Just in case you aren’t getting your fill of art-related activities in the Salt Lake City area, there’s a new space just 30 minutes south that’s certainly worth the travel. The recently opened SEGO ART CENTER has a mission similar to that of other Utah art centers… it’s a nice hybrid of a smaller independent space and a nonprofit organization capable of bringing national and international artists in addition to locals. For Utah Valley especially, this marks a new and exciting development.

With 1,000 square feet of gallery space, a basement with 1,500 square feet of studio space and a sculpture garden in the back, the new Sego Art Center has the potential to be a Mecca of sorts for starving modern artists in Utah County.

Members of the Sego Arts Foundation recently signed the lease for the location of the Sego Art Center at 169 N. University Ave., which will serve as a modern art gallery and as the first step toward Provo’s own art house cinema, among other things.

Maht Paulos, the founder of the Sego Arts Foundation, said Sego has a three-fold mission: music, art and film. The new art center will be the home for several projects, such as the Provo Film Society, a cabaret poetry show once a month, art workshops and classes for community members.

The center will open its doors on May 2 for its first show just 52 days after signing the building lease.

“It’s all happening fast,” Paulos said. “Kind of just make it happen and then go for it.”

The gallery will feature local artists, as well as well-known artists who will bring national attention.

“At Sego, our big thing is that we only accepted local art and music,” Paulos said. “That might change in some ways, but will remain our emphasis.”

Another big project for Sego is the community outreach programs, especially those dealing with high school students. Paulos wants the new Sego center to have a program that will give high school students more venues to show their art. He also wants the center to provide workshops for high school art teachers.

One of the goals of the Sego Arts Foundation is to eventually generate enough revenue to start an art house cinema, which would show international and local independent films.

“It’s going to take a lot of things coming together to get an art house cinema off the ground, including serious funding,” Paulos said. “But we’re formally organizing the Provo Film Society, which will have its home in the Sego Arts Center.”

The society is a recently organized group with the main purpose of helping promote and inspire local filmmakers and give them a venue to show their art.

“We have so many talented filmmakers in this area who need to be let know what’s going on with film around the world,” said Raquel Smith Callis, the public arts program director for the Downtown Business Alliance. “I think that having an art house cinema so close to the university would fill a large niche.”

Since Sego is run on a 100 percent volunteer basis, it doesn’t have the funding to start up an art house cinema from scratch. So Paulos along with other members of the Sego Art Center plan to start sponsoring small screenings of independent films in the basement of the building.

“We’re interested in bringing intellectually stimulating films to Provo to enhance the culture,” said Ryan Neely, member of the Sego Arts Foundation and local business owner. “We’re looking for art. We don’t care if some arbitrary organization puts a rating on it.”

That ideology has given Neely and the other members of Sego some trouble when it comes to acquiring a space for the theater.

Local property owners don’t want to sell their buildings if R-rated films will be shown. However, supporters of the art house cinema don’t see what the big deal is.

“There have been movies that I’ve felt the need to walk out of and I walk out,” Callis said. “It’s not my place to draw the line for anyone else; they have to draw it for themselves according to their background and belief systems.”

Of course, not all of the movies that would be shown at the art house cinema would be rated R. Just like other movie theaters in Provo, there would be a wide variety of topics, film styles and ratings. Many independent and international films aren’t gratuitously violent, vulgar or sexual.

“Just from watching the Oscars I can see that there are some enchanting, beautiful films out there, and we just don’t have a place to show them in Provo,” Callis said.

Neely, along with the other members of Sego and their supporters, thinks the unique demographic of Provo makes it an excellent candidate city for an art house cinema.

“Within a five-mile radius there are more people in downtown Provo than there are surrounding the Broadway theater in Salt Lake City, and they are 10 years younger and have a higher income level.” Neely said. “Statistically that is the best scenario for a successful art house cinema.”

According to income statistics, the Broadway theater brought in about $900,000 in 2007 from independent films. Approximately $800,000 of this money came from movies that never came to Provo.

“One of the biggest film festivals in the world is right up the canyon from us, and it has no part in Provo,” Neely said.

But this isn’t the first time a group of hopefuls tried to establish an art house cinema in Provo.

In 1998, Melissa Puente, a BYU alumna who graduated from the film department, and her husband tried to buy the old Provo Academy Theater, once located downtown. But the couple found that while people seemed enthusiastic about the idea, there wasn’t enough community support for independent cinema.

“We did everything we could to promote the theater, but it was just a very clear message that people just weren’t interested,” Puente said. The building was later razed.

In contrast, Paulos put together a screening for the Sigur Ros film, “Heima,” at Velour, a local music venue, in November 2007. The turnout for the film was more than Paulos had expected.

“About 400 people showed up and we ended up showing it over two days,” Paulos said. “It was one of the most successful screenings of the film in the country.”

So it would seem public interest has grown since 1998.

“I think it’s interesting that they’re trying to do the same thing that we did,” Puente said. “That would be great if things have changed.”
Originally Published: 17 Mar 2008 in BYU NewsNet

The increasingly-cool-and-cooler Sego Art Center has got it goin’ on, and I am now uncool and remiss in not having gone down there yet. First up, reportedly, is “Was Ist Surrealismus,” a room-sized, completely engulfing, organic-looking, foam spray sculpture installation by Brandon Boulton.

Second is the inauguration of Sego’s newest gallery space, “The Annex,” with a curated show of work by St. Louis artist Colin Tuis Nesbit. The Annex show borrows the truly playful question, ‘[I]s The Experience of the Materialization of the Concept of Space the Experience of Space?” from Bernard Tschumi, the Swiss-born deconstructivist architect and writer, as its title.

The whole caboodle looks promising and challenging, including, as a bonus, Provo-based Jim Dalrymple’s complementary essay on Boulton’s work. Bottom line: It’s all about being engulfed.
Originally Published: 08 JULY 2008 in The Slat Lake Tribune

Just in case you aren’t getting your fill of art-related activities in the Salt Lake City area, there’s a new space just 30 minutes south that’s certainly worth the travel. The recently opened SEGO ART CENTER has a mission similar to that of other Utah art centers: to show progressive contemporary art; to offer artists a venue free of restrictions as well as affordable studio space; and to involve and engage the community, creating an ongoing dialogue about contemporary art. It’s a nice hybrid of a smaller independent space and a nonprofit organization capable of bringing national and international artists in addition to locals. For Utah Valley especially, this marks a new and exciting development.

What can you expect from Sego Art Center? In addition to openings for exhibitions-which change monthly-the featured artist(s) will lead a discussion. The ongoing “Evening with the Artist” lecture and discussion series covers a variety of topics, and has so far been a success.

This month, Jared Latimer’s show Still Conflict will hang-Latimer’s “Mason Ohio” is pictured-and he’ll host a discussion on Aug. 28. Over the next few months, Sego will host exciting exhibitions with artists from all over: Amy Wilson and Magdalena Murphy (both New York City-based artists); Adam Bateman and Pam Bowman (guest-curated by Jeff Lambson of the BYU MOA); a juried international show in November; and a new-media group show next January with artists from across Europe and the United States, guest-curated by Salt Lake City artist Chris Coy.

Originally Published: 07 AUG 2008 in Salt Lake City Weekly

On February 6th, 2009, the Sego Art Center will open Twenty-four/Seven, an exhibit of new work by local artist Roland Thompson.  In the Annex, Sego presents Big Wreck, a work by California artist Carleton Christy.  An opening reception will be held for the artists from 6 – 9pm that evening in association with the monthly Provo Gallery Stroll.

Like the 1960s art icon Frank Stella, whom he cites as an important influence, Utah artist Roland Thompson straddles the hazy divide between the prescript of High Modernism and that of Minimalism.  In his characteristic work, Thompson invents systematic rules – based on patterns of color, line and shape – by which he paints large, geometric, aluminum cutouts.  Thompson’s inclination toward Modernism is apparent in his striving to keep his paint as flat as possible to the surface of his work, yet his relish for the slight deviation from uniformity speaks strongly to the influence of Minimalism.

Thompson’s new body of abstract, gestural drawings, on display this month in the exhibition Twenty-four/Seven at the Sego Art Center, is itself a deviation, an attempt to “unspring” his formerly concentric, precise patterns of color.  Though Thompson admits these works have taken on an allegory for him, representing the orbital momentum of adult life around the many centers of gravity that must be attended to – home, family, work – these vibrant works are primarily formal.  To borrow the words of Stella, “What you see is what you see.”

JANUARY 09 - The work presented in this first annual Sego Studios Exhibit provides an insight into the practices of artists in Provo, UT- specifically those who have created work within the studio spaces at the Sego Art Center.  Each of the artists make work that is unique in concept, and that differs in subject matter and execution. While artist Julia Jones, in a manner similar to Elizabeth Peyton, paints portraits of close friends and family- Chris Allman constructs Utopian representations of an alternate world inhabited by humans, animals, humanoids, and anthropomorphs. Each of these creatures seem to be interacting in a grand narrative, playing an integral part in the outcome of particular events- situations that we as viewers cannot fully understand. Roland Thompson and Morgan Wakefield paint with painstaking process- their efforts resulting in graphic abstract works of immediate consequence- an artistic product of great interest and relevance to the current global artistic community. Other artists included in the show investigate aspects of visual culture, spirituality, and outsider-ism.
This particular group of artists represent an entire community of creation and collaboration which has been built around the Sego Art Center within it’s nine months of existence. The collaborations have most interestigly become wildly cross-disciplinary, resulting in group projects and interactions between visual artists, musicians, videographers, filmmakers, dancers, poets, writers, scholars, and others- and this is exaclty the type of environment that the Sego Art Center wishes to foster and perpetuate.

ANNEX:  These are some of my favorite (wild) things - A Group Project from Mrs. Bishop’s Third Grade Class at Edgemont Elementary School
Thirty-one students from Mrs. Bishop’s third grade class at Edgemont Elementary School traveled to the Bean Life Science Museum at Brigham Young University. Each child captured their favorite “wild thing” with a polaroid camera. Students then completed additional research and writing about their subjects, a practice that is reminiscient of the working manner of the contemporary artist Walton Ford. Ford will often conduct many hours of research, in order that he may better understand the wildlife he depicts in his paintings. This research empowers Ford to create works that have visual affinity to traditional Audubon paintings, but reach beyond mere anatomical study to acheive interesting narrative, conceptual significance, and humor. Thus, through the process of this show, this young group of artists are learning what it really means to be an artist today: not just creator of aesthetically pleasing objects, but also scientist, poet, or musician- to learn and engage in the world in important ways while encouraging engagement by all.

DECEMBER 08 - In the Aristotelian tradition, art functions as an imitator, showing us what is, what ought to be and what might be.  Though typically imitation in art is couched in the notion of representation, it is the imaginative process of imitation that is communicated tacitly, even

instinctively, through the work in Gian Pierotti’s new show at the Sego Art Center.  Evolved from their earliest stages as formal variations on a Minimal theme, Pierotti’s latest porcelain sculptures encase small polygonal shapes in architectural exoskeletons that may be disassembled and reassembled.  The results are a playful advancement of an archaic process.  The unique forms are deliberately accidental, artificially organic and defy any one direct referent.

Yet the work is both immediately familiar and immensely satisfying.  Fitting together the pieces of one of Pierotti’s works is as gratifying as locking together two Legos or snapping Construx into place.  The toys of childhood are the tools of imaginative imitation, teaching us how to act as adults.  Pierotti’s works, fantastic constructed entities that call upon us as viewers to animate them, remind us to embrace childlike wonder in the gallery.  In the aftermath of Postmodernism, the trend in art has been toward what ought to be – both formally and contextually.  The reward of Pierotti’s work at Sego Art Center this month is that it offers up what art might be.  And what art might be is fun.

Megan Whittaker completed undergraduate work in English at Brigham Young University and later recieved her MA in Art History from the same institution. Her master’s thesis was titled Takashi Murakami: Role-Playing the Artist.  She currently lives in Spanish Fork, Utah with her husband Colin Tuis Nesbit.

CHICKEN, A PROVO STORY - a group installation between Brigham Young University students and Faculty of the Department of Visual Arts

The average American eats 81 lbs. of chicken annually.

If each chicken averages 5 lbs. then we each eat approximately 16.2 chickens annually.

All those numbers add up to .04 chickens eaten daily per person.

Provo has a population of approximately 120,000 people.

At .04 chickens per person daily, approximately 5,326 chickens are eaten daily in Provo.

The group completed 5,326 small paintings that were sold for $1 each. The majority of the proceeds went to the Food and Care Coalition of Provo. Approximately 1,000 paintings were sold throughout the duration of the exhibit.

In conjunction with the Collective and Autumnau, On Thursday September 25, Sego will present its monthly Evening with the Artist lecture and discussion series. The event is free and open to the public. The show will remain open to the public through September 27th and is viewable from 12-8pm Tuesday through Saturday, Mondays by appointment. Special appointments can be made by calling Jason Metcalf at 801.599.0680.

Over the last decade, Adam Bateman has built meticulously layered sculptural forms from language. Composed of hundreds of used books often gathered from libraries, Bateman’s sculptures at first appear Minimalist, and it is easy to formally compare them to the works of Donald Judd or Tony Crag. But upon closer examination these towering stacks are full of complex conceptual meaning. The carefully composed books are oblique triggers for a knotted relationship between object and word-laced thought. Bateman’s latest creation is a stolid wall nearly blocking the entrance to the gallery, boldly confronting the viewer. The titled spines are stacked inward and remain unseen to the viewer, the idea of the words contained on a page more important than the book itself. While the sculptures feel solid and have a heavy presence, the work is more experiential than visual. The relationship between content and object is personified in the yielding layers of books, an unexpected flow in a rigorous rectangle.

Weaved with compulsive gesture, Pam Bowman’s latest sculpture is an amalgam of personal experience and communal navigation. Important to understanding Bowman’s work is an appreciation of ritual, experience, and process. The sculpture in Collective is the result of thousands of sinuous fibers looped together over and over in a continuous braid. The fibers are caulking cotton, a material used to bind and seal wooden planks together in ship-building. The artist used over thirty-five miles of the twined cotton in the work as a material reference to domesticity. An integral part of interpreting the work is a comprehension of the compulsive nature of process: a repetitive method symbolic of memory, ceremony, and ritual. For Bowman, the intertwined strings represent the intersections of people, the combined whole ultimately stronger than the individual. But the work has more to offer than the seemingly simple analogy, as the ropes do not idly line up but violently pull, cover, tug, and jockey for position in a complex shared journey.

The play between Bowman’s tension-knotted twists and Bateman’s architectural stacks belies a deeper meaning that relies on the experiences of the viewer and his or her thinking processes. Adam Bateman studied literature and language at BYU and received his MFA in sculpture from New York’s Pratt Institute. He has shown extensively in NYC, Rekyavik, and UT. Former Director of the Central Utah Art Center, he is the Director of the Birch Creek Service Ranch and continues to work in his studio in Sanpete County. Pam Bowman received a degree in interior design and later an MFA from BYU. She travels extensively and lives with her family in Provo.

Jeff Lambson is curator of contemporary art at the BYU Museum of Art. Prior to coming to Utah he worked at the Smithsonian Institution’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC for six years. Jeff is married to Ann Lambson, former director of youth education at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, and lives in Provo with their precocious daughter.

I am sure many of you have already heard of what will be going on at Sego in March: a special project that local artist Chris Purdie has been cooking up for about a year now. Chris has created a website Chrispurdie.com where you can track his progress and see hints of what might be on March 6.  I will try to get him to post on this blog as well.  If the project at all seems narcissistic, solipsitic, and entirely self centered- your’e on the right track.  Chris is the last person I would describe with these personality traits- and thus the project suddenly becomes a critique of the contemporary artist herself- mimicing a number of obvious art world personas that need not be named.

I am most excited for this project as it is one of the few true performance art events that has recently been had in the state of Utah (Dance Theatre Coalition and its Proving Ground performance art series has helped performance significantly in the beehive state). Chris is publishing a full color catalogue with essays by performance rock scholar Wade Hollingshaus, and others yet to be announced. The project recieved major funding from the Laycock Center for Creative Collaboration at BYU, a foundation that this author has benefited from with past project funding also.

This performative collaboration has indeed become an excercise in relational aesthetics: the artist and the project collaborators have all experienced something greater than individual artistic achievement- and the goal is to include viewers as participants in this dialogue.  So start getting excited for this project if you haven’t already.  And make sure you are there on March 6th.  I promise you’ll have a good time.