Authors: Parker Scott Mortensen
Six Artists: BDAC’s Summer Gallery
I’ve been to the Bountiful Davis Art Center (BDAC) many times, but this particular gallery opening felt special. It was a warm Friday night, one of those soft Utah nights that hint at true summer. As those nights of heat near, BDAC offers six new exhibitions that explore abstraction, mediation, color and more. … read more
Downtown Play: Quarters
Shaken but not deterred, Quarters’ initial growing pains seem healthy, indicative of the people who have worked to bring this experience to Salt Lake City. Whether you love skeeball or Street Fighter, cocktails or Pabst, Quarters wants to include you. … read more
Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate
This is political, personal and requires you to confront yourself. It’s hard, and it’s a space we should all try to live in more earnestly. Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate runs until June 2 at the Springville Museum of Art. … read more
Film Review: Lean on Pete
Lean on Pete’s initial imagery, that of a boy and his horse trekking across the desert, plays into the romanticized conception of an America that doesn’t exist now and probably never did. … read more
Review: Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
Bloodlight and Bami pulls back the curtain and gives us the fly-on-the-wall cinema verité approach—this is a portrait of the artist, not just of Jones but of the artist as identity. … read more
Review: Celeste
For a game about a young girl climbing a mountain, Celeste is surprisingly less a coming-of-age story and more a story about how hard it is to take the tremendous first steps towards better health. … read more
Review: The Red Strings Club
Red Strings Club is a game that tugs at your philosophical leanings, asking grand and granular questions that it demands you answer. But most importantly, Red Strings weaves a familiar paranoia using the root of cyberpunk: that corporations increasingly own our well-being, and, to a large extent, we’ve come to like it. … read more
Slamdance Film Review: Bernard and Huey
Bernard and Huey is about what happens when two middle-aged men meet 25 years after their young friendship ran its course. It’s a film about men navigating their relationship to sex in the shadow of their own egos, of the confident and put-together women they fuck and, of course, each other … read more
Goodnight 2017: UMOCA’s 2018 Galleries
the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art (UMOCA) put on a fabulous all-museum exhibition opening for five new shows from dozens of artists, including a collection curated by Earl Gravy. Artist in residence Justin Watson also unveiled a curated project of 30 artists, and UMOCA’s smaller galleries are now home to some excellent works by Eric Overton and Merrit Johnson, all exploring physical and political landscapes through nontraditional inquiry. … read more
Hyperreal: Adam Watkins’ Echoes of a Morning Star
As you head down the stairs at Bountiful Davis Art Center, you see the first piece of Echoes of a Morning Star, Adam Watkins’ collection of photographic tableaus. From his BeneathME series, the piece is titled The Mirror. … read more