The Utah Museum of Contemporary Art believes in the power of the art of our time. Through programming, advocacy, and collaboration, we work with artists and communities to build a better world.

Desire Lines

Jan 26, 2018 – May 26, 2018

Overview Gallery Press
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Main Gallery Presented by Diane and Sam Stewart

Lower Level

Open today 11am–6pm

Suggested donation $10

Installation photograph, Desire Lines, Utah Museum of Contemporary Art, Jan 26—May 26, 2018, photo © UMOCA

“Desire Line—a path created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. Desire lines emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, have gaps or are non-existent.” (Wikipedia)

The landscape as a genre has held captive the imagination of the American public for the better part of the last two centuries. With unbound adoration, we have embraced the landscape, from the grandeur of the paintings of the Hudson River School to the manifest destiny myth of a rugged and unspoiled west. Americans have been drawn to artists’ interpretation of place, real and fictional.  Despite the popularity of the landscape, too often the public conceptualizes these works in a very traditional way, whether that is plein air oil, watercolor painting or photographs that are devoid of any hint of human disturbance.

Desire Lines highlights the various paths, ranging from archiving to reproduction to collaborations with nature to works that critique the history of landscape focused art, taken by the artists included in the exhibition to explore our complicated relationship to the landscape that shapes and supports us and our repeated desire to represent it.

Featured Artists: Ameila Carley; Barry Stone; Brian Patterson; Carly Glovinski; Ian Fisher; Jane Christensen; Janell James; Kelly Larsen; Kirsten Kay Thoen; Maddison Colvin; Michael Handley; Molly Kaderka<; Penelope Umbrico; Sara Frantz; Trevor Amery

Supported by ZAP and Grandeur Peak Advisors.


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