CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

Artist and theorist Suzanne Anker positions her work at the intersection of art and biology using a wide range of media, from genetically modified plants, digital sculpture, and installation to large-scale photography and projected video. 1.5° Celsius references the projected increase in temperature between 2030 and 2052 if global warming continues at its current pace and the world fails to take significant action to reverse the increase, according to a United Nations report published on October 7, 2018. This subtle yet substantial change in temperature will have seismic implications for climate change, species extinction, and toxic degradation. Anker’s investigations into these issues encourage critical and enlightened thinking about the ways humans have altered nature in the past and will be required to alter nature in the twenty-first century.

The work of pioneering video artist Frank Gillette focuses on humans’ experience of natural phenomena. Using multi-channel video installations with image feedback, time delay, and closed-circuit systems, Gillette is of a generation of artists who defined the way video technologies would be used as an art form. Gillette has become increasingly fascinated with the potential of digital media to subvert our obsession with speed, and creates work that embraces a Zen-inspired experience of slow time. Creating multi-channel installations that are always shifting, contain no beginning or end, and juxtapose traditional modes of art making (such as still life, landscape, and symbolic interaction,) Gillette continues to deepen a career-long investigation into the intersections of technology, ecology, and cognition.

Showcasing the depth of the Everson’s collection, Highlights from the Permanent Collection presents 150 years of American art, from early nineteenth century portraiture to the Pop Art of the 1960s. This exhibition features many visitor favorites, including work by Albert Bierstadt, Eastman Johnson, Lee Krasner, Grandma Moses, Jackson Pollock, and Gilbert Stuart.

In celebration of the Everson’s 50th anniversary, the museum commissioned Thomas Spoerndle to create a site-specific wall drawing. Spoerndle was selected because of his interest in scale, geometric abstraction, and the ways his work creates a dialogue with artworks in the Museum’s Collection as well as architect I.M. Pei’s museum design.

In celebration of the Everson’s 50th anniversary, the Museum commissioned Elliott Katz to create site-specific installations for the spaces that architect I.M. Pei designed as planters. Katz was selected for the commission because of how his work engages with the significance of materials and questions how we form relationships to those materials, as well as his interest in contrasting the Modernist belief in controlling nature against the Wabi sabi belief in the fundamental uncontrollability of nature. Using natural and synthetic materials, photography, scale, and illusion, Katz’s serious and playful installations transform familiar objects into curious mysteries that defy simple categorization and ignite our imagination.

Founded in 1875, the Social Art Club is a women’s club dedicated to the study of art in a group setting. The Club has an extensive history of supporting the Everson, including financial support for the acquisition of some of the Museum’s most iconic pieces, such as Adrian Saxe’s Untitled vessel from 1980, which graces the cover of the Museum’s American Ceramics catalog. Over the past decade, the Social Art Club’s gifts have strengthened the Everson’s connections to Central New York through donations of work by indigenous and regional artists.

The Everson’s commitment to video art began in 1971 with the launch of one of the first exhibition programs in the country to feature the work of video artists, and today the Everson’s historic video art collection contains over 400 tapes. Over the last several years, the Museum has worked to conserve and digitize a significant portion of the collection and this exhibition features a number of the newly digitized works.

Dating back to the Ceramic National exhibitions, which began in 1932, the Everson has a rich history of supporting artists who explore the figure. Artists like Viktor Schreckengost, Edris Eckhardt, and Waylande Gregory routinely received awards and critical acclaim for their work. Key Figures examines the larger-than-life artists who shaped an art movement, and features select works from a new generation of artists who are building on this legacy by using the figure to explore identity, narrative, and allegory.

Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art Awards are the nation’s longest-running and most prestigious educational initiative supporting student achievement in the arts. Every year, students across the country in grades 7-12 are invited to enter original works of art in regional competitions. This year, over 2,500 students representing over 100 Central New York schools submitted 5,673 works of art, which was then judged by professional artists, educators, and photographers. The judges award first place (Gold Key), second place (Silver Key), honorable mentions, and special award honorees. Gold Key winners move on to compete at the national level, while a small selection of the Silver Key winners are displayed at the Everson.