Catch up on recent art news headlines in the Southwest region, including people on the move, grants, and more.
News
Immersive Dave Matthews Band Comes to Scottsdale
Keeping with the immersive art trend—we recently survived Beyond Van Gogh, which is currently exhibiting in Albuquerque—a three-dimensional installation featuring the music and offstage antics of Dave Matthews Band is scheduled to debut at the Scottsdale Quarter, according to news reports. Along with concert footage of smash-hits “Crash Into Me” and “So Much to Say,” there will be interactive projections of various band members shooting the breeze in the green room. The exhibition will also replicate, in gruesome lifelike detail, the 2004 event when DMB’s tour bus dumped 800 pounds of human excrement onto unsuspecting passengers aboard a Chicago River sightseeing vessel. “It may or may not be a metaphor for the group’s music,” organizers say.
Salt Lake City’s Gilgal Garden Named UNESCO World Heritage Site
Gilgal Garden, the unhinged sculpture garden in downtown Salt Lake City and subject of a recent Southwest Contemporary article, joins the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, and the Great Wall of China as a United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. “It’s the creepiest and weirdest thing we’ve ever seen, and we felt like our roster of sites needed something bizarre,” says a UNESCO spokesperson about the sculpture garden that features oversized depictions of severed feet and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ founder Joseph Smith as a sphinx.
Paris Perfumery Launches Scent Inspired by West Texas: L’eau de Lubbock
With the success of Astier de la Villatte’s Sonoran desert-inspired scent, Tucson, rival Paris perfumery Folies de la Villette has just launched a perfume meant to evoke the pan-flat landscape of the West Texas Panhandle. L’eau de Lubbock is a mélange of scents, from vibrant agricultural smells (think cotton and chemical defoliant) to cultural aromas (BBQ smoke and cowhide), blended with an ineffable je ne sais quoi (is that methane or propane?).
Protests Break Out Over Too-Large Painting in New Mexico
Protests in Santa Fe, New Mexico broke out in response to a large-scale, site-specific artwork disrupting life across the city. The artist, a local painter who in turn claims to be protesting pressures to make his artwork commercially viable, says the painting began as a small, square black canvas. He has continued to make the painting larger and larger, first painting the gallery walls, then the surrounding neighborhood, and soon most of the city. When asked why his painting needs to be so big, he remarked, “The work will only be complete when the world is enveloped.” Rumors that an international coterie of curators and critics are flocking to the city are unconfirmed. Still, passersby could be heard commenting on the work’s “grand-guignolesque humor,” “cold and latent violence,” and “Utopian constructivist design.”
New Businesses
Gallery Incomplet, Santa Fe
The new gallery on Siler Road in Santa Fe displays uncompleted works of art by regional creatives, including half-finished drawings, undeveloped 35 mm film canisters, and even a paint-stained napkin that was used in an abandoned painting. According to gallery staff, they will never ever show finished works. When asked why, Gallery Incomplet’s lead curator, aligning with the space’s mission, wouldn’t answer the question in a complete sentence: “Because here at Gallery Incomplet we always say.”
Grants and Awards
Colorado’s Museum of Weed Wins $420K Grant
The Museum of Weed in Denver, which features 420,000 square feet of cannabis-themed installations, won a $420,000 grant from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade’s Cannabis Business Office funded by the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund. Gallery officials say that they will receive the cash in one sack on April 20, 2022.
People on the Move
Mariah Carey and Damien Hirst Announce New Collaboration in Las Vegas
Mariah Carey announced her newest artistic collaboration on an upcoming project with contemporary art star Damien Hirst. “I’ve always admired Hirst’s work, and it was the perfect moment to try something new,” Carey says. “Hirst and I are established in our respective careers, and we felt like a collaboration could help us both think outside of the box.” Carey and Hirst plan to create a genre-bending Las Vegas show that will premiere in December 2022 at the Bellagio Hotel and Casino.
