Annual Call for Submissions and Exhibition Proposals

Overview Rochester Contemporary Art Center welcomes general and video submissions for future exhibition seasons. ANNUAL POSTMARK DEADLINE: December 31, 2024 Versión en español disponible aquí GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES 1. Up to 20 images on a USB flash drive with a checklist. The checklist must include name, address, phone number, email

Continue reading

Call for Art: 2D Temporary Public Art Installation

Deadline: 5pm (EST) on March 15, 2024 Overview Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo) invites artists to propose three images for a temporary public art installation at our main facility. Through this call for art we aim to offer a simple submission process for incisive, surprising, and unique imagery that will

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Kristin Donovan and Brent Joseph

Q: How long have you been members? and Why did you join RoCo? A: We've officially been members since around 2020? But we've felt like a part of RoCo since we moved up here in 2017. Bleu and the rest of the team were so welcoming to us and made

Continue reading

Unconditional Care by Katrina Majkut

Unconditional Care explores today’s most pressing health issues and shares the stories and concerns of those most directly impacted by them. From chronic illnesses, pregnancy, cancer, and gun deaths to sexual assault, the artists share their powerful personal experiences. Through video, sculpture, painting, and photography, they reveal how complicated it

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Annessa Mingoea and Michael Filipek

Q: How long have you all been members and why did you join RoCo? A: Annessa & Michael - We joined RoCo about two years ago. It is always great to support a local institution devoted to the arts and we love the opportunities you give for artists like us! 

Continue reading

John Retallack (1951 – 2023)

We are all so sad to learn of the passing of artist John Retallack. John was a talented photographer and book artist. Of his work he wrote: " Each moment is precious and is an opportunity to produce significant images. Given all this... sometimes a meaningful photograph... is just a

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Steven Peet and Yixuan Lin

Q: How long have you all been members and Why did you join RoCo? A: Yixuan- I moved to Rochester in 2009 and we joined ROCO shortly after, maybe 2010?  While I am not an artist myself, I like the intimate gallery operation ROCO provides and want to be a part

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Peggi Fournier and Paul Dodd

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: Paul: The original Pyramid, on Monroe Avenue, was just a few doors down from where I was working as a graphic artist. We were excited about the alternative art space and its mission and became members early on. When Pyramid changed

Continue reading

About Numinous Pools by Rachel Poonsiriwong

Numinous Pools is a group exhibition surfacing ritualistic practices and alternative temporalities in film and video art from around the Great Lakes. In metaphorizing the Great Lakes’ formative processes, this single-channel exhibition is inspired by how time has animated the melting of this region’s ecologies and histories into fluid wholeness.

Continue reading

George Leopard (1944 – 2022)

George Leopard, beloved husband of 50 years to Sue Huggins Leopard and father to Beau Leopard, died on Monday, May 9th in home hospice at his East Avenue residence in Rochester, NY. He was 77 years old. George grew up in St. Mary’s City in Southern Maryland and spent happy

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Debora McDell-Hernandez

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: I value the arts and the opportunities that RoCo offers to emerging and established artists to engage the community. The arts enrich my life and I think that it's important to support the arts in both my home city and afar.   Q:

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Reaghan McCann

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: I always make it a point to have a membership at at least one museum everywhere I live. RoCo has been the most welcoming by far and is more on the ground level when it comes to engaging the community. It's

Continue reading

Home of the Spiritual Telegraph: Rochester at the Intersection of Science and Belief

Home of the Spiritual Telegraph: Rochester at the Intersection of Science and Belief by Gerry Szymanski The first half of our 19th century -especially after the war of 1812- was an era of good feelings and bad judgement, one of holiness, humbug, and hysteria. It was a time of sentimentality

Continue reading

Messages & Mediums Intro by Bleu Cease

Messages & Mediums brings together two artists who explore Spiritualism and technology through their artwork. Shannon Taggart and Matthew Ostrowski bring very different artistic backgrounds and practices to this exhibition. Taggart’s involvement with Spiritualism and its practitioners is personal and long-term. Ostrowski’s musical and multi-media projects take many forms, with

Continue reading

Studios

*Update 8/15/21 We don’t currently have any available studios* Artists and designers have exclusive access to the studio spaces through their own secure entrance. Each studio features a large window, wall space outside the studio for exhibiting artwork, and access to a large communal space for meetings or collaborative work.

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Werner Sun

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: Even though I live 90 minutes away in Ithaca, I consider RoCo to be part of my local art scene, so I want to support it however I can. Every time I go to Rochester, I try to check out what's

Continue reading

John Borek and Jackie Levine

Sadly, within the span of a year, Rochester has lost one of our most generous, creative, and intellectually curious couples: Jaqueline Levine (November 26, 1951 - May 23rd, 2020) and John Borek (May 21, 1949 - April 3, 2021). As CITY Newspaper's Jeff Spevak said, 'John Borek [and Jackie Levine]

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Kevin Cooper

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member A: Art has the power to transform and RoCo’s programming is diverse, innovative, collaborative and educational. I am a local boy who made a career in the arts, and Rochester influenced who I am and I am proud to be a member.

Continue reading

Stewart Davis (1940 – 2021)

It is with incredible sadness and tremendous gratitude that we remember Stewart Davis, who passed away earlier this week. Stewart was a champion of local arts and a wealth of knowledge about the community. He sat on numerous non-profit boards and his steady, easygoing personality was a consistent presence at

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Ian Wilson

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member?  A: I became a RoCo member in order to do my part in keeping the programming at RoCo going. It’s hard to imagine the arts and cultural landscape of Rochester without certain institutions such as RoCo. Q: Tell us about an interesting

Continue reading

Introduction to The Subway Series by Mark Reigelman II

Before, when I dressed from the waist down, I spent each morning rushing to the train. With cat-like agility, I descended 3,000 perilous steps from street level to the subway platform. There, I was rewarded with the scent of urine and dog-sized rats tossing aside poison traps to fight over

Continue reading

Dissolving the Frontier by Jason Bernagozzi

"Dissolving the Frontier" is a collection of works that are indicative of a pervasive tension brewing in Colorado amidst the shifting social, political and environmental challenges of a regional identity in flux. The notion of the frontier is an image of the prototypical American myth, where rugged individualists can create

Continue reading

Kurt Feuerherm (1925 – 2019)

The Rochester Art Community lost a major figure, a renowned artist and influential educator. Kurt Feuerherm died early Wednesday morning, November 6th, surrounded by family. His life was filled with loving relationships with people from everywhere he lived and visited. He has been described as having led an “amazing and

Continue reading

Earthen by Rebekkah Palov

Three pieces are in the exhibition, one a diorama moving-image mystification of the turn of days (Britt Mosley "Sunset"), another a tingling iterative speculation on plant intelligence (Anna Scime "Understory"). And lastly a woman at night dancing with moths, as allegory on the notion that by living, we are under

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Stephen Reardon

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: I became a RoCo member soon after moving back to Rochester from living in Denver for thirteen years. I felt is was the best way to embrace and absorb the local art scene. Q: What is your favorite exhibition and why? 
A:

Continue reading

Public Art – SPECIAL Request for Proposals due 1/31/20

Rochester Contemporary Art Center (RoCo) and the National Susan B. Anthony Museum & House (Anthony Museum) jointly present this special request for proposals as part of major women’s rights anniversaries being celebrated next year. 2020 marks the 200th birthday of human rights activist Susan B. Anthony and the 100th Anniversary

Continue reading

Seeing the Walls From Both Sides by Andrew Salomone

        View this post on Instagram         A post shared by Art Handler (@arthandlermag) on Sep 11, 2019 at 10:16am PDT It’s easy for me to scoff now at the silly situations I put myself in for scant wages without benefits or steady hours.

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Ann Marie Violante

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: The first couple exhibits that I attended there, I was attending as a guest - and besides how warm and welcoming the staff was, I felt such a positive vibe walking throughout the gallery, along with the interesting mix of folks among

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Jenny Jean

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: I became a member of RoCo because of all of the cool benefits. I really enjoy the ability to both participate in the member’s exhibit and be able to go see new shows at any time for free. I really love

Continue reading

Reclaiming Cut and Paste by Etty Yaniv

Ultimately, Collage is a technique of piecing together disjointed parts, manifesting a thought process and even a way of life with an increasing relevance to our fragmented reality. If you have recently searched “#collageart”, you might have been surprised to see over 2.2m Instagram posts and numerous “Top 10” lists.

Continue reading

Carbon 25 (turn the sound down) by Chad Oliveiri

Books can lead to movies. And movies spin off soundtracks. It’s symbiotic art: where one form begets, even depends on, the other. And yet, one can stand on its own without the other. And that’s exciting, because it allows for new contexts and meanings to form. Consider recorded music and

Continue reading

Sweepings by Cory Card intro by Heather A. Shannon

He felt closer to dust…than to light, air or water.  – W. G. Sebald, The Emigrants Armed with brooms, vacuums, and mops, we clean to eradicate dreck from our lives. With Sweepings, Cory E. Card calls attention to the ontological foolishness of the endeavor. Card’s subject matter is strange, repulsive. After

Continue reading

Federico Solmi interview with Bleu Cease

Power is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac - Henri Kissinger, The New York Times (28 October 1973) Bleu Cease: Federico, congratulations and thank you for working with us on this exhibition. Your work freely mixes ‘high’ and ‘low’; painting and virtual environments in a unique and idiosyncratic way. When I first encountered

Continue reading

New designs by Mike Turzanski

One year ago we launched our new website. One of our goals from the beginning was to not only feature our exhibitions and events in our main gallery and other spaces, but to use the site as a platform for sharing ideas, and highlighting artists and writers. We're excited to

Continue reading

Scenes of Place: Milwaukee by Ben Balcom

This program is comprised of works by four artists currently working in Milwaukee, WI, a detail that is both significant and incidental. What really binds these works is in the artists' embrace of the personal mode, as varied as that is from work to work. Each of these videos are

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Frank Argento

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member?  A: I became a RoCo member because RoCo holds an important presence in the Rochester art community. It’s programs and exhibits led by Bleu Cease, enlighten audiences and offer numerous opportunities for established and emerging artists. Q: What is your favorite exhibition

Continue reading

The Good Samaritans by Larry Ossei-Mensah

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.  -Karl Marx Federico Solmi is a storyteller and satirist who uses his art as a vehicle to stimulate a visceral conversation with his viewers by highlighting the delirium permeating present-day society. Solmi’s work adroitly provokes an complicated discourse about the history

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Stanley Van Horn & Marc Goldman

Q: Why did you join RoCo?  A: We fell in love with Rochester when we relocated here in 2010, and we saw RoCo as a place that not only celebrated the vibrant art and design community but also celebrated Rochester as a city and its people.  We wanted to be

Continue reading

Women’s Voices | #5WomenArtists

Can you name Five Women Artists? Art organizations around the world are asking this question in order to draw attention to the underrepresentation of female artists. At RoCo we thought we would celebrate International Women's Day and women in the arts by highlighting some of the many local artists who

Continue reading

Judd Williams (1934 – 2018)

We mourn the loss of Lawrence (Judd) Williams, who passed away on February 25, 2018. A thoughtful artist and influential educator, Williams was a major figure in the Rochester art community. Judd and his late wife Julianna Furlong Williams played a significant role at RoCo and its predecessor, The Pyramid

Continue reading

No Soil Better Intro

In 2018 our community has come together to celebrate the 200th Birthday of Frederick Douglass. We’ve been inspired by his words and actions, and galvanized by the Stanley Edwards monument (1899) of Douglass. This commanding statue is certainly one of Rochester’s most important artworks. Unknown to many Rochesterians, it is

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Henrik Sjöström

Q: Why did you become a RoCo member? A: I became a RoCo member to support the effort in promoting international art in North America. To be able to join exhibitions outside of the EU is important for many artists, as it offers the possibility to be seen by more

Continue reading

2017 by the Numbers

As 2017 comes to a close, we've almost achieved our goal of 1,000 members for the first time ever! To all of you who joined or renewed: Thank you for supporting contemporary art in downtown Rochester. This year’s curated exhibitions included more than 20 emerging and established artists from New

Continue reading

Announcing the Davis – Havens Gallery

RoCo is honored and excited to announce the Stewart Davis & Anne Havens fundraising gallery, named in recognition of their many contributions and generous support of RoCo. Thank you Stewart & Anne! From the beginning Rochester Contemporary Art Center (formerly Pyramid Art Center) has presented cutting-edge local, regional and national

Continue reading

A Reflection On Mug Shots by Erica Bryant

Mug shot is a casual term for a police booking photograph. The suspect is set against a bare background as portraits of the head and shoulders are taken. In the first the suspect looks straight at the camera. In the next he or she faces the side. Periodically, Crime Stoppers

Continue reading

Witness Intro by Bleu Cease

Witness features works by Paul Dodd and the late Leo Dodd, contrasting their shared impulse to document and record differing aspects of Rochester, NY. The exhibition includes a selection of 27 paintings by Leo Dodd (1927-2015), completed after his retirement from a career as an engineer. Later in life Leo

Continue reading

Reprogression by Kitty Jospé

"You can see its form if you follow the surfaces" – Bill Sellers That advice should get you from trying to define lines, how they rise, cut to the right, left, make a geometric satisfaction before the sculpture spires up like an obelisk, its stainless steel reflecting light, negative spaces

Continue reading

Step Around by Kitty Jospé

Step Around - with thanks to Bill Sellers and RoCo We are invited to step up to step around this sculpture— step out of to see what's step- ped into this steel. We wonder why he calls it Step Around— and what steps were necessary to compose the 18 feet,

Continue reading

Member Spotlight Greg Townson

Q: Why do you love RoCo? A: RoCo is so completely unique to our city. I love the way it connects local, regional and international artists, both as a way for the artists to present their work and as a way to educate and share ideas in our community. Every

Continue reading

History of 137 East Avenue

RoCo is located in a neighborhood that’s experienced a dramatic transition over the past 100 years. Early 20th-century photos of the East Avenue/Scio Street area show a vastly different landscape, that featured mostly houses – not commercial buildings! Distinguished homes in the latest styles of the day – Italianate, Second

Continue reading