Daily posts on happenings in Utah’s visual arts community.
In March of 2004, unsolicited and unilaterally, I climbed upon my digital soapbox and declared Shawn Harris “the best we’ve got.” In his amalgamation of photography, painting, and found and constructed objects I saw a vital artistic medium that could address a variety of subjects with wit, beauty and insight. […]
The notion of “aura” and its relation to the mechanical means of reproduction, introduced into critical thought over seventy years ago by Walter Benjamin, has proven to be one of the more fruitful analysis of its time. Its influence resonates through much of contemporary critical thought, even when […]
October is the time for spooks and ghosts and this book, produced in conjunction with a 2005 show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, is the prefect Halloween treat. The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult is a collection of images of ghosts, spirits, and otherworldly […]
For artists who dream of a living and working environment conducive to creating and selling their work, the “Downtown Rising” visioning process, sponsored by the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Alliance, is an opportunity not to be missed. Here are two powerful organizations that already have a sense […]
Salt Lake City residents, especially those in the Sugar House area, have a decision to make: What to do with the Garfield Elementary school located at 1838 South and 1500 East. Garfield hasn’t been an elementary school for more than 20 years now, but it has remained an […]
by Ed Bateman Writing about art in a book without pictures might strike you as odd – something like singing about dancing. But since works of art also have meaning, who better to unpack that meaning than someone whose passion is ideas – a trained philosopher. Arthur C. Danto […]
Drum roll please. A new art gallery recently opened at the Salt Lake City Main Library. Art at the Main is a non-profit artist co-op exclusively for emerging Utah artists. The small space among the atrium shops inside the library building features the work of 17 artists working […]
As artists it is often easy to forget how magical the things that we do really are. We are so deeply involved with the phenomenon of seeing that, to us, its complexity can become invisible and be taken for granted. Human visual perception is the topic of Harvard […]
Artist Jean Arnold was in the Helper Hotel seven years ago, sketching people coming and going. The difficulty of sketching even the most cursory glimpse of them, besides underlining the differences between drawing and photography, triggered a multi-year experiment in the depiction of movement. Her current show at Philips Gallery in Salt […]
DADA: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris Ed. Leah Dickerman, with essays by Brigid Doherty, Dorothea Dietrcih, Sabine T. Kreibel, Michael R. Taylor, Janine Mileaf, Mathhew S. Witkovsky. National Gallery of Art, Washington in association with D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc., 2005. ISBN: 0-89468-313-6 (softcover); 1-933045-20-5 (hardcover) […]
Sometime last fall I picked up Art and the Power of Placement, an insightful and scholarly work written by Victoria Newhouse and published by The Monacelli Press. At the time, I thought I would review the book for our recently introduced column “Recently Read,” but days before 15 […]
by Chris Brooks During the Holidays I read Jonathan Harr’s The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio Masterpiece published by Random House last year. Harr, a magazine writer and journalist, is best known for his bestselling non-fiction work A Civil Action, which was made into a movie […]
Artists of Utah News Taking a Byte Out of Crime Or Why You Should Be Proud to Wear Your 15 Bytes T-Shirt If, in a possibly sugar-induced coma-like daze, you happened to watch the Channel 2 10 o’clock news on Monday night, you will have seen a story […]
In his elegantly written and accessible read, “The Accidental Masterpiece: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa,” Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic for the New York Times, explores the creative process as it is revealed in the lives of artists and non-artists alike. Kimmelman brings a critic’s […]
On Tuesday, June 21, The Utah Cultural Alliance held its second “Culture Bytes,” a continuing monthly series discussing issues relating to the arts. Salt Lake critics Celia Baker, Brandon Griggs, Frank McEntire, Kathy Adams, and Claudia Harris discussed art/culture reviewers — how they think, what their readers want […]
Art Access/VSA arts of Utah is proud to announce that the collaborative artwork of brother and sister, Sam and Sara Weyrich of Salt Lake City has been selected as one of 10 finalists for the “Discover What Art Is . . .” Exhibit that is currently being shown […]
Book Review: First Sight of the Desert Artist Interrupted: The Life and Art of Ella Peacock by Tony Watson [portfolio_slideshow] The University of Utah Press recently published a biography of Spring City artist Ella Peacock by first-time author Kathryn J. Abajian. Abajian’s biography, entitled First Sight of the […]
It’s that time of year again. Time for the Farmer’s Market at Pioneer Park to open it’s proverbial doors and welcome the eager public. But along with throngs of produce-buyers and art-lovers, the Market’s opening has also brought much controversy in the community of artists regarding the artists […]
