JOIN US FOR OUR INAUGURAL FIRST FRIDAY CELEBRATION

FRI OCT 7, LECTURE AT 7:00 PM

FESTIVITIES FROM 8:00 PM - 10:00 PM 

Join us for our new First Friday event, a monthly party featuring a DJ, reasonably-priced cash bar, food, and the opening of a new exhibition showcasing the very best in contemporary art.  Our inaugural First Friday, which will begin at 8:00 PM on Friday, Oct. 7, will be preceded by a public reading by Iranian-American poet Sholeh Wolpé at 7:00 PM and the opening of Doublespeak, a stunning new exhibition organized by Micol Hebron.  (See below for more information about our speakers and exhibitions.)

  

Members are invited to join us prior to the lecture at 6:00 PM for an exclusive preview with a free bar and hors d'oeuvres.

 

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DOUBLESPEAK

OCT 7, 2011 - JAN 7, 2012

Inspired by the 19^th century Vietnamese  poetess Hô Xuân Hu'o'ng, whose work explored the rich possibilities of aural and semantic double entendres, our newest exhibition, Doublespeak, features contemporary women artists who work in strategies of code and layered meaning.  For centuries women have found eloquent and inventive ways to articulate their ideas and experiences when social, political, or religious confines would otherwise prohibit them from speaking out.  The international artists in Doublespeak use material, language, and bodies to 

present an idea, medium, or structure that has multiple reads depending on the perspective from which the viewer is perceiving and 'reading' the work.

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Daniela Comani, La Petite  Princesse, Piezo print 

CREATIVE IDEAS FOR EVERY SEASON: BRIAN BRESS

OCT 7 - NOV 19 2011

Brian Bress's wry single channel video, Creative Ideas for Every Season will open as the inaugural exhibition in the newly-constructed New Genres Gallery. Creative Ideas for Every Season explores the difficulties and absurdities confronting the pursuit of a creative practice.

 

The New Genres Gallery will offer residents of Utah ongoing opportunities to experience visual art that incorporates, video, performance, installation, digital media, and mixed media. 

 

Bress's work has exhibited at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, The Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, The J. Paul Getty Museum, and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.  He received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from UCLA.  

 

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Brian Bress, Creative Ideas for Every Season, 2010, high definition video, color and sound, Courtesy of the artists and Cherry and Martin Gallery.  

FINAL LIGHT: V. DOUGLAS SNOW IN RETROSPECT

AUG 31 - OCT 22, 2011

Organized by guest curator Frank McEntire, Final Light presents defining works from Snow's career, featuring more than 35 paintings from private and public collections across the West.  A painter, printmaker, and professor, Snow lived and worked in Utah's red rock country for over half a century. After studying at Columbia University and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Snow returned to his home state of Utah to paint Capitol Reef's mountains and mesas. Snow became a nationally recognized artist at the age of 30 when he was featured in Life magazine and his work is included in major collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, the Springville Museum of Art, and the Museum of Art at Brigham Young University.  

  

Salt Lake Art Center is honored to host this co-located exhibition with the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, showcasing a large body of work at both institutions. 

 

Supported by Bonnie Phillips, JEPS Foundation, Stremmel Gallery, and Cathy and Larry Bagley.   

 

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V. Douglas Snow, Reprise, 1994, oil on canvas, Courtesy Susan Snow and Stremmel gallery.  

BILD: JARED LINDSAY CLARK 

AUG 31 - DEC 17, 2011

Jared Clark is the inaugural artist for the Locals Only Gallery, the Art Center's newest initiative to promote local artists as they engage the contemporary art world.

A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Salt Lake City artist Clark has installed a new work from his Bild series, which employs scavenged materials to create site-specific sculptures.

The title of this series, which is both the German word for a painting as well as a homophone for the English word "build," references ideas of imagery as well as ideas of construction. Clark's piece, a monumental installation composed of urban and domestic objects, takes as its springboard the tenets of Minimalist primary sculptural forms, including confrontation with the viewer in real space in ways that demand consideration of the relationship between sculpture and the scale of the human body.

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LOOPED: ENDURING

AUG 31 - NOV 3, 2011 

On September 23, 2005 Jamie McMurray began 365 Performances, a project in which he did a performance action every day for the duration of a year. As McMurry himself describes, "All of the collecting, cataloging and recording very quickly became an integral part of the work, as it allowed for constant review and examination during its actual existence as a work of performance."

In Nikolaj Larsen's video My Cat and I, the artist holds a cat in his arms for several minutes as he attempts the impossible task of creating a motionless portrait. The cat's increasing agitation juxtaposed with Larsen's deadpan expression makes for an amusing contrast while setting up an examination of the constructs of video and photographic portraiture. 

Both works are on display as part of the Art Center's Looped series of contemporary video art.

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Above: Jamie McMurray, 365 Performances, 2005-2006, Video Installation for Monitor; Below: Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen, My Cat and I, 1999 Video Installation for Monitor.

FOURTH ANNUAL URBAN GALLERY 

AT NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE  

FRI, SEP 23, NOON - 8:00 PM

SAT, SEP 24, 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM

The Salt Lake Art Center and 337 Project present the Fourth Annual Urban Gallery, an event supporting Neighborhood House, Utah's oldest provider of daycare services for low-income families.  Watch as top local artists create a major public art installation on the eight garage doors in the Neighborhood House parking lot at 1050 West 500 South in Salt Lake City.  Children's activities, food, and a beer garden for the adults will be offered. 

LECTURE: POEMS OF PROVOCATIONS AND WITNESS

SHOLEH WOLPE

FRI, OCT 7, 2011, 7:00 PM 

Sholeh Wolpé will read from Rooftops of Tehran and speak on the opening evening of the exhibition Doublespeak as part of the Art Center's Fall Lecture Series. 

 

Sholeh Wolpé is an Iranian-American poet who has made a significant mark in the vibrant and growing literature of the Mideast diaspora. Her poems are political, satirical, and unflinching in the face of war, tyranny and loss. They transmute experience into the magic of the imagined but they also dare to be tender and funny.  As author Richard Katrovas notes, "Brushing against the grain of Persian-Islamic culture, [Wolpé] sings a deep affection for what she ruffles."

 

Wolpé's lecture is presented in partnership with the Utah Humanities Council.  To learn more about the Utah Humanities Book Festival, click here. 

 

CREATIVITY IN FOCUS FILM SERIES
PUBLIC SPEAKING

FRI, OCT 14, 2011, 7:00 PM 

"I have way too frequently for my own moral comfort been asked if I was an only child." -Fran Lebowitz

 

Directed by Martin Scorsese, Public Speaking is a feature-length documentary starring author Fran Lebowitz, who is known for her unique take on modern life. The film weaves together extemporaneous monologues with archival footage and the effect is a portrait of Fran's worldview and experiences.

 

Presented in partnership with Utah Film Center.