In recent decades, Iranian visual artists — photographers, painters, filmmakers and animators — have communicated through their work how the politics of history and memory are the cogent pivotal driving forces of constructing and preserving identity, which has been under existential threat since the 1978-79 revolution that toppled the Pahlavi dynasty and installed an Islamic … Read more
When it comes to the founding of Utah’s tremendous art movement, its own “this is the place” moment occurred not in Salt Lake City nor Provo. Spanish Fork or Payson but instead in Springville, just about the same time as the town was being established in the 1850s. As Vern Swanson, retired director of the … Read more
The untethered mind is at the heart of Peter Everett’s intellectually absorbing exhibition, Hypnagogic, which will close tomorrow (June 28) at Material, which quickly has become one of Salt Lake City’s most important contemporary art galleries in its short history. In music, there is synesthesia where the composer seeks to conjure up shapes and colors … Read more
Late spring is always special at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA). The Utah Review looks at three of the latest exhibitions, including Out Loud: Growing Pains, Parable Bodies by Moses Williams and the works by Utah artists that are available in the 2024 Gala Art Auction: La Dolce Vita. OUT LOUD: GROWING PAINS: … Read more
Nearly three years ago, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ (UMFA) already widely respected Japanese art collection expanded with the acquisition of 35 works by Chiura Obata (1885-1975), one of the most significant Japanese American artists of the twentieth century, thanks to a generous gift from the Obata estate. Undoubtedly, the announcement acquisition thrilled the … Read more
In a 2007 essay, art historian ShiPu Wang wrote that the works of Asian-American artists “are more than painterly creations that exude ‘transcendental beauty’ beyond cultural boundaries.” He added, “Their meaning and significance constantly shift and expand under different sociopolitical circumstances, and they do not remain incontrovertible objects or artifacts.” In her 1990 book, Mixed … Read more
With Earth Day approaching (April 22), an excellent representation of what is at stake in the Intermountain West’s natural surroundings is found in several exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA). The standout feature of these exhibitions is the extensive evidence of excellent cross-disciplinary approaches uniting science and the humanities. Among the areas … Read more
Andrew Alba remembers the prints of paintings such as Emiliano Zapata, the leading figure of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century, and works by Mexican artist Diego Rivera that occupied a place of honor in his grandparents’ home. The grandson of Mexican migrant workers who came to the U.S., Alba says, in an … Read more
The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) will be one of the stops for the western U.S. tour of Compersion, a Tuscon-based experimental quartet which incorporates strings, wind instruments and percussion into instrumental electro-acoustic topographies. Abstract in its aesthetic conception. Compersion highlights improvisation and organic rhythmic expressions to emphasize the value of deep and immersive … Read more
Seventy years after her death at the age of 47, Frida Kahlo remains as popular as ever in contemporary culture, with a durability that matches or even surpasses that of prominent artists of her time such as Georgia O’Keeffe. The recipient of the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 … Read more