quarterly july | aug |sept 2014 from the director |

Dear Members and Friends:

In May we celebrated a major highlight of our year- long Art is 100 tribute with the Art is 100 Gala, and we are grateful that so many of you came out to show your support for the Museum. Thanks to all of you who helped us open the wonderful Creation and Erasure: Art of the Bingham Canyon Mine exhibition as well as celebrate 100 years of creativity on our campus and of great collecting at the UMFA. I hope you’ll join us again on October 3 for a very fun UMFA Board After-Hours Party as we debut a new site-specific work of Directors by New York City-based artist Tony Feher. Feher has Marcia Price, Chair completed such installations at a number of American Cynthia Sue Anderson art museums, including the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and the Virginia Barlage Indianapolis Museum of Art, and we are so excited to Robert F. Bennett bring his talent to . Toni Bloomberg Jim Bradley* This year, however, has not been without loss—in February, artist Nancy Holt passed away. As you Lee Dever probably well know, one of Nancy’s most significant Fred Esplin* and beautiful works of art is located in Utah’s Great Suzanne Ferry* Basin Desert—the monumental Sun Tunnels (1973–76). Lynn Fey Like Spiral Jetty—an artwork credited to her husband John H. Firmage Robert Smithson, but which Nancy helped create— Jonathan Freedman Sun Tunnels is an internationally recognized work Clark P. Giles of located in our backyard. In late 2012, the UMFA hosted a traveling retrospective exhibition of Wesley G. Howell, Jr. Nancy’s work, organized by the Wallach Art Gallery John C. Jarman at Columbia University in New York. I am so proud Georgianna Knudson* that we brought this important show to Utah and Al Landon recognized Nancy Holt’s incredibly important and Naja Lockwood influential contributions to twentieth-century American Michele Mattsson* art. She gave a standing-room-only lecture and W. Brent Maxfield traveled with a large group of UMFA members and fans out to Sun Tunnels. It was an absolute joy, and Mary S. McCarthey she was so pleased to be back in Utah and to be Kathie Miller received so warmly by our community. Nicole Mouskondis Rashelle Perry Shari Quinney Chris Redgrave Gretchen Dietrich, Executive Director Joanne F. Shiebler Diane Stewart Naoma Tate Elizabeth F. Tozer Raymond Tymas-Jones* Marva Warnock

Ruth Watkins* The UMFA gratefully acknowledges the continuing support it receives from the , Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts & Parks Program, Utah Arts Council, Arts Council, C. Comstock Clayton Foundation, Estate of * Ex-Officio Aurelia B. Cahoon, Anne M. and David S. Dolowitz, Helene Druke Shaw Family, Katherine W. Dumke & Ezekiel R. Dumke, Jr. Foundation, George S. & Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation, Marriner S. Eccles Foundation, The William Randolph Hearst Foundations, Emma Eccles Jones Foundation, Wilma T. Gibson Family, Jeanette and O. Ernest Grua, Jr. Family, Estate of John W. and Helen B. Jarman, National Endowment for the Arts, LaReta C. Madsen Family, Ray, Quinney & Nebeker Foundation, John & Marcia Price Family Foundation, S. J. & Jessie E. Quinney Foundation, Joseph and Evelyn Rosenblatt Family Foundation, George Q. Morris Foundation, Estate of E. Frank Sanguinetti, Ms. Suzanne M. Scott, State Office of Education, Utah Division of Arts & Museums, Paul L. & Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, UMFA Board of Directors, Docent Council, Friends of Contemporary Art, Friends of Utah & Western Art and UMFA Members. exhibitions | art is 100

Jonas Lie’s General View of the Bingham Copper Mine

Luke Kelly | Associate Curator of Antiquities

Our third selection on view on the UMFA’s Art is 100 ABOVE | General View of the Bingham Copper Highlights Wall—part of our continuing celebration of 100 Mine, 1917, oil on canvas. years of creativity across the U campus—is an ambitious Collection of the J. Willard Marriott Library, work from the collection of the J. Willard Marriott Library. University of Utah. General View of the Bingham Copper Mine is a sister to a painting in the UMFA’s collection, Bingham Mine (currently ON THE COVER | Bara on display as part of the Creation and Erasure exhibition). Masa Series (South Asian Indian), n.d., In early 1917, the landscape painter Jonas Lie came to Utah painting. Gift of the and sketched several views of the Bingham Canyon Mine, Dayton Hudson Foundation. now owned by Rio Tinto Kennecott. LEFT, PREVIOUS PAGE Until the Bingham series, Jonas Lie was famous for his Nancy Holt | Image from paintings depicting the building of the Panama Canal: October 20, 2012, Sun Tunnels viewing with the massive operation with its blend of manpower and Nancy Holt, organized machines attracted Lie, who borrowed money from a by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) as part friend to capture this feat of human ingenuity. These paint- of Nancy Holt: Sightlines, ings inspired Daniel C. Jackling, owner of the Utah Copper a traveling exhibition organized by the Miriam Company, to commission Lie to paint his operation—75 and Ira D. Wallach Art steam shovels extracting 30,000 to 40,000 tons of ore a Gallery, Columbia Univer- sity, on view October 19, day, creating an inverted pyramid. Lie’s paintings of the 2012-January 20, 2013. mine drew great reviews when Lie exhibited them in Courtesy Utah Museum New York City, and the works soon dispersed to collections of Fine Arts. across the country—aside from the two paintings (and a few sketches) that found their way to the University of Utah. exhibitions |

Moksha: Photography by Fazal Sheikh July 11–November 30, 2014

Luke Kelly | Associate Curator of Antiquities

In 2003, the sacred site of Vrindavan, a city holy to the Hindu god Krishna, drew the attention of artist-activist Fazal Sheikh. Thousands of widows, dispossessed and thrown out of their homes by their families, live in Vrindavan, where life is a constant struggle. Sheikh gained the widows’ trust, and they allowed him to photograph them and record their stories. His portraits, however, do not depict the women as vulnerable or unfortunate. Rather, he portrays women who’ve found strength in their devotion to Krishna and a new family in their fellow widows. We wanted to bring this exhibition to the Museum to share the way Sheikh presents such an important cultural issue in a unique way. Documentaries and articles on the widows of Vrindavan often generalize their challenges and problems, while Sheikh’s portraits personalize the issue and challenge viewers far more than facts and figures ever could.

LEFT | Indian (Rajput), Krishna and Gopis Swimming in a River, 1740, gouache on paper. Purchased with the M. Bell Rice Fund. RIGHT | Indian, Untitled (Embracing Couple), gouache on paper. Purchased with funds from Friends of the Art Museum.

Krishna: Lord of Vrindavan August 8–November 30, 2014

Krishna: Lord of Vrindavan explores the Hindu God and his role in Hindu theology, giving context to the widows of Vrindavan depicted in the photography of Moksha. The objects, drawn from the UMFA’s permanent collection and spanning the 11th through the 20th centuries, depict famous scenes from Krishna’s life, from his playful childhood in Vrindavan to the great promise he offered Hindus as an adult: that through unconditional love and devotion to Krishna, one could gain moksha (salvation)—the promise that draws the dispossessed, including the widows documented in Fazal Sheikh’s photographs, to the city of Vrindavan even today. | exhibitions

salt 10: Conrad Bakker Opens September 12, 2014

Whitney Tassie | Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art

For our tenth salt installment, the UMFA presents Canadian artist Conrad Bakker’s three-dimensional painted wood replicas of familiar commodities. Revealing the artist’s hand in loose brushwork, Bakker’s to-scale wood sculptures of books, furniture, machinery, and even web pages are nonfunctional, imprecise copies: his wooden copy of Karl Marx’s Capital, Volume I (1867) cannot be read, just as his hulking wooden motorcycle cannot be driven. But his objects, sold for the exact price of their real commercial models, serve another purpose. Circumventing and calling attention to the inflated values of the art market, Bakker poses questions about the value of artistic labor, the distinction between originality and appropriation, and the power of symbols.

ABOVE LEFT | Conrad Bakker Tony Feher (Canadian, born 1970, lives Urbana, Ill.), Untitled Project: Opens October 3, 2014 Robert Smithson's Library [Crystals Diamonds and Anchored by a centrally viewed, monumental wooden Transistors], 2010. Oil paint on carved wood. Courtesy the staircase, the UMFA’s 2001 Marcia and John Price artist. RIGHT | Conrad Bakker Museum Building plays with light and form while (Canadian, born 1970, lives Urbana, Ill.), Untitled Project: capitalizing on the significant sightlines of the Honda CB77 Superhawk, 2013- University and the Wasatch Range. The heart of the 2014, detail. Oil paint on carved Museum, visible from most of the galleries, is its wood. Courtesy the artist. soaring Great Hall.

To celebrate this great space, the UMFA invited New York-based sculptor Tony Feher to create a site-determined installation. Whether transforming the way we consider everyday objects like glass bottles, plastic bags, and twine, or highlighting the “tricks” of architectural spaces with poetic installations, Feher’s work is formally brilliant as well as subversive, surprising, and humorous. Feher has made site visits to the UMFA to experiment with materials and get a feel for the city, the building, and the space, and he is now hard at work finalizing the installation. Stay tuned!

RIGHT | Artist Tony Feher explored the architecture of the UMFA building in the months leading up to the installation of his work, creating sketches and “doodles,” such as this example, located in curator Whitney Tassie’s office. SPECIAL EVENT TONY FEHER Co-presented with the Department of Art and Art History and the Artist Talk Carmen Morton Christensen Endowment Lecture Series. Thursday, October 2 | 5 pm exhibitions |

Creation and Erasure: CLUI's Matt Coolidge on the Bingham Pit

Adele Flail | UMFA Staff

The UMFA welcomes Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) founder and director Matt Coolidge on September 19 for a presentation about CLUI’s work in Creation and Erasure: Art of the Bingham Canyon Mine. CLUI—the organization responsible for the Great Salt Lake Landscan on view earlier this year—takes a unique approach to our shared landscape; we caught up with Coolidge recently to ask him about land use, the mine, and the role of art museums in public discourse. CLUI’s “nondisciplinary approach” relies on tools and perspectives of many fields to tell the myriad stories of the American landscape: “Our approach is very simple, and universal, and can be absorbed by anyone with an inter- est in the world around them—which I think is just about everybody,” says Coolidge. “Land use is the common language of the landscape, the com- mon ground we all occupy, modify, and inhabit. Its relevance is eternal, and its implications profound, yet it’s something we—all of us—barely have our minds around.” One example is the Bingham Canyon Mine, which, according to Coolidge, should be counted among the significant landmarks of our nation, despite— or, more accurately, because—its creation was an unintentional by-product of civilization’s workings. “It shows that [humans] operate on a geologic scale, that we can and do literally move mountains…it is truly a national resource for wonderment and inspiration, like Mount Rushmore or the Grand Canyon,” says Coolidge. To document the mine, the CLUI team drew on some familiar methods. “Like thousands of people, we have taken images of it from the [Rio Tinto Kennecott] grounds, from the perimeter, and from commercial airliners flying over it,” said Coolidge. But CLUI has also captured perspectives that few Utahns have seen in person. As with Great Salt Lake Landscan, the CLUI team captured images of the spring 2013 landslide via helicopter, alert- ing Kennecott staff to their plan out of courtesy. “Even though it is public airspace, we respect and appreciate the fact that they created it by removing the mountain that used to be there,” notes Coolidge. CLUI attempts to provide cleanly objective examinations of places that pro- vide focus-points for competing visions—environmentalism versus industry, for example, or private versus public domains—an approach that can make finding the right context for contemplation of the work challenging. “Many institutions exist to push a particular, singular point of view, in which case there is not much room for us”—one reason, says Coolidge, that CLUI works with museums and arts organizations. “Art is often a catchall category for things that don’t fit in other boxes. That, I would argue, is part of the function and purpose of art—to allow new ways of communicating and looking at the world to manifest, outside of the often-limiting boundaries of commerce, industry, and academe.” Visit the UMFA blog in September for the full Q&A.

Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI), Recent landslide at Bingham Canyon Mine, 2013, detail. Digital print. Purchased with funds from the Paul L. and Phyllis C. Wattis Endowment for Works on Paper.

SPECIAL EVENT

Friday, September 19 | 5 pm Creation and Erasure Presentation: Matthew Coolidge, Center for Land Use Interpretation | news

UMFA Executive Director Selected for Getty Leadership Institute

The UMFA is pleased to announce that Executive Director Gretchen Dietrich has been selected as one of thirty-nine museum executives worldwide for the Getty Leadership Institute’s prestigious 2014 Executive Education Program for Museum Leaders. The program is the world’s foremost professional development course designed especially for senior-level museum executives, and features an intensive curriculum aimed at deepening participants’ leadership skills in order to manage change and forge success in the global museum field. “The University of Utah is ex- tremely proud of Gretchen Dietrich’s distinguished selection for this interna- tionally acclaimed program,” said Raymond Tymas-Jones, the University’s Associate Vice President for the Arts and Dean of the College of Fine Arts. “Her participation will strategically enhance her already considerable leader- ship capabilities as she guides the future growth of a fine arts institution that is an essential component of our campus and community’s cultural life.”

Weekday Docents Needed

Make a difference in your community by becoming a docent at the UMFA. The Museum relies on committed volunteers to engage K-12 tour groups with our art and exhibitions. We’d love to have you join our team! The training for the Weekday Docent program will help you develop communication and teaching skills, gain valuable knowledge about art and the UMFA’s collection, and give back to your community through public service. Training for Weekday Docents takes place twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 3 pm between October 2014 and May 2015.

For more information, please contact Ali Monjar at 801.581.3580 or visit www.umfa.utah.edu/volunteer. Volunteer applications are due September 26, 2014.

Creation and Erasure Presentation: Matthew Coolidge, Center for Land Use Interpretation education |

UMFA School Outreach Programs: “Such Things Remain Important”

Annie Burbidge Ream | Assistant Curator of Education, Public School Programs, and Statewide Outreach

Each year, the Utah Museum of Fine Arts serves more than 19,000 K-12 students through- out Utah with our free School Outreach Programs, including Art in a Box and our new Traveling Museum Project that will launch this fall. Our programs create access to the UMFA’s collection through Museum tours, in-classroom Museum object presentations, and hands-on art-making activities. Designed to build sustainable visual arts education in the classroom, our programs provide curricula, teacher trainings, and art supplies that help meet the requirements of the Utah Core Standards.

We recently received a letter from a teacher whose students benefited from our outreach programs, and we want to share some excerpts with you, our members and donors, whose support makes our education programming possible:

I would like to thank the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and its generous donors for their wonderful support of our elementary school, Parkside… Our school is a Title 1 school located in Murray, Utah. Forty-five percent of our students receive free school lunch, and our minority enrollment is about 35%. Many of our kids come from humble circumstances—but they are filled with imagination. Art is one of the beautiful gifts in life that transcends wealth and class.

…Annie planned a fabulous printmaking activity, which she brought to our school…The museum also provided a bus so that 60 students could visit the museum…There were 12 docents to guide our 60 students through the museum. This meant that no group had more than six students! They really received the royal treatment, with such individualized attention. Each group received a unique tour and I could hear them discussing their different experiences on the bus-ride home.

In a world where field trips and art programs are slowly disappearing from public schools, may I offer my heartfelt gratitude to you for believing such things remain important. Our school spends every extra dime on reading aids and software curriculum. Thanks for spending your extra dimes on beauty, and joy, and imagination.

Warmly, Cheree Larson, Parkside Elementary

ABOVE | Assistant Curator of Education, Public School Programs, and Statewide Outreach Annie Burbidge Ream conducts an in-class presentation. | education

Engaging the University Community

Kerry O’Grady | Director of Education and Engagement

Nestled in the midst of the intellectual stimulation and myriad pursuits of the University of Utah community, the UMFA’s Department of Education and Engagement actively participates in our campus’s vibrant dialogue. As with all engaging educational experiences, the work of our department is a two-way street. We are inspired by our university community and its plurality of perspectives, and we provide a forum for those voices to come together around creative works that speak to pretty much every aspect of our human experience. We have the opportunity to live the questions presented through art in great company.

Creativity on Campus: Chamber Music Series

Several times a term, student expression literally resonates throughout the UMFA galleries as U of U musicians perform in our Chamber Music Series. The series provides a unique experience for our audiences—and for the musicians, who often take the creative environs of the Museum as inspira- tion to boldly try something new or to approach a composition they know well in a new way. As audiences listen to the music, we invite them to peruse our galleries, letting the music inform their viewing and allowing the artwork to inspire their listening. The confluence of these creative formats can open up a more dynamic experience than either alone.

I have participated twice in the UMFA's Chamber Music Series as a performer and it forever changed not only how I view the pieces I performed in the museum, but also how I analyze musical works in the future. The benefits of having the UMFA as such a close and free resource to students is immeasurable, because otherwise the only way to experience art of that caliber is to travel or pay exorbitant entrance fees at other local museums—something rather difficult for a student's budget and time…Even after I graduate I will consider it one of Utah's best attractions. —Lauren Posey, cellist, Rosco String Quartet, Master of Music, 2014

LEFT | Lauren Posey. RIGHT | Rosco String Quartet. Photographs courtesy of Elisa Posey.

As part of our ongoing Art is 100 celebration, we’ll be highlighting the myriad ways that the UMFA’s Education and Engagement team supports students across disciplines. Stay tuned for another tale of creativity on campus in October. events | UMFA MEMBER UMFA APPRECIATION UMFA MEMBER UMFA MEMBER APPRECIATION APPRECIATIONUMFADAYUMFA DAYUMFAMEMBER UMFA MEMBERMEMBER MEMBERAPPRECIATION MEMBERDAYAPPRECIATIONAPPRECIATION APPRECIATION UMFA DAY DAYUMFA UMFAUMFADAY MEMBERAPPRECIATION MEMBERUMFA UMFA MEMBERDAY APPRECIATION UMFA APPRECIATION MEMBER APPRECIATIONMEMBER UMFA DAY MEMBER APPRECIATIONUMFA DAY MEMBERDAY UMFAMEMBERUMFA DAY DAYMEMBERAPPRECIATION APPRECIATION APPRECIATION APPRECIATION APPRECIATION UMFA UMFA UMFA MEMBER MEMBERUMFA APPRECIATION DAYMEMBERDAY DAY UMFA DAYMEMBER DAYUMFA APPRECIATIONMEMBER UMFAAPPRECIATION DAY UMFAAPPRECIATIONUMFA APPRECIATIONMEMBERMEMBER DAY MEMBER DAY APPRECIATIONMEMBERAPPRECIATION UMFA MEMBERUMFAMEMBERUMFA DAYAPPRECIATIONUMFA DAY MEMBER APPRECIATIONDAYAPPRECIATIONMEMBER UMFA MEMBERAPPRECIATION DAY MEMBERUMFAAPPRECIATION APPRECIATION APPRECIATION APPRECIATION MEMBER DAY DAY MEMBERDAYDAY APPRECIATIONUMFADAY DAYUMFA DAY UMFAAPPRECIATIONDAY UMFA MEMBERMEMBERUMFA DAYMEMBER DAYAPPRECIATIONAPPRECIATION MEMBER UMFA MEMBERAPPRECIATION UMFA UMFA DAY APPRECIATION MEMBER APPRECIATION DAY MEMBERDAYMEMBERUMFA DAY UMFAUMFA APPRECIATIONMEMBER APPRECIATIONUMFA DAYUMFA APPRECIATIONUMFADAY APPRECIATION DAY MEMBERMEMBERMEMBERDAYMEMBER DAY MEMBER APPRECIATIONAPPRECIATIONAPPRECIATION APPRECIATION UMFAAPPRECIATION MEMBER DAY DAY DAY APPRECIATION DAY DAY UMFA UMFADAY UMFA MEMBER MEMBERMEMBERAPPRECIATION Saturday, July 12 APPRECIATIONAPPRECIATION DAY DAY DAY 11 am–5 pm

The UMFA invites Museum members to attend a daylong celebration in their honor, featuring member-only perks throughout the Museum, including:

• FREE thank-you gift* • Special curator-led tours • 20% discount in The Museum Store and Museum Café

*While supplies last. Member must be present to claim gift. Limit one gift per card-carrying member.

After-Hours Party Friday, October 3, 2014 | 8 pm

Join us after hours at the Museum, enjoy drinks and a DJ, and be the first to view a new site-determined installation by Tony Feher in the UMFA’s Great Hall!

Tickets: $30 for members $40 for non-members

For tickets, call 801.585.0464 or visit www.umfa.utah.edu | calendar ONGOING Highlights of the Collection Tour | FREE First Wednesday of every month, 6:30 pm | Saturdays and Sundays, 1:30 pm Explore a new perspective on the UMFA’s permanent collection with a thirty-minute docent-led tour. NEW Story Time at The Museum Store | FREE Third Saturdays | July 19, August 16, September 20, 2 and 3 pm This summer, during the UMFA’s free Third Saturday for Families, The Museum Store will host a special story time for children based on each month’s theme. JULY Artful Afternoon: Art is 100 Celebration | FREE | Saturday, July 19, 1–4 pm Families will experience performances, art, and fun while gathering inspiration from UMFA's amazing collection of 5,000 years of human creativity and celebrating 100 years of art at the U. Family Day at Spiral Jetty with KUED | FREE | Saturday, July 26, 10 am–1 pm Join the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, KUED, and Great Salt Lake Institute for a fun family day at Spiral Jetty. Create art, learn about the science of the lake, and explore the landscape. UMFA at The Salt Lake City Public Library: The Chemistry of Art | FREE The Main Library | Wednesday, July 23, 4–5 pm Day-Riverside Branch | Wednesday, July 30, 4–5 pm Join the Utah Museum of Fine Arts and The City Library as we explore the chemistry of art through materials mined in Utah: carbon, calcium, iron, copper, and even gold! AUGUST Third Saturdays for Families: Jewelry from India | FREE | Saturday, August 16, 1–4 pm Fall Film Series: Creativity in Focus | Wednesday, August 27, 7 pm | FREE Co-presented with the Utah Film Center. Additional support provided by CUAC and Modern West Fine Art. SEPTEMBER Chamber Music Series: La voix humaine opera | FREE | Wednesday, September 10, 7 pm salt 10: Conrad Bakker | Artist and Curator in Conversation Thursday, September 11 | FREE | Exhibition Preview, 4 pm | Artist and Curator in Conversation, 5 pm | Reception, 6 pm Creation and Erasure Presentation: Matthew Coolidge | FREE | Friday, September 19 After-Hours Party Matthew Coolidge, director of the Los Angeles-based Center for Land Use Friday, October 3, 2014 | 8 pm Interpretation (CLUI), will talk about the Bingham Mine and its significance in the perceptual arena of the American landscape. FoCA Members Only: Day Trip and Studio Tour | September 6 FoCA supporters will receive a behind-the-scenes tour of Nu Skin’s contemporary art collection and visit the studio of salt 5 artist Daniel Everett. Third Saturday for Families: Wood Sculptures | FREE | Saturday, September 20, 1-4 pm

Fall Film Series: Creativity in Focus | FREE | Wednesday, September 24, 7 pm Co-presented with the Utah Film Center. Additional support provided by CUAC and Modern West Fine Art.

Information subject to change; visit www.umfa.utah.edu/calendar for details.

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Marcia and John Price Museum Building 410 Campus Center Drive umfa.utah.edu Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0350

Hours of Operation Tuesday–Friday...... 10 am–5 pm Wednesdays...... 10 am–8 pm Weekends...... 11 am–5 pm Closed Mondays and Holidays Admission (excludes ticketed exhibitions) UMFA Members...... FREE Adults...... $9 Seniors ...... (ages 65+) $7 Youth ...... (ages 6-18) $7 Children under 6 ...... FREE U Students/Faculty/Staff ��������� FREE Higher Education Students ������ FREE Information ...... 801.581.7332 Membership ...... 801.585.0464 Programming ...... 801.581.3580 UMFA is an accessible museum