{"id":101024,"date":"2026-01-13T14:54:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=101024"},"modified":"2026-02-17T06:28:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T13:28:25","slug":"carol-sogard-and-the-taxonomy-of-human-impact-at-finch-lane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/carol-sogard-and-the-taxonomy-of-human-impact-at-finch-lane\/","title":{"rendered":"Carol Sogard and the Taxonomy of Human Impact at Finch Lane"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Installation<\/a>

An installation view of Fossil Remains reveals Sogard\u2019s methodical staging of found objects and their photographic counterparts, blurring the line between scientific display and contemporary art.<\/p><\/div>\n

Someone who glanced through the door at Carol Sogard\u2019s<\/a> Finch Lane exhibit wouldn\u2019t be entirely wrong to assume that what they were seeing was not art, but science. Fossil Remains<\/em> deliberately partakes of both activities. Sogard\u2019s extraordinarily good-looking and impeccably well-organized exhibition reminds us that all true knowledge begins in science, and that science, which is powered by ignorance and the humble desire to learn and understand, begins just like art, with observation. That, and taxonomy. Only because we identify and name things can we divide the natural world into categories of being: animal, mineral, vegetable, good and bad. What Sogard, a rare creative genius in our midst, has taken on is nothing less than acknowledging our influence and impact on those categories, which are not as remote as we like to think. By observing the evidence of our presence among the signs of nature, she holds a mirror up to our behavior and shows us ourselves. Paradoxically, she makes this process into art by her determination to harmonize the two realms and show how the natural and human spheres overlap.<\/h4>\n

There are three steps in Sogard\u2019s presentation\u2014or perhaps we should say her simulated publication\u2014of her research. In the first, box-like trays of initially disorganized samples are laid out on tables in the center of the room. Signs on them request that we \u201cPlease Do Not Touch Specimens.\u201d In a museum these might be under glass, the vitrine or display case being ways in which precious objects are made visually accessible without putting them at risk. By omitting that protection, Sogard makes her chosen objects much more accessible, and takes a risk. Anyone who has shown art will know how futile such signs are in the presence of the actively curious, even as the objects\u2014some of these found in nature and some of them made or adjusted by the artist\u2014are essentially irreplaceable.<\/h4>\n

In the second tier, photographs of the objects are framed for presentation on the wall. Here they display preliminary sorting: \u201cCollected Fragments\u2014Northern, South-Central UT, 2025\u201d and \u201cLeaves, Scraps, and a Green Balloon\u2014VT-MI-UT 2023-5.\u201d Where the actual finds were available for examination and testing, here we\u2019ve moved on to the point where they\u2019ve become visual resources only.<\/h4>\n