Utah Exhibition Reviews published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s art magazine, including reviews of local Utah artists, regional artists, group exhibitions and traveling exhibits of national and international artists.
What was happening on America’s other coast as New York City was poised to become the center of the international art world? The Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art explores this question by digging into its surprisingly rich vaults to stage San Francisco, the Golden Years 1930-1960: Making […]
What happens to an artist’s work when they die? The select few will be fought over at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Most will become a burden to their heirs: what to keep, what can sell, what to do with all the rest? Somewhere in between, among the mid-tier artists […]
This May, when residents of Alpine, Utah mourned the demolition of the town’s last remaining pioneer-era home, the Carlisle House—razed to make way for an expanding charter school—painter and sculptor Dennis Smith was among them. He grew up in this Utah County town, nestled beneath the soaring granite […]
For much of the 20th century, painting and photography felt like mortal enemies. Any history of Modernism will explain how the camera forced artists into the varieties of Abstraction, among other things. That the schism has now healed is shown by Maggie Davis in her “Windowpane Poppies,” a […]
Dozens of ceramics line a back gallery at the Southern Utah Museum of Art. Some are so smooth yet tactilely tempting that you’ll want to reach out and caress them—or, maybe inspired by Harry Bertoia’s sound sculptures in the adjoining gallery, you’ll be tempted to pluck them with […]
If there isn’t a narrative illustrated by “Flight of the Oculus,” viewers can be excused for inventing one. The appropriately highest panel on the wall depicts something that earlier generations would have pegged as science fiction: a drone floating in air on four spinning propellers. To the side, […]
A large drawing—large by most standards, but not by comparison with others hanging nearby—titled “Hazel’s Room” places an ancient symbol of menace, a wolf, at large in an up-to-date child’s bedroom. It’s every bit the nightmare image it appears: Hazel is the artist’s daughter, still an infant when […]
There will always be artists who start out by looking closely at the world, then by copying it in one way or another. Doing so makes sense, after all, since appearances are often where knowledge begins. Later, it may become necessary to look beneath the surface, to the […]
Now on view at Finch Lane Gallery, “Life, Death, Decay (Olympic Peninsula) and Greenhouse” consists of a shadow box, the back of which depicts the Olympic Rainforest, the closest mainland USA comes to a tropical wilderness. In front of this dense forest of huge trees springing from lush […]
In a vitrine in the lobby of the Library of Congress lie the objects that were in Abraham Lincoln’s pockets when he was shot, one of which is a pair of reading glasses repaired with string. Contemplating these real objects is about as close as one can come […]
The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art’s many virtues—currently under threat from short-sighted development—include its multi-level architecture, incorporating a vast space that still allows for intimate encounters. Right now, one grand wall of the main gallery is devoted to the unmatched video genius of William Kentridge, a South African […]
Considering Logan artist Fazilat Soukhakian began her career as a photojournalist in her native Iran, it is unsurprising that we best know her artistic portfolio for works that center the human form, largely in a documentary style. You may have seen the Utah State University professor’s portraits of […]
Red Butte Garden and Arboretum is a dreamy venue for an exhibition, practically perfect in every way for Susan Makov’s dazzling 31-piece Tree Language, up through Aug. 26. The July opening was crowded and buzzing so the artist will give a talk and answer queries about her haunting […]
There’s a general rule at 15 Bytes: the art we write about should be on public display somewhere at the same time. For living artists, that usually means we’re writing about something made in the past year or two, freshly hung on a gallery wall. In the case […]
All over the world, the story of art begins with Nature: for example, through images of living creatures painted on exposed rock faces. Later, when we moved indoors, art brought the natural world along, to complete a dwelling’s interior space. Artists can preserve the ephemeral, as Connie Borup […]
It’s almost like Frank Huff, Jr. dares you to dismiss his work. Or part of it. Take, for instance, his painting of a nondescript parking lot. Why bother? It’s not some social commentary, à la Joni Mitchell, paving paradise and all that. There’s no real judgment here. It’s […]
“I think that if a song isn’t about something, it ought to be an instrumental.” With that advice, spoken often in concert, the great American jazz poet and performer Gil Scott-Heron, author of “Winter in America,” “Johannesburg,” and “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” never failed to bring […]
