Authors: Parker Scott Mortensen
Review: The Aliens
The Aliens is a performance that’d be subtle enough for TV but is still connective enough for theatre. “Half of this play … is silence,” writes playwright Annie Baker, and it’s true. It works in this production because the audience is so close. … read more
Chiura Obata: An American Modern
An American Modern has a lot of firsts. It’s the first touring exhibition of Chiura Obata’s work that includes work from all decades of his working life. It’s also the first time his works have been presented as a collective retrospective in Japan, since they’ve only shown in fragments before and not always translated. … read more
Selective Nature: Nancy Rivera
Nancy Rivera has wrestled with this boundary of the real since her days completing her MFA at the University of Utah. Her work centered around the cyanotype processes, a cameraless form of photography that exposes a photosensitive iron solution onto a surface and then dries it in a dark room. … read more
Six Artists: BDAC’s Summer Gallery
I’ve been to the Bountiful Davis Art Center (BDAC) many times, but this particular gallery opening felt special. It was a warm Friday night, one of those soft Utah nights that hint at true summer. As those nights of heat near, BDAC offers six new exhibitions that explore abstraction, mediation, color and more. … read more
Downtown Play: Quarters
Shaken but not deterred, Quarters’ initial growing pains seem healthy, indicative of the people who have worked to bring this experience to Salt Lake City. Whether you love skeeball or Street Fighter, cocktails or Pabst, Quarters wants to include you. … read more
Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate
This is political, personal and requires you to confront yourself. It’s hard, and it’s a space we should all try to live in more earnestly. Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate runs until June 2 at the Springville Museum of Art. … read more
Film Review: Lean on Pete
Lean on Pete’s initial imagery, that of a boy and his horse trekking across the desert, plays into the romanticized conception of an America that doesn’t exist now and probably never did. … read more
Review: Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami
Bloodlight and Bami pulls back the curtain and gives us the fly-on-the-wall cinema verité approach—this is a portrait of the artist, not just of Jones but of the artist as identity. … read more
Review: Celeste
For a game about a young girl climbing a mountain, Celeste is surprisingly less a coming-of-age story and more a story about how hard it is to take the tremendous first steps towards better health. … read more
Review: The Red Strings Club
Red Strings Club is a game that tugs at your philosophical leanings, asking grand and granular questions that it demands you answer. But most importantly, Red Strings weaves a familiar paranoia using the root of cyberpunk: that corporations increasingly own our well-being, and, to a large extent, we’ve come to like it. … read more