Backstage at the Utah Arts Festival 2023: The luminescent meditative sensations of Bala Thiagarajan‘s art

Bala Thiagarajan (Booth 104, Arvada, Colorado) may be a newcomer to the Utah Arts Festival but her portfolio is extensive with awards, gallery and solo exhibitions, juried art fairs, self-published books, workshops, live demonstrations and art lectures. More than 800 of her original artworks are in collections in the U.S., India, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, … Read more

Backstage at the Utah Arts Festival 2023: With six Utah artists, Circles of Influence to be featured City Library exhibition

For the 47th Utah Arts Festival, The Gallery at Library Square on the fourth floor of The City Library will feature Circles of Influence with works by six female artists (Sheryl Gillilan, Jaye Rieser, Kandace Steadman, Camille Wheatley, Virginia Catherall and Rebecca Klundt) who explore the natural world’s ubiquitous presence of circles in many forms. … Read more

Late spring blooms at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art: Out Loud: Stop and Smell the Roses, Razorbacks by Mitchell Barton, 2023 Gala Art Auction

Late spring is in full bloom at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA). The Utah Review looks at three of the latest exhibitions, including Out Loud: Stop and Smell the Roses, Razorbacks by Mitchell Barton and the works by Utah artists that are available in the 2023 Gala Art Auction. OUT LOUD: STOP AND … Read more

Spring exhibitions at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art include Boombox Benefit, along with global contemplations and multimedia of home, place, memory

The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA)’s current spring exhibitions are about various expressions and perceptions about home, place, memory, history and entitlement, with direct and indirect interpretations. They include: Boombox Benefit  When boomboxes emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, they became an icon for hip-hop’s rapid blossoming, in defining break dancing, ciphering … Read more

Many Wests exhibition now at Utah Museum of Fine Arts: extraordinary unprecedented collaboration of Smithsonian American Art Museum, four museums in American West

When Frederick Jackson Turner introduced American historians to his Frontier Thesis in Chicago during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, very few paid attention to the significance of his proposition. It was the frontier which emboldened the “composite nationality” of Americans, Turner contended. “In the crucible of the frontier, the immigrants were Americanized, liberated and fused … Read more

Two exhibitions at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art highlight creative entrepreneurship in its broadest scope, composing Latina art in vast, compelling spaces

EDITOR’S NOTE: This feature also is published in Spanish here. Translation is courtesy of Mark Alvarez, a local immigration attorney. Two ongoing exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art highlight the expanding perceptions of gallery presentations and visibility in visual arts: Beyond the Margins: An Exploration of Latina Art and Identity and Thomas Campbell: … Read more

Museo de Arte Contemporáneo: Más allá de las márgenes: Una exploración del arte latino y la identidad y Thomas Campbell: Creando algo para expresar algo, Compartir algo, Para que otros puedan sentir o querer crear algo, Esperanzadamente

Nota del Editor: Este artículo se presenta en español y inglés, gracias a Mark Alvarez. The Utah Review, aprecia su esfuerzo y su capacidad de ayudar en la preparación de las dos versiones. (English version is available here) Dos exposiciones en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo resaltan la expansión de percepciones de la galería en sus … Read more

A new twist to annual list of crowning achievements: The Utah Review’s Top 10 Moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2022

This year’s selection in The Utah Review of the top ten moments of the Utah Enlightenment in 2022 was easily the quickest to lock in, considering the possibilities. There were no close calls. The ten selections were a slam dunk. This year, however, presented the opportunity for a twist. While nine of the ten selections … Read more

Four Utah Museum of Contemporary Art exhibitions cover range of expressions on cultural identities, community, isolation, racism, social practices

Four current exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art comprise a broad segment of expressions about cultural identities, community, isolation, racism and social practices. Each of these are discussed below. The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) also received two grants totaling $140,000 from The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Arts and VIA Art … Read more

From Missouri to Utah: Alisa McCusker joins the Utah Museum of Fine Arts as senior curator

Among the museum curator’s most valuable skills is to demystify and make accessible to exhibition visitors the opportunity to interpret the stories behind the creation of great works of art, whether they were made 500 years ago or even within the past several months. For her doctoral dissertation at the University of Texas at Austin, … Read more