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Gary Sczerbaniewicz's Installation at Big Orbit Gallery

Gary Sczerbaniewicz’s artwork installation at Big Orbit is a précis version of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Though it’s not clear just how much this parallel is intentional by the artist. The work is more immediately and explicitly referred to a story by Franz Kafka, “The Burrow,” a discourse by a mole—the little furry kind—on the subterranean abode he has constructed for himself, and the memorable Steve McQueen movie about a prisoner of war camp tunnel project, The Great Escape.

Designing to Live Sustainably at CEPA Gallery

I buy my razor blades at the Lexington Co-op. They come in a series of little plastic cartridges in a neat little green biodegradable cardboard package. The package design, enlarged to human scale, would make a decent pre-fab temporary (though those structures rarely are) living shelter, I thought. So I worked it up a little…it was just after Katrina so there were lots of ideas floating around about how to house people after devastating events. I put my design in a cigar box and biked over to show it to George Besch, he of the then fledgling D2LS, or Designing to Live Sustainably, group. He was encouraging. I came to a meeting of his core assembly and decided I was better promoting his ideas in print.

Asian Lacquer Symposium 2013

Starting Monday, May 20, Buffalo State College will host an extraordinary weeklong conference and art exhibition: The Asian Lacquer Symposium 2013 is a four-day event that will academics and arists from numerous disciplines to compare notes on lacquer work.

Liz Rywelski's Exhibition at UB Anderson Gallery

Buffalo’s arts community is extremely multifaceted and the artists that make up that community—broadly referred to as “Western New York artists”—create artwork in our region for time periods that range from the length of time it takes for them to complete their art degree to a lifetime. The “categories” of these Western New York artists include, but are not limited to: lifelong residents of the region, transplants who become longtime art educators here, and others who are here for a period of at least two years to earn their Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree at the University at Buffalo. It’s that third category that can be the most challenging group to get a handle on. The best way to do that, and it is well worth the effort, is to see the UB MFA candidates’ thesis exhibitions when they are presented around this time of the year at various exhibition venues in the region. The downside:Some of those exhibitions are short term, and if they are performance-based, ideally you would need to be at the opening to fully experience the work. The upside: A number of galleries and museums (principally Big Orbit Gallery, Carnegie Art Center, Castellani Art Museum, CEPA Gallery, and UB Anderson Gallery) have wisely committed to include at least one thesis exhibition in their annual programming. So, for the artists selected for those locations, access to their work is easier and it is generally up for a longer duration.



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