Stories, history, and culture weave themselves into the quilts currently on display at the UMFA’s Handstitched Worlds: The Cartography of Quilts. Organized by Luke Kelly, the museum’s associate curator of collections, and Katie Seastrand, coordinator of school and teacher programs, the exhibition of 18 quilts, comprising early traditional […]
Four rows of colossal ceramic heads line the right wall of the gallery, arranged in an inverted pyramid shape. While each has been crafted from the same model, every head is conferred with a distinctive color or adorned stenciled designs, ranging in patterns and words. The various symbols […]
On July 3, 2020, The New York Times reported that the Black Lives Matter protests in response to the May 25th death of George Floyd likely constituted the largest in United States history, garnering a half-million participants in over 500 locations at their peak. The magnitude of these […]
Minneapolis Institute of Art shares with Utah Museum of Fine Arts the advantages that come with not being located in Paris, London, New York, or other locales requiring a presence on the international art scene. Instead of always keeping one eye on their competitors, MIA and UMFA can […]
The moniker “power couples” implies two individuals who, while successful in their own right, bring even greater meaning or influence when considered in the context of each other. When applied to art, this expression is even more intriguing: what might an object in the context of another bring to […]
Jorge Rojas was meant to be an artist. A soothsayer might have predicted it — seen it in the cards, the tea leaves, or, in Rojas’ case, the tortilla marks.
You don’t take a photograph, you make it. —Ansel Adams In a decade shy of 200 years—since its invention by British artists seeking a faster, easier way to draw from life—photography has joined those two great clichés of human invention, fire and the wheel, as […]
As our most dynamic organ, the brain is at once remarkably expansive and persistently conservative, constantly aiming to preserve its energy. The ever-increasing pace of social media has nurtured this trend of mental conservation—instead of reading and prioritizing media according to its supposed importance or significance, we often […]
“The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth.” Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars Imagine life as Leonardo da Vinci: you want to know everything. The land, the sky, how things work, how things within invisible spheres exist, how to make brand new […]
When the Utah Museum of Fine Arts closed its doors January 18th to begin installing a state-of-the-art vapor barrier in the Marcia and John Price Museum Building, many thought its programs might go into hibernation for over a year as well. Not so. An ambitious attempt to continue its […]
Gretchen Dietrich, executive director of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA), is being honored this month as one of Utah Business magazine’s 2015 “30 Women to Watch.” The magazine’s annual recognition program spotlights women business leaders who have distinguished themselves across a diverse range of fields, from […]
Hard to believe we’re at salt 11 already, but here we are, and Duane Linklater, an Omaskêko Cree from Moose Cree First Nation in present-day Northern Ontario, Canada, is the artist at hand. These semi-annual “salt” exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, showcasing work by emerging […]
To consider oneself an American is to acknowledge an inherent lack of cultural homogeny. The nation is comprised of countless national ancestries, cultures, religions and customs. So much so that the traditional and hopeful “melting pot” metaphor has given way to the more realistic “tossed salad.” The Utah […]
Last week the Kimball Art Center got tough in its negotiations with Park City over their redesign. After a second design was rejected by the city because it didn’t comply with historic preservation guidelines (see here) the Kimball Board of Directors announced it would look for a new […]
How many views does it take to depict the steady, human-formed creation of absence on the land? In the case of Utah Museum of Fine Art’s (UMFA) current exhibition Creation and Erasure: Art of the Bingham Canyon Mine, the answer is over one hundred. This well-researched, historical view of […]
