Chocolate: The Exhibit @ The Natural History Museum of Utah

Chocolate: The Exhibit @ The Natural History Museum of Utah
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Chocolate: The Exhibit seizes you the moment you enter. The heady scent of chocolate leads you through incarnations of the cacao bean in this exhibit developed by the Field Museum in Chicago. … read more

BADKIDS @ the UMFA

BADKIDS @ the UMFA
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Look who is at the museum—The Bad Kids! As multi-media selfie-installations and gender integrated performance art, I think they’ll feel at home here. … read more

Two to Watch: Gretchen and Paul Reynolds

Two to Watch: Gretchen and Paul Reynolds
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 They’re committed artists. Every room is clothed in images—landscapes of northern Utah, paintings for painting’s sake, personal photographs and points between. A leaved dining room table has been converted into a table tennis court, and that’s how our interview begins. Gretchen makes coffee for us and opens a beer for herself, while Paul beats me several times at ping-pong. Then we sit down to talk. … read more

Salt 9: Jillian Mayer

Salt 9: Jillian Mayer
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 Jillian Mayer, a south Florida–based artist and Sundance Film Festival alum, is the ninth artist to be featured in the Utah Museum of Fine Art’s ongoing Salt series, which highlights contemporary work from emerging artists. Much of Jillian Mayer’s work investigates the fragmenting consequences of Internet usage through some of its most ubiquitous media—catchy pop songs, humorous YouTube videos, chat rooms and ephemeral linkages. … read more

salt 8: Shigeyuki Kihara

salt 8: Shigeyuki Kihara
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Shigeyuki Kihara’s exhibition at the UMFA explores various facets of her identity: the nexus of her Samoan ethnicity, status as transgendered, and the more universal self-reflexivity of being an artist. Her tight, majestic solo performance this Wednesday, as a part of the “salt” series, was the centerpiece of show.  … read more

Bonkers for Banzai: Anime Banzai 2013

Bonkers for Banzai: Anime Banzai 2013
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 The last panel I went to was “Mega Man: Powered Up!” and was by far the most heated panel of the three. Things got a little out of control when a man dressed in a full-on My Little Pony jumpsuit stated that Mega Man would always be superior to Zero, because supposedly they keep bringing Zero back, while Mega Man is a constant, which caused the other members of the audience to simultaneously start yelling that they agreed or disagreed with this guy’s theory, and why he was right or wrong. … read more

Journey To Chaos: An Interview with Klutch

Journey To Chaos: An Interview with Klutch
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An artist who was immersed in the hardcore punk scene for much of the ’80s and later served time as vice-president of a prominent insurance broker, Klutch (nicknamed after a character from Disney movie, Superdad), plans to wow Salt Lake City with a spontaneous effusion of brightly colored objects, wild line work, scavenged materials and spray paint.  … read more

A Look Into Utah’s History, Artistic Inspiration From Below the Border

A Look Into Utah’s History, Artistic Inspiration From Below the...
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Hidden not far from the I-15 overpass on W North Temple is the unimposing Mestizo Art Gallery, which opened its doors on Friday, Sept. 20 for “New Chapters | Nuevos Capítulos: A New Understanding of Utah’s History—Entendiendo una nueva historia de Utah” presented by Artes de México en Utah.  … read more

Time-Based Art Festival 09.12-09.20

Time-Based Art Festival 09.12-09.20
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The Time-Based Art Festival (presented by the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art) is a gathering of musicians, performers, visual artists, and everything in between. I went to cover dance, and was happily surprised by the strength and diversity of the music, theatre and visual art I saw along the way. … read more

Staging The Self with Martha Wilson

Staging The Self with Martha Wilson
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How does one begin, in this progressive moment, to speak of the work of Martha Wilson? How to explain the beauty of the work’s relentless exploration of selfhood and its defiant feminist declaration of the body as the site of art to an audience whose ideas of art have been formed by technological saturation—a material reliance on electronic screens and an everything all at once attitude towards, well, everything? … read more

Sustainable Startup Series: The Kickoff Panel

Sustainable Startup Series: The Kickoff Panel
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The Sustainable Startup Series, organized by the Energy Commercialization Center (ECC) to promote its newest project, consists of three evenings at The Leonardo where successful entrepreneurs, who provide products with environmental sustainability in mind, serve as panelists to offer advice and business stories.  … read more

Guerilla Girls Lecture @ UMFA 09.12

Guerilla Girls Lecture @ UMFA 09.12
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For nearly thirty years, artist activists The Guerilla Girls have been a thorn in the side of the art establishment, working methodically, humorously and anonymously to cast light on the dismal fortunes of women and minority artists. Two of the groups’ founding members, Kathe Kollwitz and Frida Kahlo, guided Utah audiences through the Guerrilla Girls story. … read more