Jared Clark: BILD

Salt Lake Art Center is pleased to announce Jared Clark as the exhibiting artist for the launch of its newest program offering, the Locals Only Gallery. A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, Salt Lake City artist Clark will install a new work from hisBild series, which employs scavenged materials to create site-specific sculptures.

The title of this series, Bild, references both imagery and construction, as it is the German word for a painting as well as a homophone for “build”. Clark’s piece is a monumental installation composed of urban and domestic objects which takes as its springboard the tenets of Minimalist primary sculptural forms; including a confrontation with the viewer in real space which demands consideration of its relationship to the scale of the human body.

“While the Bild is clearly a sculptural installation, it poses itself with a flat rectangular side which begs to be read as a painting, while the backside of the Bildbetrays its nature as sculpture with variegated lengths of objects protruding in an almost violent way that contrasts the orderly and serene composition of the front. Thus the Bild is also a commentary on the privileged plane of painting, the frontal flatness that [Clement] Greenberg proposed was its essence,” says artist Jared Clark on his work.

“I am so proud that Salt Lake Art Center is opening a space in which to showcase local artist talent. Clark’s work is a perfect launch for the Locals Only Gallery. His work is conceptual, formal, site-specific, and rigorous in its vision and scope. He is using specific detritus from the streets of Salt Lake City to build a piece that engages in universal dialogues of painting and sculpture simultaneously-it’s really quite smart!” says Micol Hebron, Chief Curator, Salt Lake Art Center.

Locals Only Gallery is Salt Lake Art Center’s newest initiative to promote local artists as they engage the contemporary art world. Selected solely from proposals submitted by Utah artists, the L.O.G. will provide those artists with a professional exhibition environment, prominent exposure to Art Center visitors, and through the Art Center’s increasing national ties, the possibility of greater exposure around the country.