This is the Everson
A Museum
of Firsts.

For many people, personal identity flows naturally from their families, the objects they grew up with, and the physical place they are rooted in. These small puzzle pieces connect to construct one’s personality and sense of self. For others, notions of self and identity are more fluid and mysterious—a sum total that is somehow different from its constituent parts. Artist Rich Harrington has spent his career grappling with his own identity and the ways it has been shaped by popular culture....

Coordinated by Indera, 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 exhibited at the Everson Museum....

The Everson has a long history of working with important contemporary artists. Over the last 58 years, the Everson has produced solo exhibitions for Yoko Ono, Morris Louis, Joan Mitchell, Bill Viola, William Wegman, Carrie Mae Weems, and a host of artists who loom large on the world stage. No exhibition in the Everson's history can compare to New Works in Clay by Contemporary Painters and Sculptors, a 1976 exhibition that involved bringing well-known painters and sculptors to Syracuse to produce a body of work in ceramics. The project was the brainchild of Margie Hughto, who served as both a professor at Syracuse University and as a curator at the Everson....

Consequences of being brings together large-format paintings, works on paper, and— for the first time in Deborah Roberts’ career—ceramic sculpture. The exhibition marks a significant expansion of the Austin, Texas–based artist’s practice and a deepening investigation into the histories and legacies of colonialism. Roberts, who received her MFA from Syracuse University, uses collage to approach identity as something fragmented and continually reconstructed, reclaiming found materials and images to examine how Black bodies are seen, positioned, and understood globally....

We remember Beatrice Wood, who signed her pithy correspondence as “Beato,” for her cutting wit, outrageous stories, lustrous ceramics, and complex relationship with artist Marcel Duchamp, a leader of the Dada movement. Determined to resist the life her wealthy parents envisioned for her, Wood became a defining figure of New York City’s Dada scene, embracing the art movement that reveled in absurdity, nonsense, and humor....

The American story is a tangle of aspiration and contradiction, triumph and struggle, liberty and oppression. From the nation’s founding, rebels, radicals, and revolutionaries have shaped the course of American history, not only through acts of courage and innovation, but through challenging convention and questioning authority. This exhibition presents artists whose works reflect that journey, celebrating moments of courage and progress while also confronting inequity and inaction....

With their lustrous surfaces and evocative shapes, the ceramic works of Brooklyn-based artist Julia Kunin aim for maximum sensory overload. Kunin forges disparate influences like Art Deco, Surrealism, and queer abstraction into shimmering ceramic sculptures. For Kunin, discovery and free association reign supreme. Kunin’s mental process echoes her physical process, ping-ponging from one concept to the next....