Salt Lake Art Center

On Wednesday, our last day in SLC, we went to the Salt Lake Art Center.
It was free, which was a total surpise. A pleasant surprise!



We saw a collection of a few different artists...but, I must say...that my favorites were by Andy Warhol!

We saw Andy Warhol's:
- Albert Einstein (who I find visually interesting for some reason...)
- Gertrude Stein
- George Gershwin
- Martin Buber
- Franz Kafka
- Louis Brandeis
- Sigmund Freud (what a treat for me!)
- Sarah Bernhardt
- The Marx Brothers
The media: silkscreens on paper.

And then...then, we saw a video installation with sound, by artist: Bill Viola.
Work: "Ascension", 2000.

It was the scariest fucking thing ever.
1) I'm afraid of the dark.
2) I am afraid of drowning.
3) I am REEEEEALLY afraid of drowning in the dark.

I hate to spoil the surprise for anyone who is about to hop a plane to SLC to check this out...but basically, you enter a room...a very, very, pitch-ass-black room. There is a bench in the room....not that you can see it well at all. You CANNOT see the corners of the room. You have no idea where the room starts or stops. But in front of you is a video monitor...so large...that the person on the screen appears life-size. And...is he drowning? Is he floating? He's basically just in this water...his body is vertical, but you see no stop to the water, so it's not like his head is above water. And there is sound...and darkness...and to me, images of drowning. Oh it was just awful.

And yet...powerful. I mean, it stirred emotion (FEAR) so quickly...

So, that was part of our trip.
Glad we stopped in there....