“With no news from abroad, a culture ends up repeating the same things to itself. It needs the foreign not to imitate, but to transform.” —Eliot Weinberger We take for granted that Utah has one of the more vibrant and lively arts cultures in the nation. That said, […]
At Kayo in November, two eternal, contrary trends in art occupy opposing walls in what has become Shilo Jackson’s signature exhibition style. On one side, Ryan Harrington’s exquisitely crafted assemblages exemplify the Contemporary mode: each broadside makes a philosophical statement: here they comment on the universal, counterintuitive resort […]
When they make me president, I’m going to ban all group shows. – Dave Hickey Recently, two of Utah’s best-known art centers underwent major changes. One lost its home, the other changed its name. Through the turmoil, both pledged to continue supporting a particular brand of art, which […]
My first published writings on art were written in Southern California, and published by a magazine in Portland, Oregon. They were written in the LA area because that was where my stained glass studio was, and the city was then a hot place for glass art. My […]
In so many ways our modern societies are enlightened, more civilized in matters of personal liberty than was true in the past. Most of us probably take for granted that the ongoing debate over same-sex marriage marks a watershed in evolving public attitudes. Yet while there has been […]
Geoff Wichert considers the work of Anna Campbell Bliss on the eve of an exhibit at Salt Lake’s The Leonardo
In This Light, University of Utah English Professor and award-winning author Melanie Rae Thon’s most recent story collection, brings together works from a quarter century of her writing, thus becoming in effect a cross section of her artistic development. It begins with two of her early stories, which […]
The Utah Center for the Book has announced the finalists for the 2011 Utah Book Award (the date refers to the year of publication rather than then year of the award). Winners will be announced jointly by the Salt Lake City Main Library and the Utah Humanities Council […]
For your Sunday reading pleasure, an entry too late for our What We Read On Our Summer Vacation article . . . In the land of Mozart, three talented music students become life-long friends. One, Glenn Gould, becomes the most famous pianist of his time. Another, on realizing […]
Geoff Wichert takes a look at two unique though complimentary artists showing this month at Salt Lake’s Kayo Gallery.
. . . this novel imagines what might have happened during simultaneous forays among the antiquities lining the Nile River that were actually undertaken in 1850 by Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert.
A look at Cassandra Barney and Brian Kershisnik’s collaborative drawings now up at Kayo Gallery.
Far from the display of challenging aesthetic statements that make up many modern art shows, this one is immediately accessible and, in place of consternation, is more likely to generate feelings of pleasure, fun, and even exhilaration.
by Geoff Wichert From the Renaissance on, the theme of history has been expansion: the Age of Exploration carrying adventurers and map-makers to every corner of the globe; the Reformation replacing a monolithic church with religious diversity; philosophy yielding to ideology; capitalism finding the price of everything while […]
Geoff Wichert examines two new shows at the CUAC that explore works that tap into various cultural narratives, from the super heroes of comic books to the mystic shamans of primitive cultures.
by Geoff Wichert I’m suspicious of anything calling itself an art festival. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s Pasadena’s world-renowned Pageant of the Masters, with dressed-up volunteers posed in three-dimensional tableaus based on famous paintings, or the local fair, anywhere, at which children get their faces painted while […]
Read Geoff Wichert’s review of Esperanza Cortes’ and Michael Pribich’s Dollar Daze at Mestizo Art.
Manufactured objects begin their existences already possessing—and possessed by—a history. Even the latest digital wonder evokes a potential deluge of memory: early computers, radios, land lines, and wind-up phonographs are just some of the connections the latest cell phone may make. Earlier machines project memory in both directions: […]
Geoff Wichert muses on decoration, craft, art and life with a review of Ric Blackerby and Mary Boerens Sinner at Art Access.
