Fascinating portal into history, memory, preservation of Native American artistic, cultural heritage: Russel Albert Daniels — Wild Roses at Material Art Gallery

Perhaps the most significant impact of contemporary Native American artists is that their output affirms that their respective Indigenous cultures and people will always be here and the media in which they create their art, by reflecting upon their experiences in contemporary society, means they are always breathing life into their cultures. A multidisciplinary photographer … Read more

The act of memory as art: Current Utah Museum of Contemporary Art exhibitions offer impressive scope for viewer to absorb

The act of memory as art, viewed within a far-reaching scope of how it reverberates through human expression, is the dominant theme in the current exhibitions at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA).  The Utah Review summarizes each of the shows:  IN MEMORY: continuing through Feb. 22, 2025 In a review of a rare … Read more

The compelling political power of remembrance: Fazilat Soukhakian: Under the Same Sky at Material Gallery

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

The birth of Utah’s tremendous art movement: Springville Museum of Art’s exhibition Salon 100: A Retrospective of 100 Spring Salons and the Students that Built Art City

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

Peter Everett’s intellectually absorbing Hypnagogic exhibition at Material Gallery set for June 28 closing reception

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

Backstage at the 2024 Utah Arts Festival: Meet some of the artists in the Artist Marketplace — Part 3

Found, reclaimed and upcycled materials, the confidence of flexing and fusing traditional and digital media and an acute sensitivity for representing nature, its  cycles and rhythms are just some observations about this year’s Utah Arts Festival’s Artist Marketplace.  Approximately 32% of the artists who applied this year for the festival were accepted. With a jury … Read more

Backstage at the 2024 Utah Arts Festival: Meet some of the artists in the Artist Marketplace — Part 2

Found, reclaimed and upcycled materials, the confidence of flexing and fusing traditional and digital media and an acute sensitivity for representing nature, its  cycles and rhythms are just some observations about this year’s Utah Arts Festival’s Artist Marketplace.  Approximately 32% of the artists who applied this year for the festival were accepted. With a jury … Read more

Backstage at the 2024 Utah Arts Festival: Meet some of the artists in the Artist Marketplace – Part 1

Found, reclaimed and upcycled materials, the confidence of flexing and fusing traditional and digital media and an acute sensitivity for representing nature, its  cycles and rhythms are just some observations about this year’s Utah Arts Festival’s Artist Marketplace.  Approximately 32% of the artists who applied this year for the festival were accepted. With a jury … Read more

Late spring shows at Utah Museum of Contemporary Art: Out Loud: Growing Pains, Parable Bodies by Moses Williams, 2024 Gala Art Auction: La Dolce Vita

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

The vibrant gifts of Inheritance in Andrew Alba’s works at Material art gallery

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