Geoff Wichert has degrees in critical writing and creative nonfiction. He writes about art to settle the arguments going on in his head.
Something remarkable, though it shouldn’t have been, took place in the American Southwest in the years following the Second World War. Consider these three names: Georgia O’Keeffe, Agnes Martin, Beatrice Mandelman. Each of these artists resisted and ultimately rejected the New York mainstream. Each created original and highly […]
In 2013, Sam Wilson was selected by 200 of his peers as one of “Utah’s 15 most influential artists.” The following profile appeared in Utah’s 15: The State’s Most Influential Artists, published by Artists of Utah in 2014. Photo by Zoe and Robert Rodriguez. Sam Wilson says, “It’s all […]
Darn! . . . Shoot! . . . Fudge! . . . . Euphemisms—inoffensive ways of not quite saying what you mean—permeate every language and clog everyday speech. Angry young speakers bristle at having to use compulsory substitutions, which aim to comfort not the speaker but those […]
“Gitana,” Philip Buller, 60″ x 60″ Collecting and displaying damaged artifacts, like broken pottery and scuffed postcards, was almost certainly a matter of necessity before it became a preference, but if the choice is between a flawless replacement and an original that shows a mixed patina of age, […]
As someone who studies and writes about Contemporary art, I have often pointed out its tendency to be overly specific. There’s a real difference between Theodore Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa” (1819), protesting a single event that scandalized Europe, and a porcelain figure of Michael Jackson by Jeff […]
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times . . .” So Charles Dickens characterized the French Revolution in A Tale of Two Cities. So we may pray writers in the future will reflect on our plight today. In any event, it certainly can be […]
Less than a century ago, Abstract Expressionism brought the United States squarely into the dramatic center of world art for the first time. Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Motherwell, Mitchell, and their peers formed the spine of a reinvention that evolved from the earlier revolt of Picasso, Matisse, Miro, […]
The Statewide Annual Exhibition invites all Utah artists to submit their work—the art itself, not slides—the accepted works to be shown as a group in the Rio Gallery. Each year’s exhibit tackles a loosely defined subset of art, three or four specified media, all work made in the […]
“After the Flood” ca. 1940, oil on board, 28″ x 36″ Winston Churchill, who wrote history when he wasn’t busy making it, once quipped that history is written by the victors. He might have written instead that it is only through the writing of history that a victory […]
Katie Paterson (Scottish, born 1981), Totality, 2016, printed mirrorball, motor, and lights, 85 cm in diameter, photo © Ben Blackall, courtesy of the Lowry Take a moment to imagine a Cubist meteor shower, in which a whole sky full of points of light fly through the darkness, through […]
“Rhetoric,” Matt Kruback, 24”x 36”, Pigment Print, 2016 No matter how much we may enjoy and even prefer an immediate and strong response to what we see, not all artworks can be adequately replied to with a simple “yes” or “no.” For two promising young multidisciplinary artists, […]
“Mannequin Defectors I” Much has been written about Jann Haworth, but two things seem customary to mention. One is her formative involvement with Pop art, which began in England and with which she still identifies. This biographical fact might otherwise escape her American audience, since the substantive work […]
