he new year offers repentance, redemption and resolution. I made no drunken new year resolves, but to follow suit in the January motif, I did manage to find a favorite art gallery of 2003.

The Salt Lake ART Center has come through in multiple ways throughout the year. It has a lovely staff, a beautiful building, exceptional artists and a breadth of art shows, a cool bookstore, a stocked reading room and a coat check.

The ART Center was founded in 1931 as a private, nonprofit organization explicitly for local artists of all media, poets and musicians. It has since invited artists outside of Utah boundaries like glass guru Dale Chihuly. Exhibiting artists usually present a lecture at the center that definitely improves the gallery participant’s involvement with the art.

The ART Center also offers the community art classes that can even be taken for college credit for Salt Lake Community College or the University of Utah.

The current exhibit is “Crossroads,” presenting photographs shot by Salt Lake City teenagers. The photographs are good for capturing the infatuation of the amateur artists with the camera. This is photography before it gets to the beat-down of strict, technical form. Maybe these new artists will be adept in both.

The next exhibit, “Fast Forward: Growing up in the Shadows Hollywood,” starts Jan. 31. The show will display photographs by Ms. Greenfield, whose subject matter emphasizes young adults dealing with the glitz and grime of Southern California. For those of you interested in Los Angeles, Sundance is showing a fantastic documentary called, “LA Plays Itself,” made from an LA-lover film-fanatical perspective.

Although the ART Center beats out all of Salt Lake City’s museums as best art oasis, the best of the available offerings is the Utah Museum of Fine Art (UMFA). It may be the only one. The UMFA has a staff of intelligent docents, curators and program coordinators. The museum’s ambiance has the typical classist tones. It primarily exists and reserves itself for art history and theory.

The UMFA gift shop is expensive and the art books remain closed, bound with melted plastic. The food is expensive. The museum, however, is a special experience and should not be disregarded. They will let you bring your children and will provide the crayons.

UMFA has brought some fantastic artists within a social economical context. For example, “Edward Hopper and Urban Realism” was a great exhibit as was that of photographer Sebastiào Salgado, which generated a massive turnout. The UMFA has also acquired some impressive pieces this year, such as Deborah Butterfield’s two-ton bronze horse.

The ART Center’s building has a great layout. The space itself keeps your interest and may keep you awake running up and down the stairs. There is also a mini-movie house for video art and commentary films.
There is a level of professionalism in the art center and it attracts working artists. Still, it caters to local artists as part of its mission statement. The exhibits are varied but timely. The reason this gallery is my favorite for 2003 is not the fantastic bookstore housing art books that you’d usually have to order online, but the innovative book lounge. In this space, exhibiting artists are asked to bring in their own work along with their favorite artists and writers’ books for the public’s perusal. You even get to touch these beauties. It definitely adds to the potential understanding of artists’ work when you know they have read too much Hemingway.
The Salt Lake ART center is located 20 S. West Temple. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday and Saturday 10 a.m. through 5 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. through 9 p.m. and Sunday 1 p.m. through 5 p.m The Utah Museum of Fine Arts is located at 410 Campus Center Dr. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 10 a.m to 5 p.m and Saturday and Sunday 12 p.m to 5 p.m.
stephanie@red-mag.com