Chihuly among stars of Olympic Art Festival
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So, just days before the opening celebration at the Olympic Art Festival in Salt Lake City, where Dale Chihuly's work is a headline attraction, we get Seattle's star glass man on the phone.
Is he in Utah working like mad on the installation?
Not exactly.
"The plan is, I go in and it's all done," Chihuly said from his Seattle home. "I've never been to the site."
Chihuly's role on the scene was to pop into the festivities for a quick rush of photo ops and then get out.
He's got people to take care of all the other stuff — upwards of 60, Chihuly estimates, to make this particular project happen.
Art in three parts
His three-part installation in Salt Lake City includes two huge outdoor pieces, a freestanding glass tower and a show of glass sculptures and paintings.
His installation on the plaza of Abravanel Hall, across from Temple Square, features a gigantic glass sun and moon. The sun measures more than 18 feet in diameter and hangs 23 feet in the air.
Nearby, the cobalt blue moon measures a dainty 7 feet across. Is there a connection between the celestial forms he chose and the tradition of athletic competition?
"The concept is, I wanted to go up with something that felt right for the Olympics," Chihuly said. "I don't know what the connection is: I just thought it was an appropriate thing."
Although the images are somewhat different from work he's installed in the past, he says it was not a big departure: "I don't choose a time like this to be experimental. I knew when I did the sun and moon it was going to look good."
Nearby, in the lobby of Abravanel Hall, his crew has installed the 27-foot tall "Olympic Tower" built of more than 1,000 glass components assembled over an armature to keep it upright.
And inside the adjacent Salt Lake Art Center, a Chihuly exhibit includes several of his large chandeliers and other images that will be familiar to fans of his work: sea flowers, baskets, various wall installations, a series of drawings on Plexiglas. It's on display 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily, Jan. 25-March 17; $10, tickets are available online at www.olympics.com or at artTix: 888-451-2787.
Special-edition Steinways
To top it off, there'll be a Chihuly first. On display in Abravanel Hall (home to the city's symphony orchestra) will be several special-edition Steinway concert grand pianos, one of them designed by Chihuly.
The edition is about as limited as it can get, Chihuly says: one for the Steinway company and one for him. The piano on display has an electronic-playback feature, he said, so that it can reproduce a variety of performances from programmed disks.
But it's the way the thing looks that will really get people's attention, Chihuly insists. "Let's put it this way: the base color is — and there's lot of other colors, too — but the base color is chartreuse."
Here are other highlights of what awaits travelers to the Winter Olympics. For more information and a further list of shows and entertainment, check the official Web site of the Olympic Games at www.olympics.com
Lure of the West: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum: With sweeping landscapes by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran, this group of 64 paintings and sculptures will be a highlight of the Olympic season in Utah (even though, due to a conflict in sponsorship, it is not part of the official art festival.)
One of the popular "Treasures to Go" exhibits that the Smithsonian has sent on tour while a renovation of its Washington, D.C., facility is under way, "Lure of the West" explores the same territory that Western pioneers did in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The earliest works are portraits of Native American life by Charles Bird King and George Catlin, painted in the 1820s and '30s.
Other documentation of our nation's history includes scenes from the California Gold Rush of 1849; a look at the Hispanic cultures of the Southwest by a group of artists who settled in Taos, N.M.; romantic views of the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River and Utah's Kanab Canyon; and Bierstadt's grand, 10-foot panorama "Among the Sierra Nevada, California" of 1868.
Brigham Young University Art Museum, Provo, Utah, through May 19; free. 801-378-ARTS.
The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936: An examination of the intertwining of sports and politics in the year that black athlete Jesse Owens took four gold medals.
Assembled by the U.S. Holocaust Museum, this visual history takes a look at issues of race and power that played out when Adolf Hitler's Germany hosted the Olympic Games.
University of Utah Marriott Library; free. (www.lib.utah.edu/exhibition/1936)
Athletes in Antiquity: Works from the J. Paul Getty Museum: This exhibition of ancient Greek pottery, jewelry and sculpture recalls the origins of the Olympic Games. Among the works on loan from the collection of Southern California's Getty Museum is the bronze sculpture "Statue of a Victorious Youth."
Feb. 1-April 15 at the University of Utah Museum of Fine Arts; free.
International Ice-Carving Competition: Take 30 two-person teams of artists, give each a 3,000-pound hunk of ice and watch them labor mightily for 20 hours straight to create the some of the most fabulous ice sculptures imaginable.
The contest begins 3:45 p.m. Feb. 15; awards presented 4 p.m. Feb. 16. Utah Historic Courthouse; free.
Utah's First Nations: Peoples of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau: As you gaze across the shimmering Utah landscape, keep in mind the original inhabitants of the place: the Paiute, the San Juan Southern Paiute, the Navajo, the Northern Ute, The Skull Valley Band of Goshute, the White Mesa Ute nations, the Confederated Tribes of Goshute, the Northwestern Shoshone.
This exhibition offers a glimpse into the traditions and the contemporary lives of the region's native peoples.
Through July 29 at the Utah Museum of Natural History; $6 adults, $3 seniors and children.
Utah Art/Utah Artists: The state's oldest museum presents a retrospective of regional art, from the days of the pioneers to the present, featuring paintings and sculptures by some 200 artists.
Through April 30 at the Springville Museum; free.
Sheila Farr can be reached at 206-464-2270 or sfarr@seattletimes.com.