The Work of Art in an Age of Civil Repression

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:15:20 -0700

The Work of Art in an Age of Civil Repression
by Geoff Wichert

I do not endorse casual use of the term “Fascist” in civil discourse. In spite of Abu Graib, in spite of Gitmo, in spite of racial and economic profiling, and in spite of efforts by the Bush Administration, the McCain campaign, and right-wing blogs to convince Americans that habeus corpus is a threat to us, rather than what protects all of us from abuse of its power by our government, most of us still enjoy a level of personal liberty that cannot seriously be compared to what three-quarters of the world’s population suffer at the hands of their governments. And while I hate it as much as anyone when misdirected efforts at security cause me to miss my plane, I am happy to cooperate with legitimate efforts to keep me, and my loved ones, safe. That’s what I told the uniformed officer who refused to let me look at one of Salt Lake’s substantial works of public art.

At the end of the Second World War, many combatant countries found themselves amid the rubble of what had been both their infrastructure and their cultural heritage. Ironically, replacing what was destroyed revitalized their economies and their arts. In Germany, the Baltic States, England, and elsewhere, literal acres of artistically novel stained glass rose to meet the new day. Architectural engineering, glass-making technology, and post–apocalyptic vision combined to produce some of the most wonderfully articulate ornamented spaces since the Middle Ages. In these windows, characterized by sensitivity to architectural setting and a strong feeling for graphic design, glass and lead serve closely coordinated roles in mechanical support and aesthetic expression. They work magic with figure-ground relationships while weaving a sensual link between pure marks and intelligible signs. Eventually, a few such windows were created in the United States, where a materialist culture in love with happy endings and with no experience of devastation found little resonance or appeal in them. Having gone to great lengths to see the originals, I was genuinely surprised when, while walking through downtown Salt Lake, I spotted a bold example of European-style stained glass prominently mounted in the façade of a public building. Although meant to be seen from outside as well as from within, I knew I had to see it in all three proper views: from outside in the day, when lit from within at night, and primary among them, from inside in daylight.

I’d like to say more about that impressive window, but I can’t. In spite of my bona fides as a citizen and my professional interest in this theoretically public space, I could not get ten feet into the building to turn around and examine its front window. A sign outside the door warned that anyone entering was subject to being searched. I have no quarrel with that: it’s been years since I carried any contraband on my person. A second sign, recent and hastily made, said that based on “recent events” security had been tightened. I wonder about the social amnesia that makes this sign possible. Far from recent, it was in 1970, just shy of 40 years ago, that Jonathan Jackson entered the Marin County Courthouse (Frank Lloyd Wright’s last major commission) armed with guns and explosives and precipitated a shootout that left the judge and three trial principals dead. Surely no “recent” event involving a pedestrian entering a courthouse has added any urgency to the overhaul of courthouse management initiated by that fiasco.

LOCAL ARTIST WINS NATIONAL SCULPTURE AWARD

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 00:01:36 -0700

Sculptor, Ben Hammond, was awarded the Dexter Jones Award for bas relief, one of four award winners in the Young Sculptors’ Competition for 2008. The Young Sculptors’ Competition dates back to 1959 and is sponsored by the National Sculpture Society. Ben won the award based on his sculpture Fall and Winter Vessel, a vase depicting allegorical representations of the seasons Fall and Winter. The award ceremony was held June 20^th at Connecticut’s Lyme Academy. Ben works from a studio in American Fork, and his work can be viewed at benhammondfineart.com.

Cara Despain & Jason Metcalf at Gavin's Underground

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:46:07 -0700

Check out Gavin's Underground today for interviews with Jason Metcalf and Cara Despain, who are showing this month at Salt Lake's Kayo Gallery. Metcalf, who works in a variety of mediums including painting and performance, was our featured artists in January and Despain, whose recent paintings are featured in this exhibit, has been a regular contributor to 15 Bytes.

Interviews with Present Tense Artists

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:17:48 -0700

Gavin Sheehan's post today at Gavin's Underground featured interviews with Nick Potter and CJ Lester, two artists featured in the Present Tense exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center (see our June edition). Potter and Lester were both involved in the 337 Project last year and their work is featured in the Art Center's current exhibit of artists involved in the project. The new exhibit opened to packed crowds last night and will be open through September 27.

Earl Denet Dies

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 10:28:47 -0700

Earl Denet was in an automobile accident earlier today in South Jordan and did not survive. A Hopi and resident of Riverton, was well-known for his kachina dolls, figures carved from the roots of the cottonwood tree and given as gifts to young Hopi girls so they too can learn of the many different kachinas known to the Hopi people. Kachinas in the Hopi society represent the spirits of all aspects of nature. Traditional "Old Style' kachina dolls closely resemble those made around the turn of the century.

Denet, who was a featured artist with the Utah Arts Council and a recipient of a Utah Artist Grant, was represented by Utah Artist Hands in Salt Lake.

Art at the Old Greek Town Station

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:59:08 -0700

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 most prominent of these is a teetering, rust colored sculpture topped by two clock faces. If you visit the new piece, you'll also want to visit the Salt Lake Art Center (just south of the sculpture), where beginning June 20th Konopasek will be exhibiting an installation along with 21 other artists who participated in the 337 project last year (see our June edition).

Chalk Art This Weekend

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:02:59 -0700

The Utah Foster Care Foundations's 6th annual Chalk Art Festival is this weekend, June 13th and 14th in downtown Salt Lake City. During the festival, thousands of families gather at the Gateway to watch dozens of artists create, beautiful, temporary works of art.

To get you -- and the participating artists -- in the mood, we thought we'd share some photos of works by the fabulous British artist Julian Beever

Remember, everything has been drawn, including the hose and stream of water.

Marnae Rathke at Finch Lane Gallery

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:55:29 -0700

If you've already read 15 Bytes then you know about the opening for Stefanie Dykes Cathedral tonight at Finch Lane Gallery, 6-9pm (see page 7). But Dykes' work is not the only reason to make Finch Lane part of your Friday evening. Also showing with Dykes is photographer Marnae Rathke. Following is a short write up on Rathke from Geoff Wichert, who previewed her show:

As a child, I often dreamed about a blank, mysterious building standing against a seaside cliff. Rooms in this structure opened into caves, while tunnels in the earth led to empty rooms and stark windows overlooking the surf. It was abandoned, ruined, looming over a sandy wasteland, and I never figured out who built it or why it was there. Nothing in my waking life matched it. And nothing has, until I came upon Marnae Rathke’s evocative photographs at the Finch Lane Gallery (June 6 through July 25).

While it’s not hard to see out how Rathke's dreamscapes came to be—each ambivalent image is composed of two exposures printed together, one of the rugged desert landscape and another a familiar architectural monument—the eye resists separating the interwoven images, which resolve into a single, unsettling vision. The natural and the man-made merge, blending construction and erosion—ephemeral events against the slow demolition of time passing—into spires, ribs, walls, ominous openings, bearing members, waterfalls. Swelling and collapsing forms suggests the history frozen all around us, hidden in the instantaneous encounter. There’s an argument here that we are part of nature, and that only an error of uncomprehending vision, honed by competition and the struggle to survive, prevents us from seeing the unity of things. Conversely, the way the built can seem either to underlie or to eat away at the natural may suggest something about the dependency or encroachment of one possibility on another. There is also poetry: layered compositions resonate, conspiring with the interplay of light and shadow to create a rhythm that becomes musical, polyphonic: in the best, symphonic. And there is that eerie, even spooky feeling recalled from dreams. We are reminded that the mansions of the lord were here long before us, and we are—and ought to feel like—children exploring an ancient, haunted house.

-- Geoff Wichert

A reception for artists Marthae Rathke and Stefanie Dykes will be held at Finch Lane Gallery this evening, Friday, June 6 from 6 to 9 pm.

June 2008 Edition now online

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 03:15:20 -0700

The June 2008 edition is now online, with plenty of artists, exhibitions and events:
Amanda Moore at the Rose Wagner: page 1
Provo's new Sego Art Center: page 1
The Nomadic Project comes to Utah: page 4

Jann Haworth at SL's Main Library: page 4
In Memoriam: Angelo Caravaglia: page 5
Mestizo Arts is back in town: page 5
Stefanie Dykes' Cathedral at Finch Lane: page 7
Afterimage and Present Tense at the SL Art Center: page 7
Olivia Mae Pendergast's Africa paintings: page 9

Plus: Untitled Guesswork, Tips on Artist Statements, Iao's new PROJECTS, and the announcements you need to know what to see in the next week and what to look forward to in the next month.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT ON ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION PLEASE DO SO BY USING THE COMMENTS LINK AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

Behaviourables and Futuribles

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 20:43:01 -0700

Behaviourables and Futuribles
A review of Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology, and Consciousness
Reviewed by Edward Bateman

In 1970, Roy Ascott wrote, "If writing about art has any value at all at a time when art works and processes are themselves polemical, it can only be to discuss alternative futures." Ascott has always had his eye on the future with an interest in big ideas and bigger possibilities. As both an artist and especially as an educator, his influence has extended beyond his personal reputation.
Telematic Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness is a highly academic collection of essays by Roy Ascott. His writing seems to always have been at the forefront of ideas in art whether in cybernetics, post-modern thought, or the twinned technologies of computers and telecommunications. Ascott isn't interested in using computers merely to make images; his interests lie in processes of interactivity and global communications and how they can be used to make a new kind of art.

In this collection of writing extending from the early sixties through the year two thousand, Ascott explores the edges of not what is possible, but what might be possible. His early writings explore the theme of cybernetics. Long before the word cyber became a catch-phrase of digital technology, it was used to describe interactive systems that created order and purpose through feedback loops. He finds this analogous to the interactive process that artists have always sought (even if they were unaware of it), and is a key concept in his personal art.

With terms like techno-qualia, cyberception, and post-biological, Ascott loves coining new words to express new possibilities; a hallmark of its time. His writings from the 90s are a reminder of the techno-utopianism that preceded the dot-com crash. They reflect a time when the (then) new and growing technologies seemed to hold the promise of all things being possible - a chance to reinvent the world with digital and communication tools that could reshape not just the world, but human consciousness itself. Instead, we found ourselves in a world of everyday commerce filled with the likes of ebay and amazon.com.

What We're Working On

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:43:50 -0700

This month's edition of 15 Bytes is shaping up to have a sort of mini-theme: travel. Which seems appropriate with summer just around the corner. In addition to our article on Amanda Moore, we have an interview with Olivia Mae Pendergast about her trip to Africa, and a spotlight on The Nomadic Project, now featured at Utah Artist Hands.
Here's a video clip about the Nomadic Project.

Yes, those are Salt Lake tulips.

Orphaned Works Revisited

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:59:52 -0700

Back on May 12, we made a post about the Orphaned Works Bill. Here's an interesting YouTube post (it's really an audio file rather than a video) about the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqBZd0cP5Yc

If you want to communicate with your elected officials about this bill go to: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

My Kid Could Paint That

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:08:53 -0700

Sundance Institute Documentary Film Series Wraps The 2007-2008 Season with a Free Screening Of My Kid Could Paint That On June 4th.

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Series wraps its 2007-2008 Season this week with a free screening of My Kid Could Paint That on June 4th. An exploration of abstract art, the media's ability to create and destroy celebrity, and role the documentary filmmaking plays in the lives of its subjects.

A film that premiered to critical and audience acclaim at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, MY KID COULD PAINT THAT chronicles the media frenzy surrounding four-year-old Marla Olmstead and invites its audience to determine whether she is an artistic genius or an exploited child at the center of a fraud. Presented in association with the Park City Film Series, the free screening starts at 7 p.m. at the Jim Santy Auditorium in the Park City Library, 1255 Park Avenue. The film's director, Amir Bar-Lev will be in attendance and will be available for a Q&A after the screening.

In MY KID COULD PAINT THAT, director Amir Bar-Lev traces four-year-old Marla's rapid ascent to international fame as a "budding Picasso" and her fall after a "60 Minutes" segment suggested Marla was not the creator of her expensive paintings. Five months before the exposé, Bar-Lev began filming Marla and her family as a part of documentary exploring child celebrity and the meaning of abstract art. As his film's focus becomes the center of a controversy, Bar-Lev attempts to uncover whether her paintings are the creations of an art prodigy or the work of an overly-ambitious and manipulative father. The end result is a film that takes an introspective look at a family, the media's ability to create and destroy celebrity, and the role documentary filmmaking plays in the lives of its subjects.

The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Series is a free monthly screening series that presents some of the most compelling nonfiction films to come out of the previous year's Sundance Film Festival. The Sundance Institute Documentary Film Series is presented in association with the Park City Film Series.

Laurie Lisonbee's work recognized

Thu, 29 May 2008 12:42:51 -0700

Laurie Lisonbee of Salem won Best of Show in the Hilton Head Art League 2008 National Juried Exhibition, Walter Greer Gallery, Hilton Head, South Carolina. The painting "Pigeon Pose With Spoon," was selected for the $2500 award from among 798 artworks entered nationally. Her
painting "Crazy Eight" recently won third place in the Springville Museum of Art's 2008 Spring Salon.

image: Pigeon Pose with Spoon, oil/mixed media on panel, 30"x15", 2007

East Broadway Children's Fair

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:06:31 -0700

If you've been to Salt Lake City's Gallery Stroll recently, you'll know that the Broadway Art Block (between about 150 East and 350 East) has become a vibrant and exciting part of the downtown tapestry. With galleries, bookstores, record stores, fashion boutiques, antiques, coffee shops and more, the strip of one-story retail shops remains one of the city's last bastions for local commerce and a magnet for the curious consumer.

Those consumers include plenty of hipsters and young singles, but the retailers welcome Salt Lake's families as well. To prove the point, this Saturday, May 31 from 11 am to 5 pm they are putting on a Children's Fair.

Sponsored by Saans Photography, Frosty Darling, Boku Massage, Ken Sanders Rare Books, and Kayo Gallery, the Children's Fair will feature:
~~Story Time~
~Magic Show~
~Toy Pony Rides~
~Balloon Artist~
~Dance Performers~
~Face Painting~
~Arts and Crafts~~
Children's Clothing~
~Free Portrait Sitting~
~Chair Massages for Parents

Join your neighbors at the Childrens' Fair at 173 and 177 East Broadway, SLC on Saturday, May 31, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For more information, call: 801-328-8827