Contact: Emily Brunt | emilyb@slartcenter.org | 801.328.4201 x 115 | www.slartcenter.org
For Immediate Release: November 18, 2011
For Immediate Release: November 18, 2011
Note: This exhibition opens with a First Friday celebration on December 2 with DJ Mr. Jesse Walker, a cash bar, and hors d’oeuvres following a lecture by Doublespeak artist Wendy Red Star, Crow Style: The Artwork of Wendy Red Star. www.slartcenter.org for details.
SALT LAKE ART CENTER ANNOUNCES: Mirko Martin’s Noir, exhibiting December 2, 2011 – January 21, 2012
SALT LAKE CITY, UT –Salt Lake Art Center announces Mirko Martin’s single channel video Noir will open December 2, 2011 and exhibit through January 21, 2012 in the New Genres Gallery, with a public First Friday opening on December 2, 8:00 – 10:00 PM.
German artist Mirko Martin’s video, Noir, documents a night during the artist's half-year stay in Los Angeles in 2008. Monitoring gang activity, police helicopters circled the neighborhood on a regular basis. On a particularly noisy evening, Martin went out to capture some sound. Within minutes, he heard gunshots. Over a black screen, Noir captures these gunshots and conversations with several residents and passers-by who try to make sense of what they heard and didn't hear, saw and didn't see.
Martin is a 2005 Fulbright Scholar, and his body of work has been exhibited around the world from the United States and United Kingdom to Japan, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France.
Noir is guest curated by Natasha Becker, Assistant Director in the Research and Academic Program at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. “Martin plays with our sense of language and imagination, sound and sight, presence and absence, locality and cultural representation, in a seriously thoughtful way. In Noir ‘being in the dark’ is simply not an option.”
“This video by Mirko Martin, which explores a night of disruption in an American community, offers a wonderful addition to the programming in our recently inaugurated New Genres Gallery,” says Adam Price, Executive Director, Salt Lake Art Center. “It is also a real treat to be able to work with a curator of Ms. Becker’s stature. Her experience as the founding curator of the highly-regarded Brick+Mortar International Video Art Festival provides a distinctive voice here at the Art Center.”
Mirko Martin, Noir, 2008, installation view, HDV transferred to DVD, b/w, sound, TRT 8 minutes, 8 seconds. Screen reads “It’s a weird night buddy.”
Natasha Becker is a contemporary art curator and art historian based in North Adams, Massachusetts. She is the founding curator (2009) of the Brick+Mortar International Video Art Festival in Greenfield, MA and assistant director for Mellon Initiatives in the Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute, since 2007. At the Clark, she organizes Mellon-funded programming which include colloquia, workshops, symposia and public conversations as well as major international collaborations, such as, the contemporary African art workshops (2007-2008) held at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg, the Clark, and New York City and the East-Central European seminar series (2010-2011) in Tallinn (Estonia), Brno (Czech Republic), and Bucharest (Romania). She has also taught courses on the history of photography and contemporary African art at Parsons School of Design (New School University) and the School of Visual Arts, New York. Her research interests are art from South Africa and the history of contemporary art exhibitions with a focus on the changing politics of art. She is currently completing a PhD on the Johannesburg Biennales in South Africa, 1995 and 1997, at Binghamton University, also in New York.
Salt Lake Art Center
Salt Lake Art Center is Utah’s premiere venue for contemporary art, and was recognized as Best Museum in the State of Utah for 2011. Founded in 1931 and now located in the heart of Salt Lake City, the Art Center exhibits groundbreaking work by leading local and international artists. www.slartcenter.org
Notable past exhibitions include: Robert Fontenot’s The Place This Is, a conceptual exploration of the stories and histories of Utah and America through materials commonly associated with the domestic realm; Contemporary Masters: Artist-Designed Miniature Golf, Honeymoon: A Harmonious Marriage of Opposites, featuring paintings by Kristin Calabrese and Joshua Aster, and the community public sculpture initiative Lawn Gnomes Eat Your Hearts Out; Fallen Fruit of Utah, a state-wide collaboration with museums and individuals about the role of fruit in Utah’s history, led by artist collective Fallen Fruit; and Final Light: V. Douglas Snow in Retrospect.
Current exhibitions include: the first round of the new Local’s Only Gallery exhibiting Jared Clark’s Bild (through December 17), Doublespeak (October 7, 2011 – January 7, 2012), work by contemporary women artists who utilize strategies of layered or multiple meanings to address sensitive or difficult subject matter; Kim Schoenstadt, recipient of the 2011 Catherine Doctorow Prize for Contemporary Painting (November 4, 2011 – February 18, 2012); and Neha Chocksi’s Leaf Fall in Looped (November 4, 2011 – January 6, 2012).
Upcoming exhibitions include: Sundance Film Festival New Frontier (January 20 – May 19, 2012) in its second annual presentation at the Art Center; and Play Me I’m Yours (June 10 – 25, 2012), a participatory art installation that will invite the residents of Utah to show off their piano skills on street corners all over Salt Lake.
The Art Center rounds out its offerings with a lively mix of award-winning educational programs, film screenings, panel discussions, and events celebrating Salt Lake’s vibrant local art scene. Salt Lake Art Center is located at 20 S. West Temple, just off the intersection with South Temple. Admission is free year-round. Business hours are Tuesday thru Thursday: 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM; Friday: 11:00 AM to 9:00 PM; Saturday: 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM; closed Sunday and Monday. For more information call (801) 328-4201 or visit www.slartcenter.org.
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