Utah Arts and Museums presents the exhibition DesignArts Utah 2013, opening June 21 and running through August 2 at the Rio Gallery, 300 South Rio Grande 455 West in Salt Lake City. A reception for the designers, guests and public will be held on June 21 from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Rio Gallery and will coincide with Salt Lake Gallery Association’s monthly “Gallery Stroll.”
DesignArts Utah exhibitions, curated annually by the Utah Design Arts Program of Utah Arts & Museums, features a selection of designs, prototypes and produced samples by some of the best of Utah’s various designers and fields.
The juror for 2013, Monica Ponce de Leon of Michigan, reviewed the work of 24 Utah designers’ 40 projects. De Leon said in her juror’s statement: “…tension between what is possible and what could be is at the heart of all the projects selected for this year’s DesignArts Utah Exhibition…they all have in common the whimsy of their ideas, paired with the delight of their execution and a love for the element of surprise. For this unlikely cohort, design is about transforming the unexpected into the everyday.”
Seven projects were selected from:
Elpitha Tsoutsounakis Graphic design
Joshua Stippich Industrial/product design
Jörg Rügemer Architecture
Daniel Shirley Industrial/product design
David Wolske / Red Butte Press Graphic design
Sparano + Mooney Architecture
Robert L. Bliss Industrial/product design
The Foliate Dining Table furniture design by Robert L. Bliss of Salt Lake City has been selected by the juror to receive the Juror’s Award prize.
Monica Ponce de Leon is the Dean and Eliel Saarinen Collegiate Professor of Architecture and Urban Planning of University of Michigan Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. De Leon co-founded Office dA in Boston and her own design practice in 2011. She has received numerous national design awards and teaching appointments.
De Leon has served on the selection panel for the National Design Awards of the Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Museum and on the panel for the United States entry for the Venice Biennale.
The Design Arts Program of Utah Arts & Museums is dedicated to the promotion of excellence in the diverse fields of design in Utah. They strive to help the citizens of the state see, experience, use and value the art of design that surrounds us. More information is available on their Web site at http://designartsutah.org or by calling 801-245-7271 or 801-245-7272.