| Description |
Recent developments in Salt Lake City's visual arts community indicate that a new generation of artists is ready to emerge to an appreciative and supportive audience. Salt Lake's unique position as a growing urban center cultivates upcoming artists, but rarely has a local artist escaped the valley and risen to international prominence. Should ambitious artists stay, or should they go? The journalistic film portion of this thesis briefly portrays important recent developments in the art scene and interviews several artists about their relation to Salt Lake as a place while showcasing their work. The written portion dissects the art situation in art-historical terms, applying the logics of globalism and supermodernity to the idea of Salt Lake as a local setting, questioning if the idea of a local is even necessary. Blogs, forums, and video sharing sites like Vimeo help artists form and maintain connections across continents in a fashion much more suited to the global age. These connections are as important to their artistic lives as the local interactions are to their physical lives, and can sometimes have equal rewards in terms of gallery and exhibition opportunities. Within this interconnected existence individuals who are comfortable in a variety of environments and creative circles are the most successful. Artists have two new challenges in the hyperconnected world: To connect to the correct peers and audience to ensure success and continued creativity, and to maintain the semblance of individuality in a world with a decreasing need for the 'local.' The film portion plays a role in these challenges, in recording the contemporary moment it helps to solidify the local identity. Once disseminated via the same sources the written portion examines, it will provide exposure for these artists to the rest of the world. |
