In 1982, “New American Nudes,” an exhibition of precedent–breaking figure studies, began its introductory essay with a closeup photograph of a particularly shapely … ear. This bit of anatomy, which few readers probably had thought of that way before, was as nude as it was unexpected in its […]
What is identity to an artist? In cosmopolitan Europe, it was often where you came from: Leonardo from Vinci — a village outside Florence. El Greco: “the Greek,” Spain’s most popular painter. Johannes Vermeer of Delft, a successful trading city, eager to show off its luxury goods. In […]
Two decades ago, it seemed as though every artist felt compelled to respond to the events of 9/11. Twenty years later, not so many had something to say about the Covid-19 pandemic. Two locally showing artists who did both used water to represent a shapeshifting threat not just […]
According to a satirical poster by the Guerrilla Girls, the premier advantage of being a woman artist is “Working without the pressure of success.” Down their list a few places comes, “Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it will be labeled feminine.” That second permission […]
When the late Art Danto, then a leading American philosopher and one of the stars of art criticism, identified the 1990s as “the decade of women artists,” he specifically referred to those who had achieved national or international recognition for what we now call Contemporary Art. The sculptor […]
When, in the 19th century, French and English painters figured out how to make the impact of light on paper permanent, they invented photography. But that wasn’t the beginning of the search for a way to accelerate the labor of drawing. They and other artists had been playing […]
What could the adjective “homemade” possibly mean to someone who is homeless? At the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, the first of 13 exhibits offers an answer of sorts. Back in 1993, artist Willie Baronet, finding himself struggling with the dilemma of how to react to homeless persons […]
People come to Utah for many reasons. At the top of the list, there’s completing a spiritual passage. Then there are the National and State Parks and Monuments, which are known worldwide. Skiing draws whole planeloads from large cities with no ski slopes. The first time my family […]
The entire historical range of mimetic artistry — the copying of natural appearances — is essentially on display at Ogden Contemporary Arts in a single exhibition: Tamara Kostianovsky’s Mesmerizing Flesh. Best known from its Western version, beginning in the Renaissance, which began in several parts of Europe around […]
Lenka Konopasek, a Utah artist who emigrated to Utah from the Czech Republic, has documented disasters in her art involving humans and nature in many ways: tornados, mega storms, explosions, fires, even personal accidents; and yet when Modern West Gallery invited their artists to submit work concerned with […]
There can be few more mysterious and daunting creative tasks than designing new buildings. In recent centuries, the process inevitably began with the shape of a box, the result of natural construction materials, the need for stability, and for the final product to fit with existing usage. The […]
Finances aside, what is the most important task shared by roommates? According to Nataly, one of 28 artists participating in Radical Joy, in the east gallery of Finch Lane, it seems it’s to create a common space of sharing and support. The casual intimacy enjoyed by the ambiguous […]
Malachi Wilson’s gallery card initially challenges the viewer who seeks an explanation of his art’s purpose. With careful reading, however, eventually it does make sense. “These works use distinct mediums to approach the footprints and forms of different natural objects, including the human body,” it says. Meaning what? […]
When the news is unbearable, perhaps the best we can hope for is good art. As the centenary of the Dust Bowl devastation of Oklahoma approaches, and the once-great Salt Lake is on schedule to become our planet’s next dust bowl, images of pristine nature, now gone forever, […]
There’s something unusual about the paintings of Melinda and Joe Ostraff: something that even though never seen before, seems familiar. A work like “Tide Pool #1” isn’t just a bunch of colors arranged in a balanced, dynamic composition. The parts, a folded pink veil with a hole through […]
It may be difficult today to understand how important the artist Gordon Matta-Clark was, prior to his premature death 45 years ago. His career coincides with Earth Art, which can be dated to the show of that name held at Cornell University in 1969, when the curator, Willoughby […]
Seen across David Ericson’s luminously sunlit gallery, Clay Wagstaff’s “Light on the Rock,” a landscape of two trees that join at their crowns so the space between them forms an arch, clearly reveals a vertical line that is not part of the image, but appears to divide the […]
