Lee DuSell: Benediction

Lee DuSell (1927-2024) is perhaps best known to Everson audiences as the creator of the bronze sculpture Spiritual Freedom (1969) that graces the Museum’s Plaza, but he was also a prolific designer and woodworker. DuSell’s furniture has been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. Over a three-decade span, DuSell frequently collaborated with noted Japanese architect Minoru Yamasaki on a series of commissions that included the Ford Motor Company, Harvard University, and Reynolds Aluminum. DuSell particularly relished his contributions to religious shrines, chapels, and temples around the world.

DuSell served as the founding chairman of the Experimental Studios at the Syracuse University School of Art from 1965 until his retirement in 1992. Benediction honors DuSell’s work in wood during a particularly fertile period in the 1970s when his works became kinetic and interactive. This exhibition features large-scale works, including three rocking chairs containing musical elements powered by their rocking motion that were originally exhibited at the Everson in a 1980 solo exhibition. DuSell passed away in September of 2024, and is remembered not only for his innovative designs, but also for the formidable impact that he made on his students and community.

DEAD END.

Curated by William Strobeck.

Featuring work by: Larry Clark, Mark Gonzalez, William Strobeck, Dash Snow, Ryan McGingley, Earsnot Irak, Ari Marcopoulos, Julien Stranger, Dave Schubert, Tobin Yelland, Jonathan Cannon, and Spike Jonze.

Filmmaker and photographer William Strobeck spent a good part of his teenage years on the Everson Museum’s Community Plaza during the 1990s. It was here that he discovered a skateboarding crew populated by “weirdos and outcasts” who, in turn, introduced him to a global diaspora of creative individuals with a similar DIY ethos and punk rock spirit. Living in the pre-digital age, Strobeck and friends poured over coveted VHS skate tapes and magazines, recognizing themselves in images of like-minded communities all over the world. Skateboarding offered them a sense of identity and belonging unlike anything else available at the time.

Fast forward thirty years and Strobeck is now considered one of the key chroniclers of skate culture in the 21st century. He first started capturing Syracuse’s skate scene in the 1990s but now travels internationally making videos and images that transcend the mere physical gymnastics of skating. His work stands out for its beauty, emotional nuance, and psychological introspection.

For DEAD END., Strobeck was invited to curate an exhibition that spoke to the Everson’s history as a hospitable venue for skateboarding, which the museum has always considered a creative enterprise. Strobeck’s exhibition, while including a few of his own works, focuses on the artists and events that indelibly shaped him as a burgeoning artist. Strobeck’s vision is fundamentally about youth and its uncertainties, boundaries, possibilities, and essential limitlessness. In unguarded and casual images, these subjects point to skate culture’s influence on the popular culture of today: handheld skate videos are today’s Tiktok and Instagram reels, while the microcultures of Substack, Reddit, and Tumblr echo the DIY skatezines of the past. 

The participatory and egalitarian nature of DEAD END. is intentional, emblematic of the free-for-all nature of skateboarding, a worldview built on repurposing the built environment for its own purpose.  Similarly, a new sculpture by artist (and professional skateboarder) Mark Gonzales will be installed as part of the Everson’s collection and as a new obstacle for skaters who still gather in the Everson’s Community Plaza today.