salt 1: Adriana Lara

salt (sôlt) n. 1. A colorless or white crystalline solid used extensively in ground or granulated form as a food seasoning and preservative. 2. An element that gives flavor or zest. 3. Sharp, lively wit. 4. A mineral sharing definitive characteristics with Utah's capital city.

The Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA) is pleased to present salt, a new series of semiannual exhibitions showcasing work by contemporary artists from around the world. salt aims to reflect the international impact of contemporary art today, forging local connections to the global, and bringing new and diverse artwork to the city that shares the program's name. Affirming the UMFA's commitment to the art of today and tomorrow, the series demonstrates that contemporary art is dynamic, engaging, and socially relevant.

In the inaugural installment of salt, Mexico City-based artist Adriana Lara takes the exhibition format itself as an object of inquiry, arranging objects in unexpected, sometimes humorous configurations that foreground and dismantle the conventions of displaying and looking at art. Lara frequently employs found objects in her work, yet she upends our expectations of the readymade, returning art to the realm of the ordinary. Neither strictly aesthetic nor utilitarian, her works disrupt our attempts to fit them into neat, pre-determined categories.

salt 1: Adriana Lara presents several new works alongside pieces from the artist's ongoing Installation series; the latter form a kind of mini-retrospective, restaging projects made over the past few years. Taken together, Lara's Installations mischievously reflect on how art institutions bestow meaning and value on art. Exploiting the current ambiguity surrounding installation art as a category, Lara's Installations place an almost perverse emphasis on the literal placement or process of installing an object—on the "ceremonial" actions and accoutrements that attend the making and subsequent display of art.

Adriana Lara (b. 1978) lives and works in Mexico City. She is a member of "Perros Negros," an "art production office" that proposes new platforms for making, exhibiting, and discussing art; is chief editor of Pazmaker, a free distribution zine-like publication; and she is part of Lasser Moderna, an experimental band that combines Latin cumbia with electronic music. Lara has had solo exhibitions at Artpace, San Antonio, Texas (2009); Gaga Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City (2008); Galería Comercial, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2007); and Air de Paris, Paris, France (2007). Her work has been included in group exhibitions including The Generational: Younger than Jesus, New Museum, New York (2009); San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2009); Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin, Germany (2009); and LA MAMAIN ET LA PUTAIN, Air de Paris, Paris, France (2006).

salt 1: Adriana Lara is curated by Jill Dawsey, Acting Chief Curator/Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

salt 1:
Adriana Lara
Kurator: Jill Dawsey