Dan Steinhilber

If you haven't made it to Utah County yet for the BYU Museum of Art Dan Steinhilber exhibition, make it a priority before it closes on June 6! This excellent contemporary art display has a great use of everyday materials "to examine the wonder that can be found all around us," as the BYU MOA website points out.

And it is wondrous: dry cleaning hangers naturally twist in elegant spirals from the ceiling to unintentionally mimic a double helix, a bulk of inflated trash bags assault gallery circulation space and a heat lamp warms and lights the air below it.

Contemporary art curator Jeff Lambson ran across Steinhilber's work when Lambson was with the Hirshhorn Museum (part of the Smithsonian group) in Washington, D.C. The two worked together (along with a small army of assistants) to create the undulating "Untitled (2003/2008): Duck sauce" and "Untitled (2003/2008): Laytex balloons" -- unique pieces made of decidedly non-natural materials that still echo organic forms. The balloon piece began fully inflated, but had already shrunk and tightened a few weeks into the exhibition. Part of the sculpture's wonder is its life cycle -- what will it become as the balloons naturally deflate through the course of the exhibition?

Steinhilber's ingenuity appeals to our DIY side, too. Jeff Lambson explained recently that "Untitled (2008): Trash bags and greenhouse plastic" arrived folded into Steinhilber's suitcase, rather than via a costly gallery shipping service!