{"id":93272,"date":"2025-05-27T16:46:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T23:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=93272"},"modified":"2025-05-30T10:56:43","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T17:56:43","slug":"what-we-noticed-at-the-spring-salon-screens-machines-and-assembled-dreams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/what-we-noticed-at-the-spring-salon-screens-machines-and-assembled-dreams\/","title":{"rendered":"What We Noticed at the Spring Salon: Screens, Machines and Assembled Dreams"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Installation view of Greg Newbold\u2019s \u201cNew Year\u2019s Day, Black Rock\u201d and Nick Rees\u2019 \u201cRefinery\u201d at the Springville Museum of Art. Courtesy of the Springville Museum of Art.<\/p><\/div>\n

Though there is no set theme for the exhibit, the Spring Salon can create a strong contrast between and among works, causing interesting conversations, whether the pieces are hung near each other or in separate rooms.<\/h4>\n

Hanging Greg Newbold\u2019s \u201cNew Year\u2019s Day, Black Rock\u201d and Nick Rees\u2019 \u201cRefinery\u201d together brings the works into a striking dialogue. Above, there are the softer, colder colors of a daytime winter scene, and below there\u2019s a dramatic orange sky cut into by industrial structures. These are just two pieces in the exhibit in a larger conversation of natural and industrial landscapes. Seeing them situated next to each other\u2014despite how artists have historically been divided by either embracing or rejecting such modern structures in their imagery\u2014makes them appear on equal footing. Where artists like the Pre-Raphaealites would reject painting a refinery, the jurors at the Salon see aesthetic value in the subject.<\/h4>\n

This theme of Modern Art history is a conversation we might have overheard a century ago: an anxiety about an increasingly industrial world versus the natural landscape. More current anxieties, about technology rather than industry, are expressed clearly in the titles of two works: “Bound By Screens: A Self-Portrait,\u201d by Robert Fuerer, and Sara Luna\u2019s “ChatGPT, Tell Me What to Do With This Pain\u201d (discussed in Geoff Wiechert\u2019s textile review of the Salon). Uncertainty about today\u2019s technology could turn into a form of rejection for many artists, and we might see movements or trends to emulate art history as a point of opposition. On the other hand\u2014to speculate about the future of art history while setting aside the question of whether this would be a good thing\u2014I wonder if in the coming years screens and generative AI could carve out a space for aesthetic acceptance, similar to artists embracing industrial landscapes. I’ll leave it to your imagination to consider what any such acceptance by our cultural institutions might look like or what rules might or might not exist around it.<\/h4>\n
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Robert Fuerer, “Bound By Screens,” oil on panel<\/p><\/div>\n

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