At first glance, Heather Stamenov’s paintings depict people interacting with the landscape in playful ways, or responding to natural elements and seasons through athletics. But soon, something uncanny begins to surface. Synchronized swimmers glide through snow in the middle of winter. Aerialists swing from a ski lift chair, […]
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 […]
The era of mass incarceration went vogue in the 1970s, when the perceived uptick in crime had the American public and politicians shaking in their britches. Racially-coded theories like the broken windows theory and mandatory minimums disproportionately caught Black people and other people of color in the carceral […]
In viewing photographs, we tend to look right through or past the photo itself, with all its elaborate technical background information, and imagine we are seeing the object in the picture as if it were actually present. In her piece “Poised Compression,” Rosa Barba short-circuits that impulse by […]
Surely no one can be unaware of the strife along the border between the United States and Mexico. It seems a wall is going to be built, no matter how we feel about it. Two architect-designers, Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello, who collaborate under the name Rael […]
With their latest installation, Park City’s Kimball Art Center adds itself to a prestigious international list of exhibition hosts for internationally renowned artist Lee Mingwei. The Taiwanese-American artist’s work focuses on (among other things) intimacy and connection. He explores the ubiquitous nature of these raw human moments and […]
Three’s the charm this week as a third socially committed art exhibition joins two already in progress, one at UMOCA and another at Phillips. As it happens, Crisis is also the third part of Between Life and Land, a year-long survey of environmentally concerned art at the Kimball […]
Touring Broadway shows, rock bands, and blockbuster art shows schedule venues and acts years in advance. That’s great for events that take place over decades or even centuries, but contemporary art hasn’t that luxury. So when the Kimball Art Center’s curator, Nancy Stokes, undertook to survey the evolution […]
When Alice took a bite from a cake labeled “Eat Me,” or drank from the bottle tagged “Drink Me,” terrifying changes overcame her: she grew to the size of a house, then shrank to that of a mouse. It’s not hard to see those permutations, which artist Jennifer […]
As remarkable as the fiber art works of Judith Scott are in person, it adds another dimension to see her at work in the short film, Judith Scott in the Studio, that plays in rotation with five other short films in the Kimball galleries video space. Here there […]
Technical language, used without regard to its actual meaning, has become a mainstay of entertainment. In just one example, the engines of the starship Enterprise were powered by “dilithium crystals.” Those words name two real states of matter that have nothing to do with each other, except as […]
Maia Cruz Palileo paints vivid and colorful scenes of life in remarkable detail, full of specific portraits of what are, however accurate, ultimately imaginary Philippine places and characters. Like her charming figure sculptures, they have not been drawn from life, but rather distilled from research into the history […]
When I remember my favorite movie scenes, it’s often because of something particularly revealing that an actor does. But in the hands of a really good director, there is always another actor in the scene whose work I may not remember — may not even consciously notice — but whose work precedes those I do notice and may be far more telling. Perhaps the camera holds a shot for a several seconds, until I become aware that through its lens I am fixated, staring at something. Then it wheels about and fixes on something else, and I understand what the character sees and how they are thinking. The camera in those minutes reveals itself as the most important actor.
One thing that can probably be said with relative certainty about part-time Utah resident and full-time artist Cara Despain is that she’s not in it for the money. Nothing in her current outing at the Kimball in Park City says “Collectable.” Even the show’s “hood ornament” — […]
The Kimball Art Center may have been liberated by its new location at the back of the Yard — a warren of working-class haunts across the street from Park City’s cemetery — full of 19th-century miners and bar-keeps. A case in point is the current show, When Evening […]
[dropcap]Freedom [/dropcap]Would Be Mine at the Kimball Art Center celebrates the career of feminist art heroine Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002), whose earliest sociopolitical artwork preceded the 1970s flourish of feminist artists. Because she was an initial outlier to the feminist art movement typically associated with names like […]
“Cloven,” by Nicole Pietrantoni, at the Kimball Art Center, photo by Stanna Frampton “Reader, this is a record of loss and abundance. Let me be clear – what is vulnerable has potential for change. Reader, as this is consequential, so let us be systematic.” So opens an excision […]
Sibylle Szaggars was in her high desert home in the southwest of New Mexico when the idea for the rain paintings came to her. It was 2010 and the monsoon rains, visible for miles in the distance, would arrive regularly in the afternoon. She decided to lay one […]
This summer the Kimball Art Center (KAC) abandoned its longtime location in Old Town Park City, a decision resulting from a dispute with city leaders about what was architecturally appropriate for the resort town’s Main Street and the Kimball’s long-term plans for a new permanent home. KAC has […]
