This might be the one gallery we don’t want to move downtown. With the number of galleries closing up or moving away from our bedraggled, yearning city center (see our article here), any new blood would be welcome blood. Right? But Mestizo Arts’ strength, its crowning achievement, its […]
You can’t grab a good cup of Jose to sip while viewing art at Mestizo anymore. For lots of reasons, not many of them particularly interesting, the Salt Lake City gallery has moved from the popular North Temple coffeehouse where it has been housed for more than a […]
What is the role of the artist: storyteller, activist, documentarian? In this time of ever-increasing globalization, complete with rising concerns about our rights and our future, the lines between roles continue to blur. As artists seek to create works that will appeal to many, they also find themselves […]
The untitled photographs in Willy Littig’s exhibit Vecinos wander across the walls of Mestizo Gallery like humble pilgrims. Dressed in understated, neat frames, they appear unburdened by worldly pretensions, as if they are on their way to ascetic enlightenment. Littig captured these images on his recent walking pilgrimage […]
From the moment we take our first breath to the dying exhalation of our last, we explore our individual identity in a larger world. Artists have wrestled for centuries with the deep desire to know who they are within societies that often see individuality as something to be […]
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 […]
We Americans like our outlaws. Jesse James, John Dillinger, Butch and Sundance, Bonnie and Clyde — these figures fascinate more than they repel. They emerge as folk heroes during times of national conflict, economic struggles and political strife. We call them outlaws rather than criminals, and they […]
Utah houses some of the world’s most stunning geological wonders and Mestizo Institute of Culture and Art’s newest exhibition, Et in Utah Ego, acknowledges and challenges these markers of Utah’s local identity. The show, curated by Mestizo’s director Renato Olmedo-González, presents over 100 small photographs taken from locations across […]
Culture has a powerful ability to shape many aspects of personal identity including political, social and familial interactions. Gender also plays a powerful role in this equation. Much has been made about how cultures structure male and female roles, but what happens when this culture is transplanted to […]
Art depicting women engaged in roles as creators, protectors and transmitters of culture through a Chicana feminist lens.
In Giorgione’s enigmatic “The Tempest,” probably the most famous image of lightning in art, an electric blue bolt slices open a stormy cloudscape, dividing the landscape in two. It’s title alerts us to look for visual contrasts and symbolic conflicts, appropriate and easily found in a work done […]
Picasso famously told Gertrude Stein, before embarking on what became one of the most famous portraits of the twentieth century, that she needed to understand that it would not look like her. Picasso taught the world a new way of seeing, though, and his pre-cubist portrait of Stein […]
Emerging artist Denae Shanidiin, 21, wishes the emphasis wasn’t so much on “Navajo” for her show currently at Mestizo Gallery. “Because you call someone a Navajo artist and people expect traditional. I wish I were traditional, but I’m not,” she says with a smile. “I just don’t think […]
Mestizo Gallery is a small space tucked in a coffee shop of the same name on the northwest side of town. But don’t let its unassuming façade fool you: big things are happening there. Mestizo functions as a primary cultural and artistic center in an area of Salt […]
Read Geoff Wichert’s review of Esperanza Cortes’ and Michael Pribich’s Dollar Daze at Mestizo Art.
Geoff Wichert reviews Jorge Rojas’ exhibit of wax encased works now up at Mestizo Gallery.
Certain trade-offs seem unavoidable. Taking time off from work yields more free time, but what good is time without money? A new car rarely needs to see a mechanic, but instead of repair bills there’s a monthly payment to the bank. The encounter with art is an intimate […]
