Features on public art published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s art magazine.
Urban Masquerade was painted on the eastern wall of a Utah Division of Arts and Museums office building on 500 West in 2011. The mural’s genesis was “power figure” masks made by young Youth City kids in an art class. Kim Martinez translated the masks into a multi-faceted mural design and she […]
In this month’s photo essay photographer Kelly Green walks the streets of Salt Lake’s Liberty Wells Community to see what art is in plain site.
It’s at a private institution but Dan Cummings and Dana Kuglin’s dazzline new four-storey sculpture still fits our search for public sculpture. Situated in the atrium of Westminster’s new Meldrum Science Center, Metamorphic Synergy hangs from the ceiling, spiraling towards the bottom floor, its helix shape and glass […]
Because of our two features on public art in this month’s edition of 15 Bytes, we’ve been keeping our eyes out for art in the public eye . . . The Utah Museum of Fine Arts recently added a sculptural landmark to Salt Lake’s east bench when they […]
Yesterday marked the tenth anniversary of Gilgal Garden becoming a Salt Lake City public park. Of course the art that became a park is much older than that. Salt Lake’s answer to Simon Rodia’s Watt’s Tower or the Palais Ideal of Facteur Cheval, Gilgal was the creation of […]
This Is The Place Monument by Mahonri Young is about as popular as public art gets in Utah. It’s big. It’s multi-cultural (kind of, counting Catholic priests from Spain and Native Americans). It’s Brigham Young. And visitors can tell what it is just by looking at it. It’s […]
In Utah’s Dixie a unique piece of public art was recently installed by artist Edward Hlavka. “The Mustangs” features five equestrian statues that encircle the Snow Canyon Roundabout in Ivins, Utah. The five mustangs, one featuring a rider, are placed around the large rocks in the center of […]
Photos by Hikmet Sidney Loe Robert Smithson’s first career choice was “naturalist.” As he shifted his gaze towards art, his lifelong fascination with the materials of the earth and with the transformations that time manifests became incorporated into his work. The Spiral Jetty best embodies this synthesis of […]
Local artist Lenka Konopasek recently completed a piece commissioned by the Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake Arts Council and Salt Lake City Corporation. Located on the platform of TRAX’s Old Greek Town Station (200 South 550 West), the piece consists of multiple parts playing with gears as a motif. […]
The Tree of Utah, our (in)famous sculpture on the side of highway I80, marks its 22nd anniversary today. Standing at Milepost 26 near Wendover, it serves as a visual marker in this flat stretch of The Great Basin. If you know it’s there, when you see it you […]
Today is the Salt Lake County Art Committee’s Open House at the Salt Lake County Building (2100 South and State). Every year the County government provides money for the purchase of artwork to add to its public collection, begun in 1985. A volunteer committee, made up of artists, […]
In this month’s edition of 15 Bytes (which should be out Wednesday evening), Amanda Moore takes a look at Ely, Nevada, a town she says was saved by artists. Or, rather, the murals they painted. So, all this month in Extra! Extra! we will be posting images of murals in […]
Over twenty years ago, a new public art program began with a grassroots effort to make fine art readily available to the public. In 1983, Salt Lake County created the Art Advisory Board as an outside resource to the Salt Lake County Commission in areas pertaining to fine […]
Provo is getting serious about art in its downtown. This summer, the Provo Downtown Business Alliance announced the unveiling of 14 new sculptures in the downtown area. On Aug. 11, the Business Alliance announced the commissioning of a new 75-foot mural to grace the walls of Bingham Cyclery. […]
Public art is usually thought of as the art installed or commissioned in conjunction with a public building such as government offices, a hospital or a university. But there is a whole different type of “public” art, equally visible to the public, but the property and project […]
In 2004, the Salt Lake Arts Council, in conjunction with the Downtown alliance, decided to use the eight hexagonal kiosks along Salt Lake City’s Main Street between South Temple and 400 South, to host artwork by local artists. The first year seven artists were chosen to have their […]
Several times a year, St. George artist L’Deane Trueblood receives phone calls from various states, asking her to participate in outdoor sculpture shows. One day in 2003, after receiving one of those calls, she thought to herself, “We could do one of those here.” Utah is known in […]
