Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, Inc.

The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is an independently funded, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that elevates the Latter-day Saint creative arts from across the globe. By doing so, we help tell a more complete, nuanced story of the Latter-day Saint people. We shape and share the cultural vision of the Latter-day Saint culture for a mass public. As a cross-disciplinary hub of programming and content for a wide audience, the Center supports and amplifies Latter-day Saint artists from all over the world and advocates for the next generation of creators, actively working to connect artists to peers and audiences.

Your support helps us exist at the intersection of divine creativity and cultural relevance. We believe that God is the ultimate creator and that art is the common language of our human experience.

The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts

The Ariel Bybee Endowment at the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts was established in 2021 to honor the legacy of Ariel Bybee and to foster the creation of new works by Latter-day Saint artists in disciplines that correspond to her varied career and interests in music and related arts. Each year, the Endowment will announce a call for submissions open to artists and scholars in one of nine, rotating categories: opera, dance, scholarship, art songs, youth education, hymns, visual arts, collaborative arts, and choral music. We encourage LDS composers from a variety of musical aesthetics and diverse backgrounds of identity to apply.

Learn more about the Endowment:

Download the Endowment brochure here

Thank you for donating to the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts and our I AM programming.

The mission of I AM follows President Russell M. Nelson’s recent counsel to “root out racism and […] to work tirelessly to build bridges of understanding rather than creating walls of segregation.” Using the arts as a form for conversation, community and celebration, I AM invites audiences to learn and experience the more global story of the Latter-day Saints.

We invite you to learn more about recent I AM projects here .

The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is pleased to announce the Richard Bushman Endowment for the Arts and Major Projects Fund. Richard Bushman is the co- founder and chairman of the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts based in New York City.

 

 

 

Impact

Through his leadership the Center has moved from idea to impact in five short years. By establishing this Endowment, the Center seeks to honor and perpetuate the vision of Richard Bushman for years to come. Through the generous support of those who join us in honoring the life and vision of Richard Bushman, the Endowment committee will direct annual returns for the benefit of Center programs including research and scholarship, artists in residency programs, special exhibits and live performances. The Center’s ambitious new initiative will be to raise $2 million towards a survey of Latter-day Saint visual art from the beginning to the present. A multi-year project, the first step will be the publication of A Guide to Mormon Art, featuring the work of 24 of our best scholars and covering Latter-day Saint visual art from the beginning to the present.

 

 

 

 

Exhibition

The second step will be an inclusive 2025 exhibition of this art in a New York venue on Fifth Avenue near the

Metropolitan Museum followed by another installation in Salt Lake City in the Church History Museum and

the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art. Travel to other Latter-day Saint population centers will follow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Center for Latter-day Saint Arts

The Center for Latter-day Saint Arts seeks to tell the more global story of the Latter-day Saints through the arts. It has a three-fold mission: To display and perform art by Latter-day Saints in New York City and elsewhere; to publish scholarship and criticism about our art to reach a wider public; and to establish a comprehensive archive of Latter-day Saint arts, 1830 to the present. The organization studies, promotes and encourages artists who identify as or affiliate with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints whether by faith or culture.

Growing rapidly from an annual festival to a robust organization of ongoing programming of all kinds, the Center now hosts a gallery in the heart of New York City's Lincoln Center. The Center is a nonprofit 501(c) (3) that encourages all artistic media, producing conferences, symposiums, grant projects and publications.

Richard Bushman: A Radiant Life is written and facilitated by J.B. Haws and produced by Cameron Kelly.

 

 

 

Materializing Mormonism: Trajectories in Contemporary Latter-day Saint Art

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum - Mesa Arizona

May 10, 2024 – August 4, 2024

For the first time, the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts is curating an exhibition of Latter-day Saint art in Mesa, Arizona! Be part of bringing vibrant, contemporary LDS visual culture to the beautiful Mesa Arts Center.

Donors of $500 or more will be invited to a private reception at the Museum.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

This exhibition will showcase dozens of contemporary artists affiliated with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These creators expand upon Latter-day Saint theological and cultural concepts using visual art, objects, and film. Their objects explore ideas such as community and belonging; natural and built environments; worldmaking; peculiar “Mormon” iconography; sacred memory; and the body.

Together, these artists will demonstrate the vibrancy and complexity of recent Latter-day Saint visual culture and expand visitors’ expectations of fine art inspired by this increasingly worldwide faith.

Collin Bradford, A Burning Hope, 2021, video

Corinne Geertsen, Orbit Starter Kit, digital photo collage, 21 x 25 inches. Collection of the Artist.

Kent Christensen, Secrets of the Great Salt Lake (Triptych), 2019, oil on linen, 40 x 64 inches. Private Collection.

You can help bring this show to Mesa by donating today to Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, Inc. The Center was organized to study, promote and encourage art and artists who identify as or affiliate with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints across all mediums including music, fine art, dance, theatre, and cinema. For more information, visit the Center's website.

Materializing Mormonism: Trajectories in Contemporary Latter-day Saint Art is curated by Heather Belnap, Brontë Hebdon Patterson, and Ashlee Whitaker and presented by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, a 501c3 nonprofit organization.