I was in Salt Lake City last weekend to attend the Utah Arts Council Statewide Annual Exhibition. This is a competition for artists from Utah that has been going on for 115 years and has grown so large that it is now broken up into divisions. For 2009 two categories were selected; photography and fine craft, while other years cover painting and sculpture. I was selected as as juror for the photography section this year and performed those duties at the end of September. There was a lot of good work and my hosts were so gracious I decided to go back to Salt Lake for the opening reception. Laura Durham manages the Rio Gallery, the Utah Arts Council’s venue for visual arts in downtown Salt Lake. Her design and hanging of the show was first rate and left me confident that I had selected the right work for this show. Lila Abersold, Visual Arts Department Manager, oversaw the event in terms of promotion and that appeared to be a success as well considering the ample turnout. I’d like to mention two artists whose photographs were particularly satisfying. Mark Hedengren showed two environmental portraits that conveyed the essential qualities that made each subject an individual at a perfect moment in time. Executed with a mastery of the silver halide process, his work was very solid. Van Thieu Chu’s work involves fractal-like abstraction presented on a large scale. The piece in this show was the better of the two he submitted. The work I left out from this exhibit involved some realistic elements that, combined with other abstract elements, created a narrative I found difficult to resolve in this format. Part of Self Series-Print 2 on the other hand felt complete in terms of its scale, glossy surface finish and lyrical patterns of scrolls and soft pools of tone. The combination of presentation materials and subject matter creates an interesting work that, while solidly placed within Western postmodernism, references ancient Oriental imagery. The show closes November 25, 2009.
The UAC exhibit opening coincided with Salt Lake’s monthly art walk and I had an opportunity to get a look at a few other venues while there. Of note is the exhibit of platinum photographic prints by Maine photographer Tillman Crane at the Salt Lake Art Center. Offering the rich tonal range and soft rendering of its subjects for which the platinum printing process is known, the 30 pictures in this show document the landscape through which the Jordan River meanders on its journey from Utah Lake near Provo to its mouth at the Great Salt Lake near the Salt Lake City Airport. At its best, this collection of images reveals the dichotomy of nature and development as it exists in microcosm in this corner of Utah and is indicative of circumstances throughout the contemporary West. Crane handles his camera with competence and his prints are excellent examples of a process that was patented in the 1870s, yet continues to draw adherents because of its unique properties. As such, the marriage of nineteenth Century craft and contemporary subjects that are at once beautiful and provocative makes for a show worth seeing if you are in Salt Lake. It closes January 9, 2010.
The UAC exhibit opening coincided with Salt Lake’s monthly art walk and I had an opportunity to get a look at a few other venues while there. Of note is the exhibit of platinum photographic prints by Maine photographer Tillman Crane at the Salt Lake Art Center. Offering the rich tonal range and soft rendering of its subjects for which the platinum printing process is known, the 30 pictures in this show document the landscape through which the Jordan River meanders on its journey from Utah Lake near Provo to its mouth at the Great Salt Lake near the Salt Lake City Airport. At its best, this collection of images reveals the dichotomy of nature and development as it exists in microcosm in this corner of Utah and is indicative of circumstances throughout the contemporary West. Crane handles his camera with competence and his prints are excellent examples of a process that was patented in the 1870s, yet continues to draw adherents because of its unique properties. As such, the marriage of nineteenth Century craft and contemporary subjects that are at once beautiful and provocative makes for a show worth seeing if you are in Salt Lake. It closes January 9, 2010.
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