The Capitol Theatre is one of Salt Lake County’s most beloved buildings. A landmark in downtown Salt Lake since 1913, a newspaper reporter at the time described the building as “rich and restful, without vulgar or gaudy display.” Vaudevillians, silent movies, and “talkies,” were the mainstay in the theatre for years.
The Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center is Salt Lake County’s most versatile performance venue. With its three theatres (Jeanné Wagner Theatre, Black Box Theatre, Studio Theatre), permanent art installations, and rotating art gallery, The Rose is a vital hub for Salt Lake’s emerging and established artists and performing arts companies.
As Utah’s premier venue for contemporary art, the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art is alive with activity: exhibitions, films, conversations with artists, community projects, a new Locals Only Gallery, live performances, a cafe, an art shop–and more!
Google Street View–Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
EVE, a three-day New Year festival presented by the SLC Downtown Alliance, will include fine arts performances, live local music, dance parties, ski and snowboard competitions, DJs, film screenings, laser shows, art installations, kids activities, storytelling, and spectacular midnight fireworks show Dec. 31. Activities take place in the Salt Palace and on West Temple between 100 and 200 South.
In this cinéma vérité-style pseudo-documentary, a group of draft dodgers and counterculture youth are banished to the desert, where they are detained and made to play a bizarre game resembling capture the flag. Almost forty years later, Punishment Park resonates eerily with our contemporary political climate. Directed by Peter Watkins (1971), this film is rated “R” for violence and language. Rocky Anderson, former mayor of SLC and executive director of High Road for Human Rights, will conduct a post-film discussion.
Pioneer Park Picture Show and Craft Market Friday nights beginning July 31st and running through August 28th. Featuring films made in Utah and crafts by local artisans. Films begin at dusk Craft market from 6-9 p.m. Kicking off the series and celebrating it’s 40th anniversary is the legendary buddy film, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Friday July 31st.
Salt Lake Art Center’s exhibition of Sundance Film Festival New Frontier opens the door to new forms of creativity. The New Frontier artists and filmmakers reconfigure art, technology, film, and performance to explore narrative structure, the three-dimensionality of the cinematic image, and innovations in transmedia storytelling.
Along with “From the Masses to the Masses: Art of the Yan’an Cave Artists Group” a film documentary
The exhibit includes the work of several artists known as the Cave Artists Group (Yaodong Huapai) who worked under the direction of Beijing based artist Jin Zhilin. Jin, a student of Xu Beihong and later a contemporary of Constantine Maximov at the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, was sent to Yan’an in the midst of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) where he recruited local artists such as Feng Shanyun, Chen Sanqiao, Song Ruxin, and others to study art at the Yan’an Masses Art Studio that he directed.
Yan’an was the Chinese Communists’ revolutionary capital in Shaanxi Province in northwestern China for thirteen years (1936-1949). Although a remote and poor rural area, Yan’an has a strong folk art tradition. However, Yan’an is unique because of its rich revolutionary traditions. Following the Maoist dictum of “learning from the masses,” Jin Zhilin required his students to go to the countryside and study local folk art with peasant artists. Jin’s students incorporated Shaanxi folk art influences, such as paper cutting, into their woodblock prints. The art in the collection reflects these elements of local folk art and the historical significance of the region. Art was created using various mediums: woodcuts, watercolors (gouache) and oil. Woodcuts and watercolors were more common because oil painting in the countryside at the time was less practical.
The collection includes Jin’s early work from the 1950s, which was heavily influenced by Soviet Social Realism, work produced during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) that towards the end was illustrative of the Revolutionary Romanticism engulfing the arts in China, and works from the post-Cultural Revolution period (late 1970s-early 1980s), reflecting more traditional themes and aspects of local culture that Jin encouraged his students to study. Geographic landmarks such as the Yan’an pagoda, traditional Shaanxi cave residences, the headdress worn by local Shaanxi men, and influences of local folk art are common characteristics of the works of the Cave Artist Group that emerged under Jin Zhilin’s influence.
The collection is original and was acquired in numerous trips to China between 1999-2008. The art of the exhibit was not originally created to be sold, as there was no commercial value to art at that time. Instead, art was utilized for social and political purposes. In the case of the woodblocks, making only a few copies before shaving the block for a new woodcut was common. In most cases the artists were not even sure what happened to their work once it was turned over to local authorities to be reviewed and exhibited in support of domestic and even international policy initiatives. As a result, nearly all of the pieces are the only known copies to exist.
Period photographs and two documentary films will be part of this exhibition.
This exhibition is the result of a collaboration with the UVU International Center director Danny Damron, the collection owner Dodge Billingsly (Combat Films site” href=”http://www.combatfilms.com” Visit his film company web site COMBAT FILMS AND RESEARCH), and the UVU Woodbury Art Museum. It is anticipated that there will be many other accompanying events, symposia and lectures with participation from various quarters of the university.
Utah Activities, Events, Venues, Points of Interest, Photo Journal
Salt Lake Art Center’s exhibition of Sundance Film Festival New Frontier opens the door to new forms of creativity. The New Frontier artists and filmmakers reconfigure art, technology, film, and performance to explore narrative structure, the three-dimensionality of the cinematic image, and innovations in transmedia storytelling.