After recently celebrating its 30th anniversary, a Rochester gallery has undergone a makeover. Formerly known as Rochester Contemporary (and frequently referred to as simply RoCo), the gallery has new leadership and a new name: Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

The Center's leaders are also launching a new project they're calling Art Bus, to connect the arts of Rochester, Syracuse, and Buffalo. The goal is to establish an exchange of art and ideas by providing transportation to the gallery nights in Syracuse and Buffalo (kind like a pub crawl for art rather than beer).

While the cities are economically and geographically similar, says Bleu Cease, Rochester Contemporary Art Center's new executive director, each has an arts culture that is distinctively its own.

"The larger perspective is that when taken as a whole, these three cities have such amazing cultural offerings," Cease says. "We are trying to create a structure so that we can be better informed and learn from these other cities' redevelopment ideas. We're all dealing with the urban plight in different ways, and we have the opportunity to learn from each other."

The maiden trip for Art Bus is Thursday, September 20. The bus will leave from Rochester Contemporary Art Center, 137 East Avenue, at 4 p.m., and the goal is to make the 70-mile ride an arts event itself. For the first trip, leaders of Rochester Contemporary Art Center, in collaboration with the Syracuse-based arts organization ThINC, will have an artist and a curator on board to talk about the works patrons will see. Ralph Black is a Rochester poet and Courtney Rile is a curator at the Delevan Gallery in Syracuse involved with organizing one of the exhibitions on the schedule.

In Syracuse, Art Bus riders will visit five galleries in gallery night, known as "th3." A couple of the galleries are within walking distance of each other, but visitors will also ride the Connective Corridor shuttle, part of Syracuse's cultural revitalization attempt to connect the university area with the downtown area.

On Friday, October 5, Syracuse residents will have a chance to take part in the Rochester arts scene. The event will coincide with the Rochester Contemporary Art Center's launching of a new Rochester gallery night, First Friday. Local galleries will stay open later on the first Friday of each month to allow patrons to attend several galleries in one evening. So far, 13 venues have signed on, including Image City, Night Gallery, Gallery r, and Rochester Contemporary Art Center.

Information on the Art Bus program is available at www.rochestercontemporary.org/art_bus.html. Tickets are $40 and can be reserved by calling 461-2222 or sending an e-mail to bleu@rochestercontemporary.org.