What do you want to believe in?

An apple a day. The power of art. The Bills. Climate change. Socialism. Capitalism. God. The moon landing. Bigfoot. Elvis is alive. Aliens are real. Acupuncture.

BICA’s annual gala is a celebration of belief — in art, in transformation, in the wild idea that gathering together can still mean something. On October 25, step into our transformed campus for a night of light, sound, food, drink, and the unexpected.

We’ve teamed up with GroupWork, Buffalo’s premiere party alchemists, to conjure music, movement, and atmosphere all night long. 

Dress code: Costume or cocktail 

Tickets start at $25

VIPs ($100) get in early (7–8 PM) for an open bar and first access to art, experiences, and a little magic

$$ BICA Bucks will be your currency for drinks, food, and anything weird you find along the way

Show us you want to believe.

Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity. We’re sharing two versions of this text with different translators. Read either or read both!

→ Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, 217–251. New York: Schocken Books, 1968.

→Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version.” In The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, edited by Michael W. Jennings, Brigid Doherty, and Thomas Y. Levin, translated by Edmund Jephcott and Harry Zohn, 19–55. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2008.

What happens to art when it’s no longer one-of-a-kind? What do photography, film, and mass production do to the “aura” of a work?

In this landmark essay, Walter Benjamin argues that technologies of reproduction—starting with photography—don’t just change how art is distributed; they change what art is. From politics to perception, authenticity to accessibility, Benjamin’s provocative ideas continue to shape conversations about art, media, and culture nearly a century later.

Expect big ideas, bold claims, and plenty to discuss.

About Arts for Something:

Hosted at BICA in collaboration with BICA School and Civic Arts (a project by teaching artist Robin Lee Jordan), Arts for Something! is an interdisciplinary program for young and emerging artists (ages 14–19) exploring the intersection of art and civic engagement.

Over the course of the series, participants will build creative skills—like screen-printing, zine-making, sewing, literary arts, and specialized visual arts—while learning how these tools can be used to support civic initiatives such as social justice, activism, and local community needs.

Young artists who commit to all eight sessions (with up to two excused absences) will have the opportunity to create and present a civic arts–inspired project in any medium. These projects will be featured in a collaborative zine and shared during a final exhibition and celebration in June.

Workshops take place the first Saturday of every month, October through May (skipping January), from 12–2 PM. 

Session Details:

How can you turn "what is" into "what could be" when you combine collage techniques and found poetry? What lurks beneath the surface? What possiblities hover at the edges? (Found poetry is when you create poetic language using text you find from other sources.)

Led by:

Robin Lee Jordan is a teacher, poet, collage artist, and zine-maker. She has an MFA in poetry and has published multiple chapbooks and many zines. Along with her teaching artist work at Arts for Learning & WNY Book Arts Center, she is currently a co-organizer of an annual ZineFest, runs civic arts-themed programs for youth & adults at The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Arts & Burning Books, and works with aging artists at Delavan Grider Community Center.

Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Kant, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Edited by Paul Guyer, translated by Paul Guyer and Eric Matthews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

What makes something beautiful? Is taste just personal—or do we expect others to agree with us when we say something is really beautiful?

In this week’s reading, Kant begins to untangle the nature of aesthetic judgment, setting up a framework that’s still foundational in how we think and talk about art today. We’ll work through his distinction between the agreeable, the good, and the beautiful, and ask what it means to judge something “disinterestedly.”

A little dense? Yes. But worth it—and we’ll make our way through it together.

Info Session at BICA

Saturday, September 20th, 2025

2PM

Manuel A. Rodríguez-Delgado: Interestatal transforms our gallery into an archive of future ruins, roadside relics, and techno-shamanic tools born from the thresholds of memory, motion, and myth.

Join us for our opening reception of Interestatal

Friday, September 19th, 2025 from 7-10pm

If you’d like an early peak, you can join alongside BICA School’s Thursday evening walkthrough before the opening (6:30/7:00)

There will also be a artist-led workshop on Saturday, September 20th to be decided by Manuel.

Papermaking workshop with Mia Brown-Seguin.

September 6th, 2025 3-6pm

Be prepared to get a little messy as we play with pulp, learn how to form sheets of paper, and add inclusions.

Materials provided!

Suggested donation $5-10

Ages 8 & up

Optional: bring your own “inclusions” (collage materials and/or small paper thin objects)

Join us for a conversation with curator Yasmin Nurming-Por as she shares her research around creative misuse—how artists repurpose everyday materials and systems to respond to local needs and contexts. From DIY speakers made from rice cookers to alternative models of education, Yasmin will discuss how artists can use what’s around them to create something entirely new.

This event marks the beginning of Yasmin’s collaboration with BICA, where she will curate our annual group exhibition in summer 2026. Artists interested in this way of working may find opportunities to develop projects with BICA over the coming year.

About the Speaker

Yasmin Nurming-Por is a curator based in Toronto. She has held curatorial and research roles at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Walter Phillips Gallery, Images Festival, and more. Her recent projects span the Xiao Museum of Contemporary Art (CN), National Museum of Women in the Arts (DC), and Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity (AB). She is co-founder of gallery two seven two and a PhD student in Art History at the University of Toronto.

Alexa Kanarowski: The Window Won’t Shut All the Way

09.05.25 – 09.24.25

Opening Reception Friday, September 5, 7-10PM

When we look out a window, does the landscape look back in? The Window Won’t Shut All the Way investigates the meaning of glass, and the inability to fully separate ourselves from what we see.

Photographic media imposed on glass forms grapples with the passage of time and the vernacular landscape. Squares and grids appear repeatedly throughout the work. Often altered or in a sense of decay, the grid is reminiscent of city blocks and the changes they undergo over time. By using imperfect squares, the work takes on a confused identity. Highlighting the transparent qualities of glass with a muted color scheme, Kanarowski engages the viewer in both what is and what has been. The expected language of stained glass is subverted to engage with the simple language of a plain window, and the landscape that is seen through a window. Much of the glass is found, further solidifying the connection between the built environment, the work, and ghosts of a time gone by. 

Combined with glass, Kanarowski uses the technique of Polaroid emulsion lifts to create ghostly images. Whether pasted on the surface of a piece or sandwiched between glass like a sample between microscope slides, the photographs become a part of the glass and emphasize its fragility. 

The process of Polaroid emulsion lifts makes physical the notion of time. Because they are taken with a Polaroid camera, the images must be transferred to glass within hours of their exposure. The process itself is prone to unexpected results, allowing the one-of-a-kind image to take on its own form and autonomy. Shooting in the square format of Polaroids places further emphasis on the grid like structures that appear throughout the work, while encouraging a simplistic approach to composition. 

This body of work also engages in tensions between art and craft. Working with a craft like stained glass, Kanarowski both accedes to and distances herself from the rules of the media. Her reliance on grids brings her back to a motif that is often present in her practice, quilts and patchwork. In Refuse Quilt, Kanarowski takes this quite literally, crafting a quilt out of the waste products of Polaroid Emulsion lifts, and the haunting ephemeral landscapes they produce.  

Alexa Kanarowski is a photographer based in Buffalo, New York. Through investigating systems that combine to make our present moment, she focuses on the landscape, cultural, and systemic patchworks that contribute to defining the everchanging now. Frequently working in photo series, Kanarowski creates quilt-like narratives that are sensitive to memory, labor, and landscape. In addition to photobooks, her practice encompasses craft practices, using stained glass and sewing to further elucidate the patchwork nature of the contemporary moment.

Kanarowski is a member of the Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art’s BICA School. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Cornell University, and her work has been exhibited throughout New York State, such as a solo show at the Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY). She has been the recipient of multiple awards and grants, including the Edith Adams and Walter King Stone Memorial Prize and the Gibian Rosewater Traveling Research Award.

Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Ngai, Sianne. “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde.” Critical Inquiry 31, no. 4 (Summer 2005): 811–847.

Why do we describe some things as “cute”? And what happens when the avant-garde—the sharp, strange, and experimental—gets tangled up with the soft, sweet, and small?

In this session, we’ll read Sianne Ngai’s “The Cuteness of the Avant-Garde,” a smart and surprisingly fun essay that explores how aesthetic categories like “cute” shape the way we perceive objects, bodies, and artworks. Ngai digs into everything from Kant to Keane paintings to unpack what cuteness reveals about power, vulnerability, and our deeply weird relationship with things.

Bring your thoughts, your questions, or your love/hate feelings about Sanrio characters. We’re here for all of it.

Palmer Segner: 23
Opening Reception, August 15, 7-10pm
BICA School Project Space

In addition to being a picture making process, photography is also a game.  The point of this game, as John Szarkowski said, “is to know, love, and serve sight, and the basic strategic problem is to find a new kind of clarity within the prickly thickets of unordered sensation.”  These photographs were made along the route of the number 23 bus over the course of a few days in March 2025 and are presented here as a series of 20x24” C-Prints.

Palmer Segner, b. 1990, is a photographer living and working in Buffalo, NY.

Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century. Translated by Anselm Hollo. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986, 33–69.

How did trains change how we see the world? And what does that have to do with art, technology, and even attention spans?

This week we’re reading Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s The Railway Journey, an exploration of how the invention of the railroad reshaped time, space, and human perception in the 19th century. The book blends cultural theory, history, and a bit of poetic flair as it traces how technology altered everyday experience—and how those changes still echo in modern life.

It’s part historical study, part philosophical reflection, and all up for discussion. Come ready to share your thoughts or simply ride along with us.

Frank Hurricans with Little Cake & Welks Mice

Wednesday, August 13th, 2025

30 Essex St

Doors @ 7pm

Music @ 8pm

Register Here

Virtual Info Session

Tuesday August 12, 2025

6PM

Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→ Greenberg, Clement. “Towards a New Laocoön.” Partisan Review 7, no. 4 (July–August 1940): 296–310.

* 07.30 this link has been updated, the previous link was to an abridged version of the same essay.

What’s the relationship between painting, music, and literature—and why did modernist art care so much about keeping them separate?

Join us as we dig into Clement Greenberg’s 1940 essay “Towards a New Laocoön”, a foundational (and famously opinionated) text in the history of modern art criticism. Greenberg argues that painting should embrace its “essential qualities”—like flatness and color—and resist the temptation to imitate other art forms. Whether you agree, disagree, or want to push the conversation in new directions, this session is all about engaging with the ideas that shaped 20th-century art—and maybe complicating them a little, too.

Let’s read, talk, and think together.

Raavi from NYC with local support from Side Stitches & Jacob King & the Merry Locker Band

**Due to unforseen circumstances local support acts were changed to Addison Logan & way2wavybaby

Doors 7pm

$10 suggusted donation

BICA Garage

July 27th

Curious about BICA School? Come find out what it’s all about at our upcoming info session!

Meet current participants, hear firsthand experiences, and get a feel for our unique, community-driven approach to contemporary art education. We’ll give a short presentation covering what BICA School is, who it’s for, and how you can get involved. Whether you’re an artist, organizer, thinker, or all-around curious person—BICA School might be just the place for you.

This is your chance to ask questions, meet the folks who make BICA School what it is, and envision yourself in the mix.

Free to attend and open to all.

Bring your questions, your curiosity, and a friend!

Join us for the opening of Do not go out of the door

Friday, July 18, 7–10 PM

at BICA, 30 Essex St, Buffalo, NY

Celebrate the launch of our summer exhibition with a night of art, conversation, and community. Meet the artists, explore their work in a newly transformed gallery space, and experience the debut of an immersive architectural installation built just for this show.

Featuring works by:

Kayleah Aldrich, Helen Beckley-Forest, H Boone, Lucas Cook, Julia Dzwonkoski, Natalie Hayes, Alexa Kanarowski, Kyla Kegler, Koala Manne, Quincey Miracle, and wavy.

Free and open to all.

Garage music!

Friday 7/18 featuring

Tongue Depressor @tongue___depressor

J.P.A. Falzone @j_p_a_falzone

followed by an opening across the courtyard @bica.buffalo”

Garage music!

Saturday 7/12 featuring…

Regan Bowering @reganalana

J.P.A. Falzone @j_p_a_falzone

Ryan Bell @ry__b___

Fad Diet @fad_diet_ny

Silas Rubeck @sils_the_schmuck

Kayleah Aldrich: THE DEBUT
Opening Reception, July 11, 7-10pm
BICA School Project Space
Exhibition runs July 11 - 22

Open to All | Free to Join | No Registration Required

Join us at BICA School for a casual, come-as-you-are reading group that welcomes everyone—whether you’ve read the text cover to cover or just want to hear what others have to say. We’ll explore critical and curious texts together in a space that values open conversation, listening, and learning.

Read ahead if you can, but there’s no pressure to be an expert—just bring your thoughts, questions, and curiosity.

→Bachelard, Gaston. “The House, from Cellar to Garret, The Significance of the Hut.” In The Poetics of Space, translated by Maria Jolas, 3–37. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.

For the first gathering in our summer reading group series we’ll be discussing Gaston Bachelard’s classic essay “The House, From Cellar to Garret, The Significance of the Hut” from The Poetics of Space.

Bachelard’s poetic and philosophical exploration of the spaces we inhabit invites us to see homes, rooms, and even corners as sites of imagination, memory, and meaning. It’s a beautiful starting point for thinking about the relationships between space, self, and creativity.

Whether you’ve read it deeply, skimmed it over coffee, or just want to listen in—come join the conversation. No pressure, no expertise required.

Let’s read, talk, and think together.

Join us on Saturday, June 28 from 3–8PM for the fourth annual Open Essex, BICA’s free summer celebration of contemporary art, creativity, and community at the Essex Street Arts Complex.

Grand Unveiling of the 2025 Buffalo Art Map

Be among the first to grab the guide you helped fund.

Spaghett

The summer cocktail that’s got all the cool kids talking.

Lemonade & Punch

Refreshing sips for everyone—no fancy squeezing required.

Extra Extra Pizza

Bridget (and baby!) will be on-site serving hot, cheesy slices all afternoon.

Art Cake Walk (6 PM)

Circle the ring, hold your ticket—and when the music stops, win a cake or cake-sized art prize. Tickets at the info table; cake donations still welcome at emily@thebica.org.

Blind Box Game
Everyone wins a prize in this wildly creative game by H Boone and Quincy Miracle.

Artist-Made Mini Golf

Putt through one-of-a-kind holes created by Natalie Hayes and Lucas Cook.

Photo Fun

Experiment with DIY photo transfers with Alexa Kanarowski & Nick Mass, or snag your own Polaroid portrait by DJ Carr.

Dunk Tank

Aim at Jerry Mead, Nando, Emily, Scott Propeak, Keelan Erhard, Matt Kenyon, and more. All activities run on BICA Bucks, which you can buy on-site with cash or card.

Live Music

Soulful tunes from Curtis Lovell and upbeat grooves by Side Stitches.

Last Chance

Today is the final day to see Huidi Xiang: the maxim of the tomato in the Main Gallery and Heathscapes by Titorelli in the Project Space before they close at sundown.

And Last, but not least!

Art for Sale

Discover and bring home work by Buffalo’s most inventive artists. Rug Samurai, JP4Hire, Emily Constantin, Nando Alvarez-Perez, EL Hohn, Quincey Miracle, H Boone, Alexa Kanarowski, Kayleah Aldrich, Nick Mass, Natalie Hayes, Lucas Cook, Bri Grace, Koala, wavy, and more!

This is the ultimate Saturday sandwich—after Ride for Roswell in the morning and before Bob the Drag Queen at Outer Harbor in the evening. Free, family-friendly, and full of unexpected delights. Bring your crew and dive into the fun!

Moonlight Revels

 A Reimagining of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Madness Most Discreet (MMD) is thrilled to announce its upcoming production of Moonlight Revels, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, making its Buffalo premiere at The Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art (BICA) on Friday May 16th, 2025 at 6pm and 8pm. This bold new work fulfills Madness Most Discreet’s mission to make Shakespeare’s plays radically accessible to all.

Founded in 2014, Madness Most Discreet is best known for their hallmark approach: one play, four actors, endless possibilities. Each actor learns the entire script, and in a spontaneous collaboration with the audience at the top of each performance, roles are assigned on the spot, making every performance unique.

Moonlight Revels invites you to enter Shakespeare’s world of pure imagination and endless possibility. Each showing (6pm and 8pm) will be uniquely shaped by its audience’s choices. With no role that is bound by gender, class, age, or status -- audiences are offered the rare opportunity to witness how interpretation, identity, and storytelling transform across performances.

We believe Shakespeare’s stories are about us. They belong to everyone.

Free For All Forever.

Join us the day after the opening of the maxim of the tomato for a walkthrough with artist Huidi Xiang. She’ll guide visitors through the exhibition, sharing insights into her practice and the inspirations behind the work. Don’t miss this chance for an intimate look at the installation with the artist herself.

Join us for the opening reception of Huidi Xiang: the maxim of the tomato in BICA’s main gallery.

For this exhibition, Brooklyn-based artist Huidi Xiang has created a sculptural installation that transforms the humble tomato pincushion—a ubiquitous sewing tool found in homes for generations—into a poignant metaphor for the contradictions embedded in care work. Traditionally, the tomato has been associated with health, healing, and prosperity, appearing in folklore as a protective charm and in pop culture as a symbol of recovery—most notably as the Maxim Tomato in the Kirby video game series, where it instantly restores a character’s health. But in the form of a pincushion, it becomes a site of puncture, pierced over and over by needles—a vessel of both nurture and violence.