — until they erupt, unleashing an eternal winter that threatens to destroy everything she loves. Determined to save her home and her sister, Anna ventures into the treacherous storm, where she must reunite with Elsa if she ever hopes to thaw the cold hearts intent on keeping them apart. A story of sisterhood and embracing your true self, Disney's majestic musical riff on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen" is a thrilling theatrical event with stirring songs, spectacular adventure, and one magical snowman.

Music and lyrics by Kristen Anderson Lopez and Robert Lopez, book by Jennifer Lee.