Third Saturday for Families: Renaissance Quilling
May 16 | 1–4 pm | FREE
The UMFA will celebrate the Association of Art Museum Directors’ (AAMD) sixth annual Art Museum Day with free admission to the galleries throughout the day and our Third Saturday family art-making program in the afternoon.
Italian Renaissance nuns and monks rolled gilded paper into spirals to decorate book covers, creating a new art form called “quilling.” See the beautiful gilded Renaissance art and iron scrollwork on view at the UMFA and be inspired to quill your own book cover. Visitors can also explore the UMOCA Art Truck, featuring the kinetic sculptures and geometric compositions of Utah artist Meridith Pingree.
Art Museum Day, held in conjunction with International Museum Day, emphasizes the essential role that art museums play in their communities, highlights the value of the visual arts in society, and provides new opportunities for audiences to participate in the wide-ranging programs offered by AAMD’s 242 member museums. Visitors are invited to share their experiences on Art Museum Day via social media with the hashtag #ArtMuseumDay.
Spring Film Series: Creativity in Focus
Wednesday, May 27 | 7 pm | FREE
Gray Matters
Directed by Marco Orsini
72 min | 2014 | Ireland/USA | Not Rated
Gray Matters is the story of Eileen Gray, the twentieth century artist, architect, and designer whose vision, imagination, and sensibility changed the way we live, within houses and with furniture. The documentary is a historical, scholarly, and cinematic investigation of the life of one of the most significant, but otherwise little known modern creatives of our time.
EXHIBITIONS
umfa.utah.edu/exhibitions_current
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
CLOSING May 17, 2015
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art presents the rich and varied contributions of Latino artists in the United States since the mid-twentieth century, when the concept of a collective Latino identity began to emerge. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s pioneering collection of Latino art. It explores how Latino artists shaped the artistic movements of their day and recalibrated key themes in American art and culture.
Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by Altria Group, the Honorable Aida M. Alvarez; Judah Best, The James F. Dicke Family Endowment, Sheila Duignan and Mike Wilkins, Tania and Tom Evans, Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino, The Michael A. and the Honorable Marilyn Logsdon Mennello Endowment, Henry R. Muñoz III, Wells Fargo and Zions Bank. Additional significant support was provided by The Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center. Support for Treasures to Go, the museum’s traveling exhibition program, comes from The C.F. Foundation, Atlanta.
[con]text
On view through July 26, 2015
The presence of text in art has greatly increased in the modern era, but the relationship of language and visual art have a much longer history. [con]text examines this history as represented in the UMFA’s permanent collection. From an ancient Egyptian wall relief to medieval illuminated manuscripts to the contemporary practices of John Cage, Bruce Nauman, and Willie Cole, this exhibition looks at the way visual artists have harnessed the power of language to communicate, relate, entice, advocate and illuminate. [con]text also explores how language itself constantly evolves, leading to both the loss and creation of meaning.
salt 11: Duane Linklater
On view through August 2, 2015
The eleventh edition of the salt series features new work by Duane Linklater, a Canada-based multimedia artist of Native American heritage. Through installation, performance, film, photography, and other media, Linklater studies the migration and exchange of ideas, language, and memory and reveals many inconsistencies in knowledge and history. He often works collaboratively and appropriates liberally, challenging modern perceptions of authorship and authenticity. Through his salt exhibition, Linklater will directly engage the UMFA’s permanent collection to explore physical and conceptual processes of translation and the cultural information that is lost therein.
Tony Feher
On view through December 31, 2015
American sculptor Tony Feher has been changing the way we see the world for the past three decades. With a hyper-awareness of the formal qualities of everyday objects—bottles, tape, plastic bags—Feher turns unconsidered, often-discarded materials into poetic sculptures and elegant installations. For this exhibition, the UMFA has invited Feher to help us re-imagine the architecture of our Great Hall with a brand new site-determined installation.
**Exhibition dates are subject to change.
Utah Museum of Fine Arts
University of Utah
Marcia & John Price Museum Building
410 Campus Center Drive
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112
(801) 581-7332
More information: umfa.utah.edu