Up Close and Personal
Sunday, November 25, 2007
KATHERINE RUSHWORTH
I know I'm not alone in wondering what direction The Warehouse Gallery will take in a post-Astria Suparak era. Suparak, the gallery's recently terminated director, had built a solid reputation for mounting smart, edgy-to-the-point-of-controversial group exhibitions. She featured national and international contemporary artists who engaged a wide variety of media. Under her leadership, The Warehouse Gallery was providing the Syracuse visual arts community with a quality and range of shows that no other venue in the area was offering - a breath of fresh air.
So, when I heard The Yes Men - a widely acclaimed, sometimes maligned, band of cultural interventionists - had pulled out of their scheduled "show" at The Warehouse Gallery, I was wondering what would, or could, take their place. The answer is - drum roll, please - a photography show.
This was most likely a quick fill to solve the gap created by the cancellation of The Yes Men, so I think it's only fair to the gallery's interim curator, Jeffrey Hoone, that we wait to see what kinds of shows will be charting the future for this important visual arts venue. Hoone, at the eye of the storm surrounding Suparak's termination, deserves a chance to show us the direction he will take the gallery. He knows he's under a microscope and that community expectations are high.
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