PROVO
Back to the Future: New Exhibition at BYU Museum of Art Explores Relationship of Nostalgia and Technology
by Chris Wilson”

At first glance, the terms “nostalgia” and “technology” make an unlikely, even incompatible combination. Technology invites change. Nostalgia resists. Technology looks to the future. Nostalgia clings to the past. But for centuries, these adversarial ideas have been harmoniously fused together, facilitating an acceptance of change and innovation by appealing to the past.

Nostalgia & Technology: Embracing the New through Art and Design, at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art currently on display through May 13, 2006, explores the role of art as a mediator in society’s acceptance and use of new technologies through objects, art, and ephemera representing a selection of domestic technologies. From the scientific instruments that shared shelf space with art objects and taxidermy in the collections of 17th-century nobility to the cabinet radio disguised as period furniture, technology often enters the home with familiar company.

"Nostalgia & Technology is not devoted to the cult of the designer or to good design versus bad design, but rather to how design and artistry help us embrace the new,” says Marc Olivier, BYU professor and guest curator of the exhibition. “Neither is the purpose of the exhibition to pay homage to the genius inventor or to present a chronology of technological history, but rather to meditate on the faces given to inventions as they are integrated into our homes.”

The practice of using the familiar to contextualize the new dates back to the Renaissance, when an increase in travel and exploration exposed people to a variety of new technologies and ideas. Noble travelers housed the objects they collected from abroad in cabinets of curiosities. These cabinets consisted of a room or rooms filled with natural history specimens, art objects, scientific instruments and curiosities from around the world. Cabinets of curiosities gave the noble collector a sense of mastery over the foreign, the alien and the new. They also allowed viewers to make connections between unrelated objects, uniting nature and art, antiquity and modernity in an overwhelming visual display. The unsettling unknown placed alongside the familiar in the homes of the elite made possible the idea of discovery without disruption to the status quo. Visitors will experience a recreation of a 17th-century cabinet of curiosities at the beginning of this exhibition.

Building on the themes illustrated by the cabinet of curiosities, Nostalgia & Technology highlights key moments in the development of new technologies, specifically those of the 19th and 20th centuries. The exhibition explores how nostalgic ornamentation and design have been used to facilitate society’s acceptance of innovations such as, electricity, sewing machines, typewriters, point-and-shoot photography, radios, televisions, automobiles, space exploration, atomic energy and wearable technology.

Nostalgia & Technology also presents a 20th–century mirror image of the cabinet of curiosities that visitors encounter at the beginning of the exhibition, where 17th –century objects have been replaced by their modern counterparts. A collection of decorative cell phone faceplates mirrors an arrangement of shells. A Palm Pilot resembles a cuneiform clay tablet. A Magellan Roadmate GPS device looks back at a universal equatorial sundial. By juxtaposing contemporary curiosities with objects which seemed so foreign 300 years ago, visitors will begin to question their relationship with “the new” and how art facilitates interest in and acceptance of technological progress.

Nostalgia and Technology: Embracing the New through Art and Design is sponsored by the George S. and Dolores Eccles Foundation, Bruce and Barbara Christensen, and the Robert and Amy Barker Foundation. Admission is free.

PROVO
Brigham Young University Museum of Art UP: Adam’s Dream: The Photographs of Rodney Smith, will be on view thru January 16, 2006. For more information see July 2005 edition.

Terra Nova Gallery: UP: Great Things/Small Packages will feature dozens of small works by an amazing array of artists – from the freshly emerging to the solidly experienced, including: Joseph Alleman, Robert Barrett, Doug Fryer, Mary Jarvis, Rebecca Lee, Colleen Parker, Anne Weber, and many others. Thru December 23rd.

OREM
UVSC Woodbury Art Museum
The Art of Comics. The exhibition features a retrospective of the sequential art works of Will Eisner. Artists such as Frank Frazetta, Dave McKeon, George Herriman, and Jack Kirby will be exhibited. Examples from such classics as Krazy Kat, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk, and Tarzan, and many others will be available for patron perusal. Thru December 16.

SPRINGVILLE
Springville Museum of Art: UP: The museum is dominated by the 20th Annual Religious & Spiritual Art of Utah which is charged with the personal beliefs, and spiritual aspirations (both orthodox and heterodox) of Utah artists from all faiths and denominations. Thru December 28th. UPCOMING: Joseph, Joseph, Joseph photographs by Don O. Thorpe beginning December 23rd. see page 6.

LOGAN
Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art UP: Sight & Sound: A Visual Metaphor.

ST. GEORGE AREA
St. George Art Museum UP thru December 23, 2005 The West: Denim & Dust , Lon Megargee: Legendary Prints of the Southwest from the Hays Collection (see November edition). UPCOMING: Homecoming: Paintings and Sculptures by Mick Reber January 14 through March 25, 2006 and Batiks & Stitches: Fabric Art by Anne Munoz January 14 through March 25, 2006.

EPHRAIM
Central Utah Art Center: Mike Workman, Douglas Fryer, Ron Richmond, and Brad Aldridge, all Sanpete County residents of national reputation, are participating in a group exhibition at the Central Utah Art Center thru January 4.

Between the four of them, these artists have exhibited their work in at least 18 states. They’ve each been featured in numerous publications; and they are each included in many corporate and private collections. The four of them usually make landscape paintings. They all talk about a dialogue between their respective positions in art history, and strong influence from the landscape tradition in the United States during the 19th century. While they represent recognizable locations and subjects in their paintings, there is a strong metaphorical element for each of them. In fact, Richmond’s paintings aren’t traditional landscapes at all, but metaphorical landscapes.

Beyond a love for the beauty of humanity and of the landscape, these artists each express something more through their work. Workman says on his website that he wants to express something quite straightforward, simply: “There are good things.” Aldridge says something similar: “In spite of a long hard winter, spring comes again.” This basic message is perhaps the strongest concept that unifies the work of the group. They all wish to convey a sense of hope and peace about the world through their art, despite the seeming pervasive cynicism and negativity they sometimes feel surrounded by.

For this exhibition, each artist will exhibit two paintings done in their respective styles, and one abstract painting. All excellent painters, it will prove interesting to see what they produce in a style none of them normally uses.




OGDEN
Eccles Community Art Center During December, the popular Huntsville painter, Steve Songer returns with an exhibit of his recent works to the Eccles Community Art Center, 2580 Jefferson Avenue, Ogden. In the Carriage House Gallery, the paintings of Bonnie Frucci of Eden will be featured. The Carriage House Gallery will also be exhibiting work by local artists and craftsmen for the center’s annual Holiday Boutique. The exhibits continue through December 31, 2005.

Artist Steve Songer resides in Huntsville, where he and his wife Pat, raised their six children. The area surrounding his home in this mountain valley has inspired many of his paintings through the years.

Steve is an accomplished painter. He has been featured in many invitational art exhibitions, receiving numerous awards. The Eccles Community Art Center, the Springville Museum, The Dixie Invitational, and the Utah Division of Fine Arts have purchased his works for their permanent collections. He was one of Southwest Art Magazine’s “Artists to Watch” in 1999. He illustrated the cover of the Will Roger’s Cookbook, and was illustrator and co-author of the “Santa Claus Book.” His paintings may be found in private collections worldwide. He presently paints with a number of fellow artists in Ogden at Studio Nine.

Bonnie Jeane Biddinger Frucci was born in Price, Utah. She has studied at the College of Eastern Utah, Brigham Young University, and received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Utah State University. Bonnie was an art teacher for eight years at Kaysville Junior High and South Cache Middle Schools.

Bonnie says that “as an artist, what captures my attention is the simplicity of everyday instances. Light falling on snow, the colors and textures of an old building. People engaged in activity or quietly preoccupied the solitude of a mountain stream or the grandeur of a desert plateau. Everywhere I go I see possible works of art. The joy is being able to create that art and showing others what I experienced at that moment. I was raised in the beautiful desert and mountain lands of Eastern Utah. From an early age I have had a desire to put on canvas what I have learned from the land. As an adult I have had the opportunity to live in Northern Utah and paint the pastoral valleys and rugged mountain landscapes. My painting style has developed by trying to capture the freshness of a fleeting moment or a time of day. If I labor too long capturing the moment it seems to fade away. I enjoy working alla prima (all at once) or en plien air (out of doors). If I can say what I want with the stroke of the brush or pastel, that is what I strive for.”

The public is welcome at the Eccles Community Art Center. Admission is free. Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The art center is closed Sundays and December 24, & 26, for the holidays.