Dump and Run

Incoming students can find everything they need to furnish dorm rooms or apartments – at bargain prices – at Cornell’s annual Dump and Run Sale, Aug. 18-19 at Helen Newman Gym on North Campus.

The sale is open to the Cornell community and the public, Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thousands of donated items are on sale, including clothing and shoes, used furniture, housewares and appliances, electronics, school supplies, books, toys and sporting goods.

The waste recovery and recycling initiative sponsored by Campus Life collects reusable goods from students leaving campus in the spring. In addition to diverting tons of reusable items from the waste stream, the sale in August raises more than $60,000 each year for local charitable organizations.

All proceeds from this year’s sale will benefit Cops, Kids & Toys; the United Way of Tompkins County; the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Finger Lakes; and the local chapter of the Isaak Walton League.

Craft, manufactured

Globalization is often viewed as a process in which transnational brands replace local products. But this overlooks the largely invisible processes of labor, production and consumption.

Credit: College of Architecture, Art and Planning

Iftikhar Dadi, associate professor of the history of art, and Elizabeth Dadi explore a paradox of mass production in the “global south” – less developed countries – in the exhibition “Tilism,”Aug. 20-Sept. 26 in John Hartell Gallery in Sibley Hall.

The exhibition is a series of large-format photographs of tiny plastic toys, scaled up to 30 times, revealing the objects’ unusual materiality – marbled plastic, strange fluorescent colors and irregular form. The objects are machine-molded but appear uncannily to be handmade, rendering uncertain the division between the craft object and the industrially manufactured commodity.

The gallery is open weekdays, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. An artist talk and reception, scheduled for Sept. 6 at 5 p.m., is free and open to the public.

Iftikhar Dadi is director of the South Asia Program, codirector of the Institute for Comparative Modernities and the author of “Modernism and the Art of Muslim South Asia” (2010). He and Elizabeth Dadi, an alumna of the San Francisco Art Institute, have had a collaborative artistic practice for 20 years, investigating popular media’s construction of memory, borders and identity in contemporary globalization and the mass culture of postindustrial societies. Their work has been exhibited internationally.

Free movies

Cornell Cinema opens for the semester Sunday, Aug. 19 in Willard Straight Theatre with free screenings for new undergraduate, graduate and transfer students through Friday, Aug 24.

An Orientation to Cornell Cinema, Monday, Aug. 20 at 7 p.m., is free to the campus community and the general public. The event features trailers of coming attractions, short films and free popcorn; door prizes including movie posters, cinema passes and T-shirts; and information on how to become involved in one of the best campus film programs in the country.

Free screenings for students include: “The Avengers: Infinity War,” Aug. 19 and 23; “The Graduate,” Aug. 20, and introduced on Aug. 21 by lecturer Elliot Shapiro, who teaches the course Jews on Film: Visible and Invisible; a 50th anniversary restoration of The Beatles’ animated “Yellow Submarine,” premiering Aug. 21, and introduced on Aug. 23 by professor of music Judith Peraino; and “Wings of Desire” and “A Quiet Place,” both Aug. 22.

All Cornell students are admitted free Aug. 24 to “Isle of Dogs” and “Black Panther,” as part of Welcome Weekend. “Isle of Dogs” continues Aug. 25 and 27, and “Black Panther” Aug. 26.

See Cornell Cinema for showtimes and more information.

Whistler prints, Xu Bing animation

Works by James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Xu Bing are featured in new exhibitions at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art.

“The Touch of the Butterfly: Whistler and His Influence,” on display through Dec. 19, features Whistler’s work as a printmaker, with works on paper drawn from the museum’s collection including intricate intaglio prints depicting Venice, London and Amsterdam and art by his students and friends. Artists who influenced Whistler – including Rembrandt, Hogarth and Canaletto – are also exhibited.

The video installation “The Character of Characters” is Xu Bing’s animated meditation on Chinese language, art and calligraphic practice, installed at the museum through Dec. 23 as part of the 2018 Cornell Council for the Arts Biennial. Chinese paintings and calligraphy from the Johnson’s collection are also displayed, along with earlier works by Xu. The artist, an A.D. White Professor-at Large, visits campus this September for a public lecture and Biennial events.

Admission is free; the museum is closed Mondays. More new exhibitions open Aug. 25 and Sept. 6.