Barry Anderson’s ‘Intermissions’ to debut at venues across Syracuse

“Intermissions,” an innovative art exhibition and related programs featuring the video and photographic art of Kansas City artist Barry Anderson, will be on display at Light Work Aug. 14-Oct. 21. A reception with a Syracuse Symposium lecture event will be held Tuesday, Sept. 29. The reception will run from 5-6 p.m., with the lecture from 6-8 p.m.

In a time of economic uncertainty and other societal stresses, this project provides viewers a welcome artistic interruption to daily life. Anderson’s work, and the entire project, is designed to bring art into the community, and focuses on reminding people of the importance of remembering to stop and enjoy the moment. This exhibition aims to reach the community as a whole, including people who may not normally visit a gallery–they may come across the project while walking by a video projected onto a building or driving past a billboard whose function is as a piece of art instead of an advertisement.

Light Work’s project places video art and photographs at multiple venues across Syracuse, making it accessible to the general community and creating many opportunities for meaningful interaction with the work.

Anderson’s colorful video pieces include abstract patterns, nature scenes and semi-nostalgic images from decades-old advertising. Each piece creates a good-natured, introspective scene that contrasts the busy settings where the work is shown. Anderson’s work addresses our cultural need to escape the onslaught of media input through isolated fantasy worlds. By slowing or re-interpreting space and time, he strives to identify the existence of introspective spaces within the everyday, proposing that we don’t need to retreat, but to re-envision and re-think what is already around us.

The level of collaboration that is provided through this exhibition and programming is an exciting step for the arts in Syracuse and will bring a common thread to all involved spaces during the exhibition period. Embracing the concept of art intervention, the exhibition will expand beyond Light Work’s main gallery to many venues in the city, thereby creating dozens of points for interaction, both indoors and outdoors. This represents a departure from Light Work’s usual photography exhibitions and allows the entire community to become engaged with the work.

The following partners will participate in this unique collaboration with the Light Work gallery spaces: the Everson Museum of Art, multiple venues at Syracuse University, SUArt Galleries, Syracuse Symposium, The Warehouse, the Urban Video Project, the Community Folk Art Center, the Orange Television Networkand the Red House Arts Center, among others. Exhibition sites also include public spaces such as billboards and multiple video projections onto buildings in downtown Syracuse.

Fold-out maps available at all participating venues, throughout the city and in animated form on the flat-panel screen at Light Work enable community members to find out what work will be shown where and when. Maps are also available for download from Light Work’s website at http://www.lightwork.org. Community members can also go to Light Work’s blog or Facebook page for the latest event updates, photos and other exhibition-related news. Planned events include workshops, tours and other exciting programs.

Anderson’s work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States, as well as in Cuba, South America, Thailand and the United Kingdom. Recent exhibition venues include the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art in Overland Park, Kan.; the Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago; the Salina Art Center in Salina, Kan.; Gallery 210 at the University of Missouri in St. Louis; Hotcakes Gallery in Milwaukee; and the Centre for Contemporary Photography in Toronto. He participated in Light Work’s Artist-in-Residence Program in 2006.

Anderson was born in Greenville, Texas. He holds an M.F.A. from Indiana University. Anderson’s installations, single-channel work and still photography can be seen on his website: http://barryanderson.com/portfolio_new.html.

The “Intermissions” project is supported by Syracuse Symposium, the SU Division of Student Affairs Co-Curricular Fee and the Central New York Community Foundation. Syracuse Symposium is a semester-long intellectual and artistic festival celebrating interdisciplinary thinking, imagining and creating, presented by SU’s College of Arts and Sciences to the entire Syracuse community. The Central New York Community Foundation connects the generosity of donors with community needs by making grants to organizations working to enhance the quality of life of those who live and work in Central New York.