Artist Profile: Salt Lake City
Degrees of Authenticity
David Brothers' places and propositions
by Torben Bernhard and Travis Low

David Brothers has worn many hats. He has produced, written and acted in radio dramas (most notably The Church of Jayne Mansfield and The New Atomic Age); written, illustrated and published comic books, pamphlets, religious tracts, trading cards and Tijuana bibles; created films and videos—some animated, some feature-length— three of which appeared at Sundance; he has had photos published in Rolling Stone, Maxim, Popsmear, Slug and other publications. And those are his side projects. By day, he creates sets for the film industry, using wood, paint and whatever else is at hand to fool the viewer. This line between the artificial and the authentic is something he explores in his own artwork —constructed sets for "places and propositions" that he builds in his studio and photographs. This spring, his set for Rolithica, an imaginary world inspired by the Godzilla movies, made a rare public appearance at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art's Street Gallery.

Brothers is the recipient of a 2016 Visual Arts Fellowship from the Utah Division of Arts & Museums (UDAM). In this video profile, made in collaboration with UDAM, Brothers discusses his life and work and the manipulation of the authentic.

Music: Artist Profile
An Opportunity to Play
Intermezzo Chamber Music Series embraces serious fun
by Laura Durham

In music, an “intermezzo” is a short composition between main divisions of an extended musical work. It also can be described as entertainment of light character introduced between the acts of a drama or opera. For 15 years now, the aptly named Intermezzo Chamber Music Series has provided Salt Lake City with a short summer concert series. It’s a way for musicians who typically are busy with the traditional September to May concert season to play chamber music with their friends — for their friends. That circle of friends is constantly growing to include more fans who have a serious love for chamber music, but who also like to have some fun along the way.

Exhibition Review: Salt Lake City
Alchemical Experiments
Albedo|Nigredo at Finch Lane Gallery
by Hannah McBeth

Albedo | Nigredo , the collaborative exhibit by Colour Maisch and Gary Vlasic at Finch Lane Gallery, takes an attentive sculptural approach to exploring the mystical way that everyday materials are transformed by artists’ creative processes and the unique environment of gallery space. The short wall text near the entrance of the gallery space speaks of regeneration and reinvigoration of the discarded, broken, and useless that can be found in a marriage of contrasting materials. The gallery creates a space that mimics an ancient alchemical laboratory, where the artists ask the audience to respond to physical experiments with no typical curatorial barriers, creating an impression that everyone is part of an ongoing process. Unlike traditional sculpture exhibitions, the pieces are not roped off, titled, or explained with individual descriptions. They are placed in a snaking pattern around the two-room space, and there is nothing to prevent guests from getting up close. In this way, the ambiguous materials that have been transformed by the artists can be inspected by the inch, and the audience has to mediate their own physical proximity to the pieces without authoritative suggestion. In all, this allows for a close inspection of the sculptures’ material and an awareness of the vulnerable, tactile quality of all works.