Mexican Art & Culture @ UMFA (SLC: May 6 - Sept 26)

Utah Museum of Fine Arts
May 2010
Celebrate Mexican Art and Culture at the UMFA this May!

Special Exhibitions:

Las Artes de México
From the Gilcrease Museum
May 6 – September 26, 2010
Celebrate the richness of Mexican art and culture at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts this summer. On loan from the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Las Artes de México features a broad array of artifacts such as woven fabrics, masks, and religious objects from Mesoamerica, as well as groundbreaking paintings by modernist masters like Rufino Tamayo, Jose Clemente Orozco, and Diego Rivera. All label text is available in English and Spanish.

salt 1: Adriana Lara
May 6 - September 26, 2010
Concurrent with Las Artes de México, the UMFA is launching an ongoing series of semiannual exhibitions entitled salt, which showcases work by emerging artists from around the world. The inaugural salt exhibition features the work of Mexico City-based artist Adriana Lara (b. 1978), whose work explores the relationship between art-making and other more commonplace forms of production. Working in a range of formats and disciplines, Lara playfully questions the boundaries that separate fine art from everyday objects.

Community: Eat, Work, Play
May 6, 2010 – January 9, 2011
Big canvases, bold colors, and intriguing ideas are on offer in Community: Eat, Work, Play. With the help of UMFA educators, first and sixth graders from Lincoln Elementary School created large-scale murals that visually represent the various aspects of the title: eat, work, and play.

Special Events:

Highlights of the Collection Tour
First Wednesday of the month at 6:30pm and all Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30pm
FREE TO THE PUBLIC
Let a UMFA docent take you on a 30-minute tour of the world’s art and cultures. No pre-registration necessary.

Highlights of Las Artes de México Tour
Tuesday–Sunday, May 6–September 26 • 12:30pm
FREE TO THE PUBLIC
Let a UMFA docent take you on a tour of Las Artes de México! This free, thirty-minute tour explores the art and culture of Mexico, focusing on a few highlight objects. No registration necessary. **Please check the website for Spanish tours and family tours.

Conversation with Adriana Lara
Thursday, May 6 • 7pm
FREE TO THE PUBLIC
Join Dr. Jill Dawsey, UMFA Acting Chief Curator, for a conversation with salt 1 artist, Adriana Lara. Learn about her artistic practice and be among the first to experience salt and Las Artes de México.

Celebración! Gala and Art Auction
Saturday, May 8 • 6–10pm
Sip signature cocktails, indulge in fine Mexican cuisine from Frida Bistro, enjoy live music, and become the new owner of select paintings by Utah’s top artists. All proceeds support the UMFA’s statewide education outreach programs. For more information, please visit umfa.utah.edu/celebracion, or contact us by emailing rsvp@umfa.utah.edu or calling 801-585-9880.

Third Saturday for Families: T-Shirts
Saturday, May 15 • 2–4pm
FREE TO THE PUBLIC
Join us to celebrate the children’s work on view in Community: Eat, Work, Play, and then be inspired to create your own.

How-to Workshop at the Salt Lake City Main Public Library
Tuesday, May 18 • 7–9pm
FREE TO THE PUBLIC
How do you look at art? Is there a right and wrong way to examine an art piece? UMFA Tour Coordinator, Annie Burbidge-Ream, will teach you all about art appreciation in this free seminar at the Salt Lake City Public Library. It’s the perfect way to prep for your visit to Las Artes de México!

Continuing Exhibitions:

The Continuing Allure: Painters of Utah's Red Rock
On view through June 27, 2010
To love the western landscape is to embrace the subtlety of a vast and mysterious desert terrain. Among the artists who conquered the obstacles of painting Utah's red rock country were Maynard Dixon, Edgar Payne, and Conrad Buff, just a few of the notable painters represented in this exhibition.

Pablo O'Higgins: Works on Paper
On view through September 19, 2010
This exhibition presents a selection of lithographs by Pablo O’Higgins, focusing on the artist’s heroic depictions of the working class in revolutionary Mexico. Although he is virtually unknown in his home state of Utah, O’Higgins is remembered and celebrated in Mexico as a true artist “of the people.” Born Paul Higgins in 1904, he attended East High School, where he took art classes from painter LeConte Stewart. The young artist was attracted to the vibrant art scene in Mexico and eventually became one of the few Anglo artists welcomed into the Mexican muralist movement.

Africa: Arts of a Continent
Ongoing
Explore themes of the spirit world and afterlife in this ambitious exhibition of African art objects from the UMFA’s permanent collection. In Africa: Arts of a Continent, you will learn about the spiritual power of Central African masks, the magic and mystery of ancestral African sculptures, and ideas of beauty and spirituality as seen in African objects of daily use. The debut of one of the UMFA’s newest acquisitions, a late XXVIth Dynasty Egyptian sarcophagus, is an exhibition highlight.