Anyone paying attention to news from the world of art, or for that matter, anyone seeking to avoid news of our nation’s reckless and self-destructive adventures on the world’s stage, may have heard about the revelation that Banksy, surely the most popular artist of our time, is primarily […]
When the painter John Sproul lost a beloved friend, he found a way to visually represent both the other man’s presence in life and the intensely personal experience of his loss. He produced at least 30 images in this innovative visual language, expressing both “emotional turbulence and its […]
One way of looking at art has always been as a luxury item. Hence the precious metal castings and finest-stone sculptures, the gold-leaf frames, and such personal adornments as jewelry and splendid accessories. Then, in the 20th century, other options emerged. In part, that was a result of […]
4 Common Corners is a fiber arts collective whose members come together to celebrate the beauty of the Southwest. Over time, their exhibitions have celebrated such signature local elements as Rocks, Cottonwoods, and Things Abandoned. Their current showing, now in the Edna Runswick Taylor Foyer, at the East […]
“Path Into Pines” demonstrates at least two of the ways Utah painter Anne Becker plays with her medium. On the one hand, her material choice, “oil and cold wax,” might be described as neither fish nor fowl: it isn’t straight oil, nor is it encaustic: it has characteristics […]
Once upon a time, art was all about content. Hard as it may be to believe, for the longest time technique didn’t really enter into it. The dubious may want to check out an early exception: public sculpture in ancient Rome, where eventually two forms existed side-by-side. One, […]
Doug Smith is a Utah native whose credentials include degrees from both the U of U and BYU. While his design work and painting are familiar to people in at least 22 states, he shows consistently at Salt Lake City’s 15th Street Gallery, which is well known for […]
Usually, when a creative event is described as “not to be missed,” the claim is rooted in its contemporary relevance. Numerous indispensable art exhibitions have conveyed alarm about the environment and what threatens it, and to be sure no political or social circumstance feels more pressing, nor so […]
Every year, the Glass Art Guild of Utah mounts a comprehensive exhibition of local glass arts at Red Butte Garden that is exhaustive in more than one sense of the word. All media, from the smallest ornaments and tiny, colorful objects to large functional and decorative creations, are […]
The art of Andrew Wyeth was largely rejected and ignored by the stuffy critics of his day, no doubt due more to the historical moment than to any shortcoming on his part. But he responded to the resulting lack of intermediaries standing between him and his audience by […]
Modern scholars have revised their opinions on the part that things like talent, energy, determination, and even intelligence play in achieving success. Sure, those things are helpful, but none now seems so critical as luck. Good fortune is essential; bad luck can cancel all those advantages. A good […]
In the statement accompanying his cut-up and reassembled images, which he collectively titles Offense of Legacy, Greggory Wood tells us that by “legacy” he means to invoke something that parents, for example, might bequeath to their children. Or rather, that which they mean to leave, attempt to bestow, […]
Apparently I’m not the only one who thinks the most interesting art these days is to be found in the littoral zone where abstraction and representation blend. The new show at ‘A’ Gallery, Love in the Abstract, “invites viewers to explore emotion, connection, and intimacy beyond literal representation.” […]
In the 21st century, it’s not necessary to be a feminist in order to see how the deck is conventionally stacked against women. While some of these inequities are right up to date—pregnancy, contraception, autonomous healthcare among them—others date all the way back to the beginning of Time. […]
“We choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.” —John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1962 Witness to the activities of modern humanity has led to any number of tempests in ever-so-many teapots. Was 9/11 a […]
Someone who glanced through the door at Carol Sogard’s Finch Lane exhibit wouldn’t be entirely wrong to assume that what they were seeing was not art, but science. Fossil Remains deliberately partakes of both activities. Sogard’s extraordinarily good-looking and impeccably well-organized exhibition reminds us that all true knowledge […]
There are two populations avidly discussing Artificial Intelligence, or AI, of late. One is the group that created it and promotes it while anticipating soon becoming rich, or at least finally making some money. The other is the rest of us, who have heard a lot about it […]
Salt Lake’s public libraries have in common more rooms than strictly needed, but which are not wasted. Each branch has at least one art gallery, and the main library, which has its own TRAX stop and a row of shops that curl around its plaza like a sleeping […]
How do we know? How can we know? Where does knowledge come from? Whether in lectures, blogs, interviews, books, or, of course, art works, hardly a day goes by that the question isn’t asked. Then again, there can be little doubt that much of the conflict and violence […]
