Basket case.

A long time ago I went to an exhibit at the Corcoran in Washington, D.C. The show was called Language of Containment. All the works were baskets created by a single artist whose name I can’t remember. Woven into the bottom of each basket were words written in deep, 3D letters. Those were baskets. But they were also art.

Baskets as art now come to Utah with Interweave: Innovations in Contemporary Basketry, now showing at the Salt Lake Art Center. The exhibit features 17 works by 10 artists and many of them dazzle. As a side note, I once again pay tribute to the people running the Salt Lake Art Center. I complain constantly about how poorly art is shown in Salt Lake City. But the Salt Lake Art Center always delivers. And this show is even more beautiful than usual. You should go just to see how well these baskets are displayed. Plus, the baskets are really cool.

You can see Interweave: Innovations in Contemporary Basketry from now until October 4. And as always, admission to the Salt Lake Art Center is free.

Viva la curator!

You may recall last summer’s 337 Project; before tearing down the building at 337 South 400 East right here in Salt Lake City, the owners decided to open it up to a free-for-all of artists who transformed the property into what turned out to be a mess. I wrote about it here, here, here, here, and here. While there were a couple of interesting moments, the overall result was sloppy.

Fast forward one year and behold the power of the curator. That’s right, I said curator. Artists are sometimes better when they’ve been corralled by a good curator. Case in point, the Salt Lake Art Center’s current show, Present Tense: A Post 337 Project. While this show masquerades as a review of the 337 Project, I’d bet that almost nothing currently in the Salt Lake Art center ever set foot in 337 South 400 East. Maybe the concrete spheres in Shawn Porter’s Impermanence of Containment, which by the way was one of my picks for the best works in the original project.

Here’s the amazing thing. By assigning a curator, by selectively choosing appropriate artists, by thoughtfully displaying the work, the current show at the Salt Lake Art Center is leaps and bounds better than the original project. Many of the works still maintain some of the manic nature, the chaos of the original project. But they are presented so artfully that the whole dialogue changes. In fact, was there really any dialogue in the original project? Instead, guest curator Campbell Gray gives us something to talk about. His selection of artists drives the discussion of how art changes space. The artists deserve their credit too. They deliver works that are more thoughtful than those from the original project.

Here are few of my favorites:

• Master Blaster’s Big Day, Trent Call and Shri Whipple’s large, candy-colored canvases that can be viewed with 3-D glasses for added effect.
• Dave Dornan’s The Garden maintains an attitude of street art but with a decidedly sophisticated edge.
• American Mandala by Dessi Price doesn’t need the “sofa, coffee table, and bowls.” The kaleidoscope canvas with drawn fast-food logos is delicious on its own.
• Impermanence of Change by Shawn Porter looks glad to have escaped 337 South 400 East. It was good before. It’s better now.
• And my pick for the best piece in the show, Benjamin Wiemeyer’s Self Titled featuring “latex on Tyvek, walnut, steel, 12v. battery, winch.” I can’t explain it. You should see it.

Present Tense: A Post 337 Project is on view at the Salt Lake Art Center until September 27. Go now. It’s free.

Three to see.

And now, my three favorite picks from Monet to Picasso at the Utah Museum of Fine Art (UMFA).

1. Pierre Bonnard’s The Dessert, or After Dinner, 1921. OK, so I like Bonnard and the fact he was included in this show is one of the reasons I was excited to go. This work (unlike the other Bonnard in the exhibit) demonstrates why the artist is so likeable. I could stare at this painting for hours trying to figure out what’s going on. The woman, looking concerned; or is that disdain. The boy who seems lost in a daydream, or did he just disappoint. And then that dog. I like the brushwork, the colors, the subject matter. I could live with a painting like this.

2. Auguste Rodin’s The Age of Bronze, 1875-76. There are plenty of nice Rodins in this show. But this life-sized statue stops you dead in your tracks. It’s hard to communicate the emotions inspired by the young man; the clenched hand, the grasped hair, the powerful stance. You can see why people found it hard to believe that this wasn’t cast from an actual human. Ah, the magic of art. I may not know what it means. But I know it means something.

3. Salvadore Dali’s The Dream, 1931. I like Salvadore Dali. From the Lobster Phone, to time melting, to those wacky films, I’m not sure Mr. Dali gets the credit he deserves. I’m pretty sure that without him we wouldn’t get to Pop Art. And many of today’s most well-known artists like Jeff Koons seem to have a direct line to Dali. Even artists like Marc Quinn, Damien Hirst, and Tim Hawkinson seem to tip their hats at Surrealism. This painting is classic Dali; the creepy figure with no eyes or mouth; the meticulously painted ants. And is that two guys making out in the background? It just makes you want to grow a crazy mustache.

Now it’s your turn. Visit the UMFA before September 21 and pick your three favorites.

Monet to Picasso and right on through to the break room.

The Utah Museum of Fine Art’s (UMFA) current exhibit Monet to Picasso is crowded with so much art, I decided it was worth a second visit. So recently I made trip two to spend more time with some of the works I liked best.

Let me start with a few general comments about the exhibit. First, the show is crowded. A little too crowded for my taste. The early galleries offer some breathing room but by the time you get past Picasso, things are cramped. The Expressionists and the Surrealists are crammed into what feels like a break room. Seriously, I’m talking industrial gray carpeting and a tile ceiling that begs you to throw pencils at it.

This show is also a reminder that just because a painting is by a great artist, it isn’t necessarily great. The show could have easily lost a dozen works and been better for the editing.

Then there’s the audio tour. I used the audio device my first visit. I enjoyed the exhibit more without the audio tour. And don’t even think about listening to the “family” audio segments.

But enough complaining. Let’s talk about the good stuff. The show features some dang good art. And it’s a dandy little art history lesson, going from pre-Impressionism all the way through to Surrealism. In fact, there’s enough to see, that I’m going to split my post. This post will talk about the exhibit from a general perspective. A later post will offer my picks for three must-see works.

Here are some highlights:

July: Specimen of a Portrait (1882) by Jacques-Joseph Tissot is a lovely transitional work early in the show. The beautiful portrait of a woman in a lace dress is intoxicating.

Just around the corner, past the Manets, you run into the Monets. (Yes I just skipped Manet. As I said, there’s a lot in this show so I can’t talk about everything.) Three works by Monet offer excellent examples of how beautifully the Impressionists used color and light.

The post Impressionists offered some nice surprises. I expected to enjoy The Poplars at Saint-Remy (1889) by Van Gogh. It’s thick, shiny paint made you want to touch it. (But in general, museums don’t like it when you do that.) I was surprised by a different arboreal work, Pine Tree (1897) by Giovanni Segantini. The thick paint and dark colors made for an extravagant picture.

I think the show features more works by Picasso than by any other single artist. There were at least eight. I’m not the world’s biggest Picasso fan. Cubism tends to leave me cold. But I was surprised at how much I liked the earlier works like 1903’s La Vie.

Past the Picasso gallery, the art work is crammed in as tightly as possible, with little or no room to stand back and admire. There’s Matisse, Modigliani, a surprising self portrait by William Orpen, Gauguin, and a whole bunch of other stuff. And that’s all before you get to the break room.

The break room is home to the Expressionists, like Karl Schmidt-Ruttluff. His Self Portrait with Hat from 1919 uses blues and greens in a style that made me want to like Cubism. Not to be outdone, Louis Corinth offered a 1915 painting called Self Portrait with Hat and Coat. Apparently self portraits with hats were all the rage among the Expressionists.

The Surrealists made a strong showing with works by Max Ernst, Rene Magritte (although the Magritte was a little on the boring side), and Salvador Dali.

Alright, I’ve bored you long enough with paintings, and sculptures, and art works. But if you haven’t seen the show, go. For two reasons. First, there really is stuff worth seeing. And second, it will encourage UMFA to bring in more shows like this. But hurry, because it all goes away September 21.

Triple Goddess birthing from the cosmic web.

Warning: I’m about to make a sports analogy—this seldom works.

Every fall, teams of elite athletes gather to prove their physical prowess. Fans and alumni everywhere rejoice. Last Saturday, was the pre-season shoot-out, a preview of the regular fall season. No it wasn’t football. (I sense your surprise.) It was Momentum “Untold Stories,” Ririe-Woodbury’s annual alumni performance. A bonus evening of dance before the regular seasons start next month.

The show features works choreographed and performed by current and past members of Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. It’s generally a mixed bag of contemporary dance performance. This year’s show had more good than bad. Take a boy ina Box treading water Watching a bird play scrabble pt. 1. Yeah that title tries way too hard and features capitalization that could only have been imagined by a 14-year-old girl (shouldn’t a heart dot that second i?). But the duet choreographed by Liberty Valentine delivered a new style of movement with an intricate intertwining of bodies.

Less successful was Tammy Metz Starr’s Saffron Days, which felt like a mash up of Singin’ in the Rain and the Care Bears. It was definitely saffron.

Intermission brought Beyond Movement/Moving Beyond, a site specific lobby installation featuring knitted yarn, organza veils with oil paint and screen prints, three dancers, and “the Triple Goddess birthing from the cosmic web.” Yeah, I snickered too. The performance was awkward and I wrote it off. (Disappointing because the piece was imagined by one of my favorite Ririe-Woodbury alumnus, Javier Cordoba.) But wait, as intermission ended the three female performers, nearly naked except for Asian-inspired markings and make up, moved oh so slowly into the theater. Then they magically stepped into the first piece of the second half. The effect was haunting, setting the stage for a beautiful performance of Cordoba’s Letting Go.

The show ended with two exceptional works. Uncongealed Vitality choreographed and performed by Aaron Draper took street dance and elevated it to an impossible, mesmerizing level. And the final duet (broken Regained) choreographed and performed by Juan Carlos Claudio and Jill Voorhees Edwards reminded me how rewarding it is when two bodies move together with such intent.

Damn liberals.

That's right, it's the Democratic National Convention in Denver. I generally find the conventions tedious and largely meaningless. But at least this year I'm getting an insider's view. My friend (and one time resident of Salt Lake City) Steven Rivas just happens to be an actual delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Steven now lives in Austin, Texas (damn conservatives) and the Austin Chronicle asked him to report from the convention for their Gay Place Blog.

A warning: Steven's one of those crazy Hillary supporters and I think he's still a little bitter about Hillary's loss. So if you're a Barack supporter, be kind; we're still healing. And if you're a McCain supporter, visit the blog and send Steve a "Hillary Supporters for McCain" t-shirt or something. What have you got to lose?

You can read the blog here.

Darling indeed.

My friend Kara said I need to start writing on my blog again. So Kara, this one's for you.

Since I'm always looking for a reason to hang out with the lesbians (and lured by the promise of an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet from The New Yorker), last Friday I headed over to "The Party On the Patio" at Paper Moon. The Paper Moon is one of Salt Lake's most popular lesbian nightclubs.  I have to say, the promoters grossly underestimated lesbians' appetite for seafood. We arrived thirty minutes into the affair only to discover the all-you-can-eat seafood buffet was already eaten.

But that's not the point of this story. We came for the floor show featuring the Voodoo Darlings. Who are the Voodoo Darlings? They're a group of sexy ladies (and a couple of random guys) who are part of Salt Lake City's burgeoning burlesque scene. Yes I said burgeoning burlesque scene. After all, the Slippery Kittens are in the finalists of ABC's America's Got Talent.

I'm not going to pretend to remember all the ladies' names. Nor even the details of their performances. But they're certainly worth a blog entry, for two reasons. First some of the ladies were good. And hot too. I was particularly enchanted by the dark and mysterious secret spy lady in her slippery black trench. Who knew garter belts were so hot?

And if the acts weren't fun enough, you also got to watch the lesbians. Since the burlesque dancers were working for tips, there was a built-in meter for which acts got the crowd most excited. Take the hula-hoop performer. She was OK, I guess. But wow, the ladies in the audience went crazy for her. I saw dollar bills stuffed in places that surprised even the performer.

The show was fun. The lesbians were fantastic. I'm calling the VooDoo Darlings a hit.

Are you a Late Breaking Gay or an Aspiring Sniper?

I recently finished Mark Penn’s Microtrends, the small forces behind tomorrow’s big changes. Here’s the premise: our society is more fractured than ever; and if you want to succeed in business or politics or even religion, you need to understand the small, emerging trends that drive change in our society.

Penn is the brain behind the Soccer Moms of Bill Clinton’s successful presidential campaign. And this book continues that tradition by looking at a lot of research and ferreting out trends that deserve clever names. And it’s not just the names that are clever. The writing is fresh and fun, a surprising accomplishment for a book that could be dry.

If nothing else, this book provides endless fodder for dazzling party talk. The statistics provide all sorts of tidbits that will make you shine at tonight’s cocktail party. And it might just make you smarter at work too. Then there’s the added fun of Microtrend analyzing your friends. I personally know a Sex-Ratio Single, a Young Knitter, a Neglected Dad, a Caffeine Crazy, and more. I may even be a Long Attention Spanner.

So, if you’re remotely interested in this kind of stuff, I’d get the book and dive headfirst into the world of XXX Men and all the rest of the Microtrends.