Immediate Present

By Laura Allred Hurtado

Immediate Present examines the Mormon art of today, by bringing together a range of works—from explicitly religious paintings to the varied artistic practices of those who self-identify as Mormon, to works that shed light on Mormon themes. Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Immediate Present, part of the Mormon Arts Center Festival, June 29-July 1, 2017, The Riverside Church, New York, New York, this publication is a sampling of works created in the last three years by twenty-three artists: Pam Bowman, Whitney Bushman, Stephanie Kelly Clark, Jorge Cocco Santangelo, Caitlin Connolly, Jeff Decker, Daniel Everett, Rachel Farmer, Jeff Hein, Ben Howell, Levi Jackson, Brian Kershisnik, David Chapman Lindsay, Jason Metcalf, Annie Poon, Walter Rane, J. Kirk Richards, Jean Richardson, Ron Richmond, Mary Sauer, Casey Jex Smith, Page Turner, and Chase Westfall. The publication includes the pairing of commissioned texts with the paintings. Like the artists themselves, the individuals whose words are featured in this book have distinct backgrounds—a lawyer, a doctor, a game warden, a poet, a children’s book author, a composer, a musician, and a women’s rights advocate—just to name a few. The twenty-three writers are: Claire Åkebrand, English Brooks, Joanna Brooks, Sam Brown, Claudia Bushman, Alex Caldiero, Tyler Chadwick, Steve Evans, Fiona Givens, James Goldberg, Ryan Habermeyer, Julie de Azevedo Hanks, Ashley Mae Hoiland, Garrick Infanger, McArthur Krishna, Igor Coelho Arantes Santana Marques, Neylan McBaine, Carol Lynn Pearson, Jennifer Reeder, Analisa Coats Sato, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, Paul Washburn, and Chrysula Winegar.

132 pp. softcover

"The art underscores the great variety of styles and media that Mormon artists employ and the responses offer us models of how to engage with this art: sometimes direct interpretations, sometimes parallel musings, sometimes with another piece of art. The result is a wonderful synergy of art and audience and a treasury of performance and pedagogy. The Mormon Arts Center seeks to bring together artists to bring them to an audience; this catalog shows exactly how this is accomplished by putting these Mormon artworks together in one exhibition and one volume and then instructing us with the ways we could react to this art through the diversity of thoughtful reflections. I found the poetry particularly fruitful in showing the creative and productive potential of the enterprise." Review by Sarah C. Reed, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Summer 2018.