If anything is going to make Rochester a “City of the Arts,” with acknowledgement from the wider world for our home-grown offerings, it’s going to be the efforts of the artists and arts organizations themselves, not just building a new theater. Those who are paying attention know these organizing efforts are already underway, and are […]
Rochester Contemporary
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Collaborative creativity, curated
The 2017-18 arts season will feature group shows and exhibits that span multiple venues.
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Faux-doc ‘Fritz’ examines what success means as an artist
Rochester-based filmmaker Ben Gonyo spent more than five years creating a convincing faux-documentary about a deaf, septuagenarian, undiscovered artist named Fritz. Gonyo placed himself in the story as the documentarian who urges Fritz out of the shadows. While the story follows one unique (fictional) life, the core themes — pursuit of recognition, rejection, bereavement, and […]
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Contested territory
Meleko Mokgosi challenges ideas of national identity and history in the exhibit ‘Pax Kaffraria’ at MAG and RoCo
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Something old, new, borrowed, hue
Our preview of the 2016-17 art exhibits include upcoming exhibits at Rochester Contemporary, Memorial Art Gallery, and Oxford Gallery.
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Four printmakers thrive ‘Under Pressure’
Last Friday’s opening of “Under Pressure” at Rochester Contemporary marks a new collaborative series between the art center and The Print Club of Rochester, taking place annually for at least three years. The four artists featured in this go were selected for the striking ways they each push the media specific to their work, says […]
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RoCo to present public art project
During the last Super Bowl, an appeal to consider domestic water usage appeared as a halftime commercial from Colgate, in which a man kept the faucet running while he brushed his teeth. All the while, different hands reached in and out of the sink, filling cups, rinsing vegetables, and bringing hands full of the priceless […]
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Paintings glimpse the divine in the mundane
As we move through life, we learn many of the same lessons everyone else has to learn, but the way those lessons reach us, and why they stick, varies widely from person to person. One of my personal favorite lessons is the power and freedom that comes through individual interpretation, which struck me during Kathy […]
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RoCo to host Rochester Biennial
Rochester Contemporary Art Center and the Memorial Art Gallery have announced on Tuesday that The Rochester Biennial, which has been organized by and hosted at MAG for six years, will be organized by RoCo starting in 2017. In the immediate future, Biennials will be based at RoCo, but they won’t necessarily always be held at […]
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Seasonal exhibitionism
A preview of the 2015-16 art season With the first tastes of autumn in the air comes the energy of a fresh arts season. Here are a dozen or so not-to-be-missed shows to distract you from the dead-weather doldrums. Some exhibition details may change, so check back with the galleries as time moves forward. Admission […]
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Spatial preoccupations
Rochester Contemporary worked with The Memorial Art Gallery and Robert Henry Contemporary to present “Brooklyn Bridge,” a show connecting Rochester audiences with the work of five New York-based emerging artists. “The works in the exhibition range from 9-foot-tall sculptures to fine, delicate drawings, yet are aesthetically connected and linked,” says Bleu Cease, RoCo executive director. […]
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Bordering bodies
Sometimes we learn something about ourselves through an outsider’s fresh-eyed perspective. This concept is being explored as part of a project by poet and performance artist Moheb Soliman, who is currently in the middle of a mission to trace the borderlands of the Great Lakes, documenting and digesting bits of interest along the way. Later […]
