Embracing the Unpredictable: A Night of Events with Light Work

Join us for a night of events on July 26th! From 5-7 PM, we will have opening receptions at Light Work (316 Waverly Avenue) for our Summer Exhibitions, According to the Laws of Chance and the 2024 Light Work Grants in Photography Exhibition. At 8:30 PM, Light Work’s Urban Video Project will have a live video performance from our regional commissioned artist, Paulina Velázquez Solís, on the Everson Plaza (401 Harrison Street).

 

According to the Laws of Chance

According to the Laws of Chance is a subtitle included in many works by the Dadaist painter Jean Arp that describes his systematic yet chance-driven method of creating his simple and playful paintings. Arp would let torn pieces of paper fall to the floor to determine his painting or collage compositions. Although the outcomes are different, Arp’s ethos can be found in the work of the photographers selected for this group exhibition.

The artists in this exhibition—Cheryl Miller, Claire A. Warden, Jaclyn Wright, Josh Thorson, Kyle Tata, Louis Chavez, and Will Stith, and Light Work’s collection artists, Cecil McDonald, Jr., James Welling, Peter Finnemore, and Rita Hammond—are using and defining chance as a core element of their largely divergent practices.

Chance is a core tenet in photography. Anyone who has ever taken a photograph knows that the translation of light through the camera and onto film or a digital sensor is never one-to-one. Much effort is expended in tamping down the unwanted and unexpected elements of image-making. The image-makers in this exhibition embrace the unpredictable and find ways to amplify chance to suit their own conceptual and creative needs, from using darkroom materials that reveal process rather than mitigate it, to employing the camera to pin down quick moments of emotion in daily life, to exploring images that heighten the tactile aspects of a traditionally flat medium. The diverse work produced by this group of artists demonstrates that chance is being put to use as an essential creative tool in photographic practices today.

Kathleen O. Ellis Gallery, Light Work
Reception: Friday, July 26, 5-7pm

 

 

2024 Light Work Grants in Photography Exhibition 

Light Work announces the 49th annual Light Work Grants in Photography! The 2024 award recipients are Malik Abdoulmoumine, Rosely Htoo, and Kari Varner.  The Light Work Grants in Photography are part of Light Work’s ongoing effort to provide support and encouragement to Central New York artists working in photography within a fifty-mile radius of Syracuse.

Jeffrey J. Hoone Gallery, Light Work
Reception: Friday, July 26, 5-7pm

 

 

Unseen/forgotten: An ode to the humble landscape | Invisible/olvidado: Oda al paisaje humilde

Paulina Velázquez Solís will be present for a live performance on the Everson Plaza on July 26th at 8:30 PM.

This project, which will include interactive and performance-based elements, will explore Central New York as a site of “post-industrial natural wonder”, using regionally extinct species in local herbaria as tools to meditate on  “[t]he tension between what prevails and what has shifted or disappeared” in a field of “memory, transformation, and territory”.

Learn more