Patricia Kimball, Antigravity. Phillips Gallery, 444 E. 200 South, 364-8284, Oct. 15-Nov. 12; reception, Oct. 15, 6-9 p.m. Ninth and Ninth has been, believe it or not, an artsy place to hang since the ’60s, when Bonnie and Denis Phillips (both exceptional painters) opened a gallery next to a leather shop. The Phillips (the oldest commercial gallery in the Intermountain West) moved to 200 South, where it remains a cool place to hang. There’s a basement gallery named for the late Utah art critic George Dibble. Upstairs, on the deck, is a sculpture court as refreshing to visit in winter as summer, because its energy changes with the seasons.
Patricia Kimball said she recently found herself drawn to images of figures in the air, like the common dream “in which you bounce high above the earth, complete a back flip or two, slowly and easefully, before landing upon the ground.” That ground, in this case, is in one of Kimball’s own “respectfully observed” landscapes.
“At the end, I’m usually tired, thirsty, hungry and hot, sticky with paint, sunscreen and bug spray,” Kimball observes. “I’ve worked hard and it feels good, particularly if the day has gone well and I get to bring home a painting I like.”
Antigravity, the show’s title, “is a potent metaphor for what we yearn for in our lives,” the artist said. “In a sense we are all falling back towards earth; the question to chew on, therefore, might be how we complete our individual trajectories.” —AP
Martha Klein, Fall Salon. Guthrie Studio Artists, 158 E. 200 South, Oct. 15. There’s a bit of Bohemia housed on the floors above downtown’s Guthrie Bicycle Shop. Shifting and evolving groups of a dozen or so artists with studios there have thrown terrific parties since the mid-’70s; another happens Friday night from 6:30 to 10 p.m. These days there won’t be a rock band on each floor, but the twice-a-year Guthrie Studio Artists’ Salon is always a happening scene—and the art is good, too.
Landscape painter Richard Murray was the first to talk his way into a Guthrie space, followed by Randall Lake, Sam Collett, Susan Beck, Lucy Fairchild, Bonnie Sucec, Pat Eddington and others. Drop by to see current denizens including Susan Price, Veera Kasicharernvat, Jason Wheatley, Karl Pace, Mike Bernard, and Martha Klein. It’s a group thing, you see.
Klein is well known as a fabric artist and co-owner of the now-defunct Utah Designer Craftsman Gallery (once next to the Capitol Theatre). A fascination with the simplicity of Japanese block prints and the complex possibilities for the use of color led her to printmaking, to producing images rather then objects. “Textiles benefit from and are limited by their uses. Prints seem to me more a presentation of an idea ... somewhat like a writing,” Klein said. —AP
Gary Hill, Language Willing. Salt Lake Art Center, 20 S. West Temple, 328-4201. Oct. 15-Jan. 16; reception, Oct. 15, 6-9 p.m.; Art Talk with Hill, 7 p.m. Long before MTV, artists started to extend the video medium to create works of art beyond the standard fare of TV sitcoms and variety shows. Gary Hill broke ground in 1974 with his first work, “Hole In the Wall,” in which the camera peeks through the point of view of a painting on a gallery wall. In the three decades since then, he has become known as one of the pioneers of the art form, pushing the envelope of this window on another glimmering world.
No less than four separate rooms comprise Hill’s newest traveling exhibit Language Willing, visiting the Salt Lake Art Center through mid-January. In Hill’s hands, the video monitor becomes a “time based sculpture.” Images include hands turning floral print-covered wheels as voices echo randomly, as though sampled by surreal turntable manipulators. In another piece, the artist can be seen flinging himself at a wall repeatedly. “Accordions” records the lives of Algerian immigrants in Marseilles, France.
The traditional elements of story narrative are shorn from the texture of these works to recombine into something the viewer can recognize as much more personal. If, as some critics have suggested, Hill is the Giotto of the medium, then he is the herald of incredibly exciting things to come. —BS
