On the ground floor of the Nancy Cantor Warehouse, the walls are blank, save for the purple moveable pillars that sit in the center of the room.

Drop-cloths cover the concrete floor as a worker paints the finishing touches on freshly sanded walls. The smell of sawdust lingers in the air, and stacks of framed artwork rest against a wall.

Soon, when the pillars are in place and those framed pieces cover the walls, the gallery Point of Contact, located in the Warehouse downtown, will invite guests to celebrate its 40th anniversary with the exhibition “Continuum.”

For its 40th anniversary, Point of Contact is only displaying works from the past, though none of them were rare pieces purchased to impress visitors. Miranda Traudt, managing director of the gallery, said she hopes Point of Contact continues to foster an appreciation and involvement in the arts in the local Syracuse community.

“The collection grew very organically over 40 years, and now we have over 200 works,” Traudt said. “This is the first time we’re going to bring this much art all into one space.”

The new gallery’s modern look has been a perfect fit for Point of Contact, since they typically feature contemporary and Latin American artists, Traudt said.

Forty years ago, Point of Contact wasn’t even an art gallery — it was a literary journal, full of poetry, interviews, photography and artwork. This original idea was formed in the 1970s by a few professors at New York University, including current Syracuse University professor Pedro Cuperman.

But the gallery has always had the same goal.

“The idea was to create a literary journal — a literary journal which inside contains a gallery,” said Cuperman, who is Point of Contact’s founder and artistic director.

It also served as a way for the nostalgic friends to avoid saying goodbye as Cuperman left for Syracuse University. When the publication began, Cuperman forged a partnership that hasn’t broken since.

“Let’s keep it as a point of contact,” Cuperman recalled them saying.

However, the publication wasn’t just a point of contact for those who made it; it was also a starting point for dozens of new artists.

“In the beginning, Point of Contact was working with emerging voices and emerging artists that, 40 years later, you see now recognized worldwide,” said Tere Paniagua, executive director of SU’s Office of Cultural Engagement for the Hispanic Community.

Contemporary artists like Liliana Porter and Gwenn Thomas published exclusive works with Point of Contact and are now well-regarded in their field.

The Point of Contact gallery first opened in an SU-owned space on East Genesee Street in 2005. It soon outgrew its space, and when a vacancy opened in the main gallery in the Warehouse, Point of Contact moved to its current, much larger space.

Cuperman has just one qualm with the new location.

“In the other gallery, when we did a show there were many people, and people were dancing in the streets,” he said.

Point of Contact is one of SU’s Coalition of Museums and Art Centers and receives funding from the University. However, it’s still a nonprofit that gets local, state and national grants.

The arts center keeps a close connection with SU students. Students from the College of Visual and Performing Arts often take programs and class visits to the gallery, and gallery staff is entirely made up of students. In turn, Point of Contact is never in short supply of emerging artists to feature.

Even after 40 years and a big change in its medium, Point of Contact still stays true to its original goals: staying small enough to take risks and always displaying what it thinks the community needs to see.

“We were not cautious of the time or of the medium, we were really first trying to enjoy ourselves,” Cuperman said. “If we like it, then people will like it.”

Published on September 15, 2015 at 11:28 pm

Contact Kathryn: kjkrawcz@syr.edu | @kathrynkrawczyk