The city of Syracuse is home to museums for the art enthusiast or the scientific explorer. On those occasional rainy summer days or when the heat is too much to handle, Syracuse museums offer fun activities indoors.

Located downtown, the Everson Museum of Art hosts about 11,000 works of art, including paintings, sculpture, drawings, video, graphics and ceramics. The museum dedicates itself to purely American art, being one of the first museums to ever do so. The building, designed by architect I.M. Pei, is a work of art in and of itself.

The Everson is hosting several exhibitions this summer. Seen and Heard, opening June 10, is an exhibit commemorating the 100th anniversary of the passage of women’s suffrage in New York State in 1917. The exhibit explores the state’s vast history of activism and advocacy for social change, and the use of art to do so.

Inspired by Barbara Kruger’s “Who Speaks, Who is Silent?,” a work of art in the museum’s permanent collection that explores silence and representation for women, this exhibit brings together a number of works from artists working in photography, printmaking and social practice. Seen and Heard explores the function of the arts in protest and social change.

The Everson will also host three outdoor film screenings throughout the summer, offering a variety of films to pique anyone’s interest. On July 20, it will screen “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” a 1964 political black comedy that satirizes the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union and the ongoing threat of nuclear conflict during the Cold War.

On August 3, there will be a showing of “The Matrix,” a classic 1999 science fiction portraying a dystopian future where reality is a simulation known as the Matrix. On August 17, the museum will screen “The Wizard of Oz,” the classic 1930s Technicolor musical about a young girl’s journey from Kansas to the Emerald City, regarded by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest films of all time.

Although mostly aimed at children, the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology is another way to pass the time. One of the museum’s most popular attractions is the Dr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Silverman Planetarium, a 24-foot domed room with an Apollo Star Projector. Though the presentations given at 11:15 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. every day are for kids, adults can take a look during off-hours for a cool, peaceful environment.

Each museum charges $8-12 admission, respectively.

Published on May 17, 2017 at 1:29 pm