Opening at the Springville Museum of Art on Wednesday, January 13, 2016, “Here, There, and Everywhere” will examine how spaces become places; thusly, locations invested with meaning.
Works of diverse depictions of place are shown together by Joshua Clare, Mark England, Karen Horne, Jeff Pugh, Brittany Scott, and Justin Wheatley, that ask how place connects to identity, power and perspective. This show, which is on view through May 15, 2016, will invite goers to reflect on their own spaces of significance, and how place has impacted their lives.
Also opening on and running simultaneously with the above show, “Middle | Nowhere” is a contemporary show by Levi Jackson, which explores the other side of place; the forgotten spaces and disregarded landscapes of the American West.
In his own words, “Middle | Nowhere has a primary goal of demystifying the West in an effort to better understand contemporary mentalities.” The show “takes traditional folklore, imagery, sentiments and iconography and buttresses it against the subversive, yet more prevalent Western vernacular. From this pastoral, majestic and even celestial place I use common, yet overlooked materials, locations and activities as vehicles to pique the awareness within the current state of the West. My intention is not to simply comment on a Western reality as not inspired or beautiful, because it is, but it is more complex and gritty.
While the West certainly is mountain springs, ox bows and wild flowers; it is also dry lakebeds, horse flies and thistles. Furthermore it is a cocktail of militaries, mysticism and the momentary. Beyond a physical manifestation of the West exists a mindset that transcends place, which is onward and upward, at any cost. This vision is understood as progressive and encompasses a divine destiny. Middle | Nowhere takes a critical view of this prevalent practice knowing full well the result will be pseudo-reconciliation.”
For more information, see: www.smofa.org.