Homecoming ended more than a week ago, but now 50 years of Syracuse University’s art history is coming back to campus.

Starting Tuesday, the work of 21 alumni from the College of Visual and Performing Arts will be exhibited at the 914Works gallery on East Genesee Street as part of the “Painting Alumni Retrospective.”

Paul Weiner, a senior painting major, decided he wanted to organize an art show last May when seniors in VPA were putting on shows before they graduated. He decided to feature work from alumni because he thought it would be nice to have people to come back to campus and be able to trace paintings from different generations of SU alumni.

“I think it is an exhibition that has the potential for people to come and understand the historical roots of painting today, and that’s the goal,” Weiner said.

Once he had his idea, Weiner took the next steps toward planning the exhibit. He brought his idea to Kevin Larmon, the painting coordinator at VPA, and Scott Rose, the director of 914Works.

Both Rose and Larmon were impressed and let Weiner run with his idea to make the show his.

“Paul Weiner, this is his show, I want to give him complete credit,” Rose said. “He came to us, he presented the idea, he had information and I said ‘Go for it.’”

Larmon said that it’s unusual for an undergraduate student to display as much immersion in the world of art as Weiner has. He told Weiner that he would help every step of the way, but that the exhibit would be “Weiner’s baby.”

The exhibit will be able to connect SU students with professionals in the art community by bringing alumni back to campus. As an assistant professor and program coordinator in the painting department, Larmon said he tries to teach his students the importance of building a community of artists.

Larmon added he is excited to “co-fertilize” generations of SU artists as alumni come back to campus for the exhibit.

“It’s exciting because it’s another way of developing the community to kind of get students that I’ve had great relationships with to connect with other students,” Larmon said.

The exhibit features one small work from each alumnus, whose graduation years span from 1959 to 2014. Larmon and Weiner originally had 40 artists in mind with three pieces from each artist. As they planned the exhibit, they realized they needed to cut the number of artists down and select only one small piece from each artist, Weiner said.

Because the show is mainly comprised of small artworks, Larmon said that it will serve as a “sampler” of the works of a strong community of artists coming from SU.

But 21 artists still provide for a diverse showing of different styles and periods of art, Rose said. He added that because there are so many artists who each have their own styles of painting, people who visit the exhibit will get a little bit of everything.

“It’s very different because there are different artists, and the show spans I think 55 years,” Rose said. “So every artist has a different aesthetic. We have works that are spot on realism, we have pastels, we have oil paintings, we have abstract.”

For Weiner, the aesthetic appeal of each piece was important, but he said the common connection of each artist to Syracuse would allow viewers to understand the history of art at SU and how art has evolved.

“I hope people come to the show, and first off, they’ll enjoy the artworks just from an aesthetic point of view,” Weiner said. “Then hopefully they will sort of build connection of how art has evolved in the past 50 years and how it’s changed in this specific location, and get an idea for how people who have gone here have had success outside of Syracuse.”

Published on October 21, 2014 at 12:01 am

Contact Brendan: bskrisel@syr.edu