Geoff Wichert has degrees in critical writing and creative nonfiction. He writes about art to settle the arguments going on in his head.
Tyrone Davies’ In Camera comprises more than a dozen television sets arranged in deliberate, symmetrical spatial compositions around an altar-like pair that much of the time places an image of religious meditation in close proximity to a giant sports arena. Symbolism noted. All the sets are playing, a […]
Shelley, given like all Romantic poets to overstatement, wrote that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” Two centuries later, Auden replied that “poetry makes nothing happen.” Presuming that what they said of poetry can stand for all of art, their argument addresses the essential question […]
The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art has become one of Salt Lake City’s most reliable venues for the art of our time, and its ambitious program, combined with the number and variety of its galleries, can challenge the capacity of the local art press. As this is being […]
Among my favorite qualities in art, two perennial activities stand out. One is drawing, an essential human activity that too often goes entirely under-appreciated, thought of as nothing more than the practiced trick of outlining visible forms. The fact that computers, with their mind-boggling computational powers, cannot recognize […]
On a wall edging a Bogotá, Colombia, street, music and theater posters vie with fight cards and bullfight notices pasted cheek-by-jowl to a rough, stucco wall. Over them are stenciled images of balaclava-clad guerrillas and the scrawled brigade name, M19, alternating with random graffiti, the surface peeling open […]
“Patterns of Resistance,” the title piece of UMOCA’s latest foray into “forward-thinking art” is a very large, intricate painting in blue and gray. In the midst of imposing space, created by joining two of what were probably the largest sheets of paper the artist could find, it depicts […]
Glass, like painting, sculpture, or any other art medium, flourishes in a variety of techniques. Just as an artist can paint in oil, acrylic, watercolor, with spray paint and stencils, or any number of other innovations, and just as a sculptor can build up clay to be cast […]
On a partition amid the downstairs gallery of the Harrison Museum in Logan hang three hand-woven Hopi plaques, or flat dishes. The backwards-F motif of the central disc repeats six times, as if rotating rapidly around its center. To the left, a woven black-and-white pattern suggests a hoop, […]
A small oil, less than a foot square, says a lot about the man who painted it. Juan Pablo Gasca, who was born in Guanajuato, Mexico, but has made his home in the United States since 1998, calls it “What Do You See?” The title is no joke; […]
The novel and (actually, several) films of The Talented Mr. Ripley are readily available in Salt Lake, but until this week the play has not been. A first step in rectifying that omission was made on Monday night, when Weller Booksworks, as part of both its Free Play Reading Series and the Utah Humanities Book Festival, staged a free reading in the bookstore. Although presented without costumes or scenery and only minimal action, the actors prepared as they would for any staging, rehearsing and working together to develop characters and impart the right voices.
…Aside from the extensive, rhythmic variation in the circles and straight bands, set against the regular pattern that controls them, the rigidity of the overall scheme is broken by several major variations. While contemplating it, eye and mind are drawn into ceaseless motion over scintillating regions that refuse […]
Of all the brilliant theatrical tropes that Repertory Dance Theatre has introduced over half a century, one of the best comes right at the start of each performance. As the house lights dim and the roses on the curtain fade from sight, anticipation calls the audience to order. […]
