337: Info

April 1, 2007
Across the street from the old Oquirrh School, at 337 South 400 East, stands a bland, derelict, grey stucco two-story building. An example of the worst late 70's remodel and reuse of a residential dwelling as an office building, this narrow, labyrinthine collection of rooms, hallways, stairs and closets will be demolished soon to make space for Utah's first all-green, mixed-use loft-style condominiums. Before this exemplary development begins, the building has been turned over for use as a 20,000 square foot canvas, hosting the largest single collaboration of Salt Lake area contemporary artists ever to be gathered and directed toward a community installation, performance and happening: a high-profile art project entitled 337.

The invitation for me and the Salt Lake Art Center to participate as a partner in 337 was previously unimagined. Among all the projects with which the Art Center has been involved during the last ten years, 337 addresses one of the greatest ongoing ironies confronting me a Director: outside the confines of our current facility, how can the Art Center integrate itself into the city and state, especially the vibrant artists who are critical to the success of this seminal project? Equally important, how can the Center connect with a growing and vital force of community activists who are willing and able to invest their hearts, imaginations and time in a project which gives so much back to a community not always appreciative of this kind of unselfish gesture.

While the Art Center did not initiate this project, we were invited to be active participants alongside artists from myriad experiences and educational levels, disciplinary and ethnic backgrounds, and ages. We had no curatorial control over the selection of artists, the themes of their respective contributions to the overall project, or the place of the art work inside and outside this rawest and challenging of spaces. From the very beginning, this process has been part exhibition, part performance, part happening and all community.

The initial selection process to dole out the 100 or so unique spaces and surfaces throughout the building was a model of democracy, simple in administration and marvelous to witness. Devised by Adam and Dessi Price, the owners of the property, the assignment was accomplished by a lottery which took place in the actual building on a sunny Saturday morning in February. Following a reconnaissance period when everyone was given the opportunity to look around the entire space, each artist wrote his or her name on a white index card and dropped it into a plastic bucket held by Adam. With sign-up completed and every eligible artist in attendance, Dessi drew the first five index cards from the bucket.

This group of five was let loose, and they scrambled--like settlers in a land grab, with red felt pens in hand--to claim with their unique mark or name, the wall, walls, or room they desired. Each time an artist returned a red pen to Adam, Dessi would select another index card from the bucket and so on until the bucket was empty. With few exceptions every artist, whether first or last, adhered to the process and seemed exhilarated to participate in this revolutionary scheme. I was amazed that neither egos nor competitive jealousies were apparent in this group of creative individuals, each invested with intensity, passion and confidence. This "community" had come together, abided by the rules, and was setting out, with great resolve, to make this new center for contemporary expression a better place, both for themselves and the rest of the city.

I have been impressed and humbled by the enthusiasm and dedication of this self-selected group of artists for a project, which, from its inception, embodied the overwhelming truth of impermanence. Beginning with its opening of 337 on May 18, 2007, the efforts of this specific creative collective will have a visible life of just 11 days before the building is demolished. Despite their wide range in age and experience, these artists are ignoring mortality, both their own and certainly that of the work they leave behind at 337. Collectively, they have invested the immediacy of the event in their lives, and proceeded with power, focus and force, realizing that it might be the last opportunity of this type with this same group of participants. They chose to leave it all here in 337. For all the consumers of this spectacle, the results will be an experiential jewel, hopefully visited again and again during the project's short life.

Someone asked me recently, "What does it take to create an experience such as 337?" My response was courage. A courage that denies any force or obstacle that threatens to delay or alter the original intention, the inspirational idea. A courage that rages like a wild fire, building up speed as it consumes the old and overgrown landscape, refreshing it for growth.

In a recent book titled The Curtain, the Franco-Czech novelist Milan Kundera wrote, "While History (mankind's History) might have the poor taste to repeat itself, the history of an art will not stand for repetitions. Art isn't there to be some great mirror registering all of History's ups and downs, variations, endless repetitions. Art is not a village marching band marching dutifully along at History's heels. It is there to create its own history . . . . The one thing that has some chance of enduring is the history of its arts." This history of Salt Lake City will never be the same because of this temporary center for contemporary art in its midst--with all its passion, commitment and inevitable loss.
Thank you.

Ric Collier
Director
Salt Lake Art Center