Exhibition Review:Orem
Why Do We Hang?
UAC's UTAH 2003, CRAFTS AND PHOTOGRAPHY
by Jill MacAllister/photos
courtesy UAC
Issues that haunt all local artist exhibitions have followed some of
Utahs foremost artists to the UVSC Woodbury Art Museum in Orem.
The Museum currently showcases the Utah Arts Council's
Utah! 2003: Crafts and Photography,
featuring eighty-seven pieces from sixty-one Utah artists. These pieces
and the process for choosing them might push some artists and viewers to
ask, "What is the goal of such a show?" Is the goal to simply celebrate
Utah art? Is it to raise the bar on art in Utah? Or is it to invite more
people to participate in Utah art?
Most people see the
exhibition as a chance to enrich the public while museum visitors celebrate
art and Utah all at once. The show is sure to open a few new eyes
to art and a few new hearts to Utah.
Utah! 2003 definitely
holds pieces that are bound to help viewers celebrate the life and souls
of Utah artists. My favorite piece in the exhibition is Tie Scape
by Marcee Blackerby. This multi-media delight uses hardened neckties
to create buildings in a city skyline. Rumor says Marcee has stopped
strangers on the street and offered to buy their ties. Her Tie Scape
is a testimony of her unique tie tastes. The meaning of the work is
up to the viewer to ponder. While Elizabeth Jacobs, assistant curator
of the Woodbury Museum, sees the piece as a tribute to function and utility
(what else can we do with a tie?), I see Tie Scape as a social
commentary on the white collar worker.
Guests might also
search for meaning in the photo series Eve's Daily Breakdown.
The series contains nine small pictures of a woman, seen from the waist
down, sitting in a chair. She holds a rosary. She holds an iron. She rubs
her own feet. The hand painted prints have a mystery about them that will
leave you thinking.
The photograph of
a pensive young man might also stir some thought. In Christo's Introspection
, by Shawn Harris, the photo is covered by a piece of glass with a
sketch of coin operated binoculars. The binoculars line up with the boy's
eyes, and the whole piece is open for interpretations.
Marriage by John Rees
Other works to help you celebrate
Utah are a salad theme lamp (ask the docent to turn it on for you), a
set of alphabet drawings, a photo of poor children heading for school,
a comedic wedding portrait, an image of Seattle, and a large dragon made
of cardboard and duct tape. Museum guests should also pay attention to the
prices of the pieces. Although pieces may appear to be over priced, some
pieces are actually marked at a third of their normal cost. These prices
might make it possible to celebrate your favorite piece forever.
But for some critics, celebrating Utah artists is just not good enough
for the show, and so we might have to ask if and when we should raise
the bar on Utah art. If this is a concern for you, the exhibit may disappoint
you. While many of the pieces in Utah! 2003 are breathtaking, there are
a few that made me ask, "If this is what the jurors chose, I'd hate to
see what they turned away." Some pieces did not seem to me to be artistically
advanced. I will let you discover these pieces for yourself.
Now if you have a
more expansive view of art, you may be upset that anyone got turned away
at all. After all, art is art, and two jurors just came to Orem and decided
that seventy-eight Utah artists and two hundred and seventy one pieces
of art are not worthy of your thoughts or admiration. Whose job is it to
say that a certain quilt is not art and that a certain skyline made of petrified
ties is art? Is there really a way to decide which pieces will touch people
in deep and emotional ways?
Shows like this always
push me to contemplate if, in statewide exhibitions, we really want
to invite the public to come see "The best of the best," or do we want
to invite the public to come see new ways that even they can express themselves.
If we are trying to inspire new people to create, how can we turn them
away when they submit to the exhibit next year?
It is not just the
final product that gives art its value. We should remember to look
at the creative process and the interpretive process, and you just cannot
judge people with out both of these processes in mind.
Some people feel very
strongly that the art world should not place artists on a pedestal.
"I don't think that
art is for the prodigy," Jacobs said. "It is not some untouchable thing
that only the select few great masters can accomplish." Jacobs explained
her opinion comes from her love of the art making process.
"It is something that
everyone should be able to do because there is something in us as human
beings that has a desire to create," she said. "So that process of
creating is more important than the end results to me because it is that
process that helps us communicate with ourselves and helps us communicate
with our surroundings. The process is a part of the result."
Can that result be
judged? Does the jury process rob common people of their artistic freedom
or does it simply help raise the bar?
Make time to come
celebrate Utah art this month at the UVSC Woodbury Gallery in Orem, Utah;
the exhibit will run through Nov. 25. But when you stop by don't forget
to ask yourself about your own artistic potential. What can you create?
Where would you want it to hang? Are you going to let anyone stop you?
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Christensen . . . from page 1
The central sculpture of Christensen's series, titled The Lens
of Damocles, relates to a camera lens. Christensen's objective is
to not show the sculpture directly, but through the eyes of a camera. The
sculpture is viewed by looking at a monitor, which displays what the camera
is focusing on: a ten by eight foot framework of a house that has a sculpture
of a head dangling from the top of the framework.
Christensen says the camera is used as a weapon of perception.
"The camera lens is parallel between Roman society and American society,"
Christensen says. The head is supposed to look like a Roman bronze head
and is actually a self-portrait of Christensen.
"The piece is really dealing with the idea of perception; perception
of danger and of life. Hence, the head is a bell, like an alarm."
Christensen says he tends to work in two different ways. One is
by purely dealing with the beauty and nature of the material he is working
with. The other way deals with creating work through concepts, which is
the type that makes up most of his current show.
"I would say a lot of [the show] is concept driven and interesting
enough; I don't think up a concept and find a piece to fit it," Christensen
says. "I get ideas of an image and I start building the concept as I'm
moving along."
Christensen says an example of this type of sculpture is one of
his that consists of a table with two life-size telephones on it. The
telephones have faces and ears on them. The work is titled End of
Discussion. Christensen says he saw a telephone and imagined the
process of casting it as part of a human. He then started thinking of
what different implications for an anthropormorphic telephone would be.
As he started casting the telephone, he came up with the concept of one-sided
conversations.
"It's the idea that the poses of the phones are somewhat like
when you're on a telephone conversation that is one sided so that no
matter what you say, the other person is not listening."
Christensen also creates sculptures by reacting to objects that
he finds. One of the pieces in the Snow College exhibition is centered
around a large sphere made out of solid rubber that one of Christensen's
students found. On the rubber is the inscription "Lord Lastophere." The
strange name reminded Christensen of something demonic, so he made the
rubber look like a large witch's cauldron.
Another sculpture in the show deals with the concern he has of
being too imposing of his own ideas on his students.
The title of the sculpture is Academic Obsessions and consists
of 500 pencil stubs beneath a chalkboard. The words, "Hast thou seen
the white whale" (a reference to Melville's Moby Dick) is written
on the chalkboard.
"The idea is that the single-mindedness of academia being like
Ahab, where professorship is almost like imposing your thoughts and ideas
on the students," Christensen explains. "One thing that I try to avoid
is being Professor Ahab. It can be problematic if you're too imposing and
controlling, so you have to find a balance."
Christensen's exhibition in Ephraim consists of 15 pieces, most
of which are done in steel cast elements.
Christensen says he
never really doubted that he would be involved in art. "It was never really
a question, just what I wanted to do, so I've always reacted to my environment
and the things around me."
Christensen's inspiration to go into sculpting specifically came
to him while he was in college. "By the time I got into college, I had
had interesting jobs like being a dental technician," Christensen said.
"I had learned quite a lit of physical processes and I found that I liked
sculpting objects and working with real space."
Christensen graduated from BYU in 1989 with a BFA. After graduation
he attended graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis for his
MFA. He taught adjunct in St. Louis and also taught at the Salt Lake School
for Art and Design. Christensen has been teaching at BYU since 1993 as
an associate professor of sculpture.
Christensen admits that there have been some discouragements along
the way, but it hasn't discouraged him from doing what he loves. One
of the discouragements he is experiencing now is finding the time to do
more exhibits without taking away from his teaching career. Christensen
loves teaching and feels that BYU has some incredible students.
.--Jenny Davis, 15 Bytes
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Information
for the news nibbles section can be sent to:
artistsofutah@netzero.net
The
deadline for the next issue is November 20th.
For continuing announcements
from Utah's visual arts community, visit
AoU's Daily Calendar
of Events and the
AoU Forum
.
--House and Senate conferees
on the Interior Appropriations Bill agreed late Monday, October 27,
2003, on a final spending measure to include $122.5 million for the
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a $6.8 million
increase over the NEA's FY2003 budget of $115.7 million.
Utah Senators Bennett and Hatch both worked behind the scenes
to secure this funding.
--SLC artist Cordell Taylor
has recently completed a commissioned sculpture, "Order to Chaos."
The work, commissioned by the Salt Lake City Corporation and the Redevelopment
Agency of Salt Lake City, is located at 400 West and Pierpont Avenue
(250 South). The painted steel sculpture measures 16 feet h. x 17 feet
l. x 6 feet d.
--Left Bank gallery has recently gone through a transformation.
The gallery, now called New Visions gallery, is now a project of the
non-profit organization Visions for Learning.. Look for a full-length
article in our next issue.
--USA Today voted the Utah Arts Council's Chase Museum of
Folk Arts "one of the top ten places to admire folk
art in the United States."
Read the article.
--Sandy artist Paul Kay was awarded a Wildlife Award of Merit
($1,500) by Arts for the Parks for his painting, "El Perro del la Madru
Gada." Salt Lake City artist Richard Boyer, was given a Marine Award
of Merit ($1,000) for his painting set in Canyonlands National Park titled
"Approaching the Confluence."
--Jurors Jan Boles and Jane Dillon gave the following awards in
the Utah Arts Council's Annual Statewide Exhibition, UTAH 2003, crafts
and photography:
Jurors Awards
Edward J. Bateman
Randy Fullbright
Susan D. Harris
Dorothee Martens
John Rees
Kim Riley
Traveling Exhibition Awards
Robert Barberio
Edward J. Bateman
Simon blundell
Quincy boyce
Christine Dick-Bailey
Lance W. Clayton
Shawn Harris
Paula Jensen
Craig Law
Richard Menzies
Russell Michalak
Arline Mortensen
Greg Murray
George R. Nackos
Jelisa Peterson
John Rees
Barbara Richards
Kim Riley
Camille Schubert
Suzanne Simpson
John Snyder
Robyn Wagstaff
Ed Bateman's
"Particle Collider"
Dorothee Martens
"Purse #14"
Susan D. Harris
"Gastropod Zhong"
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