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Show EXHIBITION 1996: "20/20 EXHIBITION 1996: 20, annual Utah Arts Festival visual art exhil ].; Dei This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Festival and to celebrate this significant feat of cultural longevity, twenty visual artists were invited to exhibit their work-twenty years/twenty artists. VISUAL ARTS AND THE UTAH ARTS FESTIVAL The exhibiting artists were selected to represent the hundreds of visual artists who have participated in the Festival since its inaugural event held on Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City in 1977. In those early years, the Festival's only venue for visual artists was the Artists Marketplace. Many fine artists participated though the booth space was at times less than ideal for display of their work.This lack of adequate display space inherent in a temporary, outdoor festival discouraged many fine contemporary artists from participating in those early years. After the Festival moved to West Temple in 1979, the Visual Artists Project was introduced to encourage a wider participation from area artists. Visual artists were invited to submit proposals for installations of art work/projects on the Festival grounds. Projects presented included a state-wide banner project and an ever-changing ice sculpture. The Visual Artists Project stayed with the Festival when it moved in 1984 to its current home at the Triad Center. Here visitors were met each year with projects from both local and national visual artists which included large sand sculpture, a billboard project, inflatable sculpture, reflective light panels, interactive doorway installations (Andy Krasnow), larger than life wooden mythical figures (Bonnie Sucec), paper sculpture installations (Jana Pullman), flying fish windsocks, weather balloons (both by Day Christensen) and a snaking steel sculpture (Neil Hadlock). An early visual arts exhibition was mounted in 1986, entitled "2020 Vision," which asked artists to look into the future and project their vision of the world in the year 2020. In honor of its 15th anniversary, the Festival began an Art In Public Places program that literally put the "public" back in public art. In this project, a panel accepted proposals and selected 3-4 proposals for review by the public at the Festival. Patrons voted for their choice and the winning piece was then constructed and installed in the public domain. This program has left a legacy of a landscape design (jan Streifel), a monolithic light needle (Kenvin Lyman), a whimsical walkway colonnade (John Hess) and a visit to Utah's ancient past as visualized in sandstone and glass (Janet Shapero). THE EXHIBITION SERIES The Utah Arts Festival recommitted itself to an exhibition element in 1988 when EXHIBITION was introduced at the historic Union Pacific Railroad Depot. In the initial EXHIBITION 1988, selections were made from the Utah State Collection. Works in all media from historical as well as contemporary artists, were selected from the state's extensive visual art collection. Utah's collection, administered by the Utah Arts Council, represents almost one hundred years of collection. Our state collection was once informally called the "Alice Art Collection" because it was initiated and fostered by Alice Merrill Home, a progressive state legislator, suffragette and member of the General Board of the Relief Society. Alice was an early advocate for visual arts who established the statewide competition and solicited funds from the state legislature to place art in the public schools. She also played the most important role in the establishment of the Utah Arts Council in 1899-the earliest state agency of its kind in the nation. After EXHIBITION 1988, it was decided to undertake a comprehensive survey of Utah's contemporary visual artists. Because of the large number of artists, 1996 UTAH ARTS FE ST I VAL-2 OT H ANNIVERSARY |
