In Eleanor Mahin Thorp’s Paintings, the Land Looks Back
At UMOCA, Eleanor Mahin Thorp turns minerals, mining waste, and paint into wildernesses that are far from unspoiled—rather, they’re charged with agency.
August 13, 2026
Salt Lake City
Can International Art Star Olafur Eliasson Provoke Urgency to Restore Great Salt Lake?
After decades of decline and political inaction at Great Salt Lake, Olafur Eliasson flies in with a temporary public art project. Can this art-world Hail Mary provoke positive change?
April 16, 2026
In Altered States in the Acid West, Psychedelia and Surrealism Subvert Mythologies
Filled with beauty, tragedy, and oddities, UMOCA’s Altered States in the Acid West encompasses the storied contractions inherent to the American West.
March 20, 2026
Adama Delphine Fawundu Brings the Congo (and Beyond) into Conversation with Salt Lake
Adama Delphine Fawundu submerses herself into the Great Salt Lake, activates the UMFA’s African collection, and brings the region into a global dialogue around decolonization.
February 19, 2026
Olafur Eliasson’s symphony of disappearing sounds Calls Attention to the Great Salt Lake’s Fragility
Experience Olafur Eliasson's immersive sound and light installation highlighting the Great Salt Lake's urgent decline March 26–April 4, in Salt Lake City's Memory Grove.
February 10, 2026
Late Artist’s Creative Ferocity Fills Her Utah Enclave, and Those Who Still Gather There
Painter Pilar Pobil's largest artwork was her maximalist Salt Lake City home, a communal hub that still hums nearly a year after her death.
October 16, 2025
Obsession: Carol Sogard
Salt Lake City–based artist Carol Sogard obsessively collects and catalogues the remains of a world in crisis, wherein action, if not optimism, may be an obligation.
September 05, 2025
Modern Nature: The Contemporary Art Guide to Southwest Botanical Gardens
Southwest botanical gardens have reshaped their grounds as living museums for stunning—and challenging—contemporary art. Discover seven culture-filled desert oases.
July 03, 2025
Lu Wei Takes on Feminine Archetypes and the Desert in Wild, Visionary, and Precise Strokes
In two successive solo exhibitions, Taiwanese artist Lu Wei traces a wild pilgrimage through the shadows of motherhood into the searing heat of the Utah desert landscape.
June 26, 2025
“What’s Your Side Hustle?”: Hard-Earned Lessons on Artistic Survival from a Southwest Highway Town
The artists of Helper, Utah, have spent the last three decades honing strategies to strengthen their rural community—and make the regional market work for them.
May 13, 2025
ArtistsUtahVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
The Hyperlocal: Joshua Graham
Salt Lake City–based artist Joshua Graham explores site-specificity through walking and collecting, gathering objects in the foothills above the city and reconfiguring them in the gallery.
March 07, 2025
ReviewUtahVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Arleene Correa Valencia Stitches Together Identity Through the Trauma of Immigration
Arleene Correa Valencia’s exhibition at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts reveals the indelible imprint of growing up as an undocumented migrant through personal writings, photographs, and textiles.
March 07, 2025
UMFA’s Copper-Infused Riverbed Installation Surfaces Shimmering Visuals from Poisoned Depths
Yasuaki Onishi's site-specific installation Stone on Boundary poetically links Japan and Utah's mountains, rivers—and entanglements in the mining industry.
February 18, 2025
Mourn the Dead, Fight for the Living: How Should Salt Lake City’s Fleet Block Murals Be Commemorated?
The artists and families tied to soon-to-be-demolished Salt Lake City murals depicting people slain by police diverge on how best to preserve their legacy.
September 19, 2024
How Do We Remember? How Do We Forget? In Memory Explores Remembrance Through Body and Mind
In Memory presents the work of twenty-one artists who excavate the archives of remembrance to reveal how humans document, distort, and cling to the past.
September 17, 2024
Concurrent Exhibitions at the UMFA Highlight Impressionism and Photography’s Mutual Influence
Together, Blue Grass, Green Skies and Photo-Secession present a unique dialogue between painting and photography in new Salt Lake City exhibitions. On view through December 29, 2024.
September 10, 2024
Drawn in Dust: Museums Across Utah Showcase Art Made in Japanese American Incarceration Camp
While incarcerated in the Utah desert, a circle of World War II-era Japanese American artists founded an art school.
June 07, 2024
Oracle Bones: High Desert Divination with Terry Tempest Williams and Gaylord Schanilec
In Oracle Bones from Red Butte Press, a writer and an artist wander the Utah wilderness to discern the future. Then it comes true.
May 15, 2024
Andrew Alba’s New Works at Material Expose the Pain We Inherit
In a world replete with ecological catastrophe and political turmoil, the customarily inward Andrew Alba channels calamities into catharsis for his exhibition of new works at Material.
April 09, 2024
InterviewUtahVol. 9 Living Histories
Paisley Rekdal Reimagines History in West: A Translation
Salt Lake City-based writer Paisley Rekdal discusses poetry as an archive and cultural connecter in the history of the transcontinental railroad.
March 01, 2024
ReviewUtahVol. 9 Living Histories
Shaping Landscapes: 150 Years of Photography in Utah
Shaping Landscapes illuminates the state's history, using photography as a platform for exploring technology, identity, and activism.
March 01, 2024
Southwest Cities Win Millions of Dollars from 2023 Bloomberg Public Art Challenge Awards
Bloomberg Public Art Challenge funding will help Phoenix and Salt Lake City address climate change, and Houston examine homelessness, through temporary public art that engages artists and community members.
November 21, 2023
Work in Progress with Stephanie Leitch
Salt Lake City-based Stephanie Leitch, known for her labor-intensive and mesmerizing installations, continues honing her craft in recent exhibitions that comment on life’s murky truths.
November 13, 2023
Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts Unveils New Gallery in a Celebration that Commemorates Past, Present, and Future
The Mestizo Institute of Culture and Arts, a Salt Lake City organization that promotes marginalized artists, aims to revitalize its mission with a new exhibition space centered on community-based programming.
October 16, 2023
Russel Albert Daniels Exposes Native Enslavement and Genocide in the Southwest
Photojournalist Russel Albert Daniels posits his family history as a bridge to larger investigations into Indigenous histories and the legacy of colonial violence and displacement in the American Southwest.
October 02, 2023
A Greater Utah Surveys the Artistic Output of an Entire State
While many of the figures in UMOCA’s A Greater Utah are familiar, the ambitious scope of the project allows for new perspectives outside of the state’s metropolitan center.
September 28, 2023
Jared Steffensen: Nosey Taily and the Leftover Review Features Sculptural Transformations from Busted Skateboards
Jared Steffensen, a Salt Lake City-based artist and curator, repurposes broken skateboard decks into enigmatic, nearly inexplicable sculptural artworks in the Current Work exhibition Nosey Taily and the Leftover Review.
September 25, 2023
Torrey House Press, the “Intermountain West’s Only Nonprofit Environmental Publisher,” Reworks Western Identity
Torrey House Press, an Intermountain West nonprofit environmental book publisher founded in 2010, renews its commitment to Western voices with a new focus on diverse perspectives.
September 21, 2023
Studio VisitUtahVol. 8 Medium + Support
Lenka Konopasek: Paper Tendrils, Threatening
Salt Lake City–based artist Lenka Konopasek disrupts and decenters anthropocentrism with her three-dimensional paper sculptures, whose prickly paper strips instill aversion and attraction, as if growing out of the wall.
September 01, 2023
Alexis Rausch Unpacks America’s Desensitization to Violence
Alexis Rausch continues raising questions about mass responses to traumatic events and how her identity comes into play through the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art exhibition Nobody likes it here.
August 01, 2023
