Phoenix Art Museum Magazine: Spring/Summer 2022

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DESERT RIDER / GENER ATION PAPER / FARE WELL PHOTOGR APHY phxart.org


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THE ROAD MUST E V E N T U A L LY L E A D T O THE WHOLE WORLD. / / / JACK KEROUAC / / /

We have traveled a long road together. Throughout our nearly 65-year history, we have opened our doors to travelers seeking to discover something new. In our journey together, the stops along the way have not been roadside attractions and greasy spoons. Instead they have been abstract sculptures and classical paintings, the artifacts of ancient civilizations, the costumes that defined generations, the sleek lines of racing cars, landscapes of the West, and the creative vision and big ideas of artists from points on the map. Through these small escapades, we move through space and time and discover the worlds that exist between us, inside of us. We see life in new ways, we make memories, we mourn, we dream. Thank you for being with us every step of the way on our journey. We look forward to traveling the next miles ahead as a museum and as a community, together.

image credit :

Cornelia Parker, Mass (Colder Darker Matter), 1997. Burnt wood, wire and string. Museum purchase with funds provided by Jan and Howard Hendler.

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C O N T E N T S 4

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Mark Koenig The Interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO

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Mark Feldman Chair of the Board of Trustees

E DI T O R I A L S TA F F 3 5 6 8 32 33 34 36 36 43 43

Letter from the Director PhxArt x NFL Museum News Museum Spotlight: New Director Men’s Arts Council Why We Give Acknowledgment / Museum Donors The pARTy Arizona Costume Institute Holiday Luncheon Education The Museum Store

Executive Editor / Nikki DeLeon Martin Managing Editor / Samantha Andreacchi Creative Director / Michael Bartley Photography Editor / Airi Katsuta

C O N T RI BU T I N G E DI TO R S

Janet Baker, PhD, Curator of Asian Art Betsy Fahlman, Adjunct Curator of American Art Helen Jean, the Jacquie Dorrance Curator of Fashion Design Sierra Medina, Marketing and Communications Specialist Audrey Sands, PhD, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography Samantha Santos, External Affairs Coordinator Gilbert Vicario, Curator of Contemporary Art Rachel Sadvary Zebro, Assistant Curator

E X HIBI T IO N S 10 Legacy of Ceylon: Art and Photography of Sri Lanka 13 On View 14 Breaking Up 16 Generation Paper: Fast Fashion of the 1960s 20 Desert Rider 28 Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 1961-1989

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CO N N E C T W I T H U S @phxart 1625 North Central Avenue Phoenix, Arizona 85004-1685 phxart.org 602.257.1222 602.257.2124 602.257.2115 602.257.2173

24-HOUR INFORMATION MEMBERSHIP OFFICE CIRCLES OF SUPPORT VOLUNTEER OFFICE

image credits: (front cover) Cara Romero, Liquid Sunshine, 2021. Digital chromogenic print. Courtesy of the artist. (above, top to bottom) Installation view, Generation Paper: Fast Fashion of the 1960s, 2021, Phoenix Art Museum; Margarita Cabrera, MiniHummer, 2005. Vinyl and thread with model parts; 100 hummers each 4 1/2”x 10” x 6”. Courtesy of the artist and Talley Dunn Gallery.


FROM THE DIRECTOR PHOENIX ART MUSEUM 2 0 2 1 – 2 0 2 2

BOARDOF TRUSTEES CH A IR Mark Feldman

CH A IR E L E C T Don Opatrny

V ICE CH A IR S David Lenhardt Meredith von Arentschildt

TRE ASURER Blair Portigal

S E CR E TA R Y John W. Graham Ruben E. Alvarez Alice Bazlen Drew M. Brown* Gloria P. Cowen Harold C. Dorenbecher Jacquie Dorrance* Carter Emerson Robert Faver Martin Galbut Judy Goldberg Sara T. Gordon Michael Greenbaum* Nancy Hanley Eriksson Lila Harnett* Jon Hulburd Jane Jozoff Ellen Katz* Parvinder Khanuja M.D. Don Kile Alan W. Kosloff Sally Lehmann Mitch Menchaca** Ann M. Ocaña Sally Odegard Doris Ong Rose Papp Terry Roman Ann Siner Rob Taylor Carl D. Thoma

D E A R FRIENDS

I

have had the rare privilege to serve as the interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum since July 2021, and this will be my final letter to you in that role. Beginning April 18, our new director, Mr. Jeremy Mikolajczak, will take the reins of the institution, and I am truly excited to welcome Jeremy to this new role. Over the course of the past eight months, serving in dual roles as both the interim director and the Museum’s chief financial and operating officer has not been without its challenges, especially as we continued to navigate the global pandemic. Through this time, I have been honored to work with our dedicated staff who have gone above and beyond to meet the needs of our Museum and community. I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to all of the staff at Phoenix Art Museum for their support, incredible hard work, and humor through this challenging time. And a special thank you to my husband, Joel Vogel. As in my life, my work at the Museum was only made possible through his loving support, understanding, and patience.

M A R K K O E NIG The Interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO Phoenix Art Museum

I also wish to thank our Board of Trustees, who provided support and guidance during this period of transition. I’d especially like to thank Mark Feldman, who will conclude his term as chairman in July, for his support and guidance. My sincere gratitude also to David Lenhardt, Meredith Von Arentschildt, Shelley Cohn, Ruben Alvarez, Carl Thoma, Alice Bazlen, and Jon Hulburd who served on the search committee to identify our new director. They devoted a great deal of time, energy, and thoughtfulness to a national search that sought to find a champion who will lead the Museum through the decades ahead. I can assure you, with great confidence, they have certainly succeeded. Finally, I wish to thank all of you, our Museum Members and Circles of Support. I have had the opportunity to meet so many of you over the past few months, to hear from each of you what you most love about Phoenix Art Museum, and what we can do to improve and grow. When we most needed your support, you showed up in a big way. Whether it’s renewing your Membership, making additional donations, or simply visiting, you were there for us when it mattered most. As I reflect on my time in this interim role, I will always remember the profound generosity of our Museum community. From our Docent corps to our frontline staff to our dedicated Trustees, from first-time Members to longtime donors, you make the work we do possible, exciting, and impactful to our community. Thank you, for your confidence and faith in me, for supporting my staff, for giving so freely of yourselves. It has made all the difference. I wish you a wonderful 2022, and I wish our incoming director, Jeremy Mikolajczak, much success in the years ahead. And now, back to the finances! With gratitude,

*Honorary Trustee **Ex-Officio

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I T ’ S A G RE AT T I M E T O BE A BL E T O S H I N E A L I G H T O N O T H E R I N S T I T U T I O N S A N D O T H E R E N T I T I E S T H AT A RE RE A L LY D R I V I N G A P O S T I V E C H A N G E I N O U R C O M M U N I T Y, A N D T H AT ’ S W H AT I R E A L LY T H I N K P H O E N I X A R T M U S E U M I S D O I N G . / / / K E LV I N B E A C H U M , O F F E N S I V E TA C K L E , A R I Z O N A C A R D I N A L S / / /

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MUSEUM NEWS

P H X A R T X N F L

Each year, players in the National Football League have an opportunity to represent a design celebrating a nonprofit or social cause about which they are passionate on their game cleats, and this year, for Arizona Cardinals’ offensive tackle, Kelvin Beachum, that cleat design got a little artistic.

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n December 13, 2021, during the nationally televised Monday Night Football game against the Los Angeles Rams, Arizona Cardinals offensive tackle Kelvin Beachum sported custom cleats with a design showcasing Phoenix Art Museum, his non-profit cause of choice. The bespoke footwear was created as part of the NFL’s My Cause My Cleats campaign, an annual initiative that allows players to highlight not only their passions beyond football but to help raise funds for organizations whose missions are important to them. At the end of the NFL season, cleats from the My Cause My Cleats initiative are auctioned off, and all proceeds benefit the players’ chosen causes. Beachum’s cleats, auctioned on December 13, raised valuable funds in support of arts education programs and exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum. As additional support for the Museum, Beachum also dropped four non-fungible tokens (NFTs) during the December 13 game, all of which were auctioned off to the highest bidders, with proceeds benefiting the Museum.

PHOENIX ART MUSEUM RECEIVES MAJOR GRANTS FROM VIRGINIA G. PIPER CHARITABLE TRUST AND THE NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES In September 2021, Phoenix Art Museum received an unexpected and unprecedented gift: a $4 million grant from Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust as part of the Trust’s “Now is the Moment” Grants Commemoration— the largest single-day grant initiative in Arizona’s history. Presented as a surprise award, the grant is the largest the Museum has received from the Trust over the two organizations’ long partnership and is one of the largest single grants the Museum has received in its history from any philanthropic organization or grantmaking body. “We are deeply grateful for the outstanding generosity of Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust,” said Mark Koenig, the interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Since 2000, Piper Trust has provided significant ongoing support to Phoenix Art Museum, and this latest gift further reinforces Piper Trust’s resolute commitment to the arts in our region.” In addition to supporting past PhxArt exhibitions such as Teresita Fernández: Elemental and Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place, in 2017 Piper Trust provided nearly $1 million CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

Originally from Mexia, Texas, and a graduate of Southern Methodist University (SMU), Beachum is a professional football player by occupation, but off the field, he has dedicated himself to battling hunger and increasing educational opportunities for young people. Through this work, Beachum and his family have partnered with a number of food banks across Texas and in Pittsburgh, Penn., Jacksonville, Fla., and New York to bring awareness to issues of food insecurity and malnutrition. In April 2016, he launched Kelvin Konnects, a STEAM initiative designed to increase access for students of color and young people from other marginalized groups who wish to pursue careers within the science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics sectors. Through this most recent My Cause My Cleats campaign, Beachum, who is a passionate collector of contemporary CONTINUED ON PAGE 9

image credit:

Courtesy of Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust.

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MUSEUM SPOTLIGHT

W E L C O M I N G O U R N E W S Y B I L HARRINGTON DIRECTOR + CEO

JEREMYMIKOLAJCZAK

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I FEEL GENUINELY PRIVIL EGED FOR T HE OPPORTUNIT Y TO WORK WITH A DEDICATED BOARD, MUSEUM PATRONS, AND DIVERSE C O M M U N I T Y, A S W E L L A S A N O U T S TA N D I N G STAFF THAT MIRRORS MY ENTHUSIASM AND DRIVE TO SHAPE THE FUTURE OF A DYNAMIC AND INCLUSIVE PHOENIX ART MUSEUM.

arlier this year, Phoenix Art Museum selected Jeremy Mikolajczak (Mikoh-lay-zack) to serve as the Museum’s new Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. He brings to the institution significant experience as a museum director and curator, with a special focus on community engagement and education, having previously served as executive director, chief curator, curatorial fellow, and faculty with museums and learning institutions across the country. Mikolajczak comes to the Valley of the Sun from our sister city to the south, where he has served as the Jon and Linda Ender Director and CEO of Tucson Museum of Art. Mikolajczak led the organization through a period of exceptional growth including overseeing a capital campaign that powered strategic expansions to the TMA campus and enabled the museum to better engage its multicultural community, including the establishment and renovation of the Alice Chaiten Baker Center for Art Education and the Kasser Family Wing of Latin American Art. Along with his experience leading a museum in Arizona, Mikolajczak also led a museum in a major metropolitan region, having served as the executive director and chief curator of the Miami-Dade College Museum and Galleries of Art + Design, where he oversaw a network of six campus galleries and an international sculpture garden, founded the Museum of Art + Design, established the Cuban Exile Experience located in downtown Miami’s Freedom Tower, and helped to grow

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/// J E R E M Y M I K O L A J C Z A K , I N C O M I N G S Y B I L H A R R I N G T O N D I R E C T O R A N D C E O ///

the institution’s annual impact to more than 100,000 visitors. Mikolajczak has also served as a scholar and educator at the University of Florida (Gainesville) and the University of Central Missouri. Mikolajczak studied studio art and art history, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts from West Virginia University, and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he specialized in painting and printmaking. As he prepares to relocate to the Valley of the Sun, he will be joined by his wife, Ana Tello, and their two children. Mikolajczak grew up in Michigan, in one of the tri-cities north of Detroit, where he first discovered his love of art and museums at the Detroit Institute of Art. He has now called Arizona home for more than six years, and is excited to lay down roots in the capital city. “I am thrilled to be joining this exceptional museum and leading the next phase of

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Phoenix Art Museum and its prominent role as the foremost institution of our region,” said Mikolajczak. “Having spent the last six years in Arizona, I have greatly admired the work of the world-class museum, its incredible history, extensive collection, and exemplary scholarship. I feel genuinely privileged for the opportunity to work with a dedicated board, museum patrons, and diverse community, as well as an outstanding staff that mirrors my enthusiasm and drive to shape the future of a dynamic and inclusive Phoenix Art Museum. At a time of tremendous growth and opportunity in the Valley, I look forward to building upon the outstanding achievements of my predecessors and advancing the Museum’s commitment to innovation and engagement.” He will begin his tenure with Phoenix Art Museum on April 18, 2022. image credit:

Courtesy of Tucson Museum of Art.


MUSEUM NEWS

PHXART X NFL

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in support for the development of the institution’s bilingual website along with support for other enterprise-wide innovations in technology. As of September 12, 2021, Piper Trust had also provided more than $400,000 of general operating support to the Museum since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This recent grant of $4 million will further support general operations at Phoenix Art Museum, along with opportunities for both conservation and innovation that will better enable the Museum to serve its communities.

art, has extend his areas of focus to benefit the arts.

Phoenix Art Museum is also deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which has named the Museum the recipient of a grant totaling more than $240,000 as part of the American Rescue Plan that the U.S. Congress passed in March 2021. The Museum’s first NEH grant since 2012, the award provided support for the special-engagement exhibition Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West and an accompanying publication that adds contemporary voices to existing scholarship on mining-related art.

“It’s something that we’ve been passionate about for a number of years—science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” Beachum said in a video released by the Arizona Cardinals, “and this year we get to focus on the arts, how important it is for people to get involved with the arts, how important it is for our society to understand how important the arts are to our society historically and from the contemporary end as well. This is where our economy is going—a creator economy.” An avid collector, Beachum has loaned work to Phoenix Art Museum so that members of the community can experience work from the Jessica and Kelvin Beachum Family Collection. On display into 2022 in the Museum’s Katz Wing for Modern Art, visitors can view Vaughn Spann’s Fleeting memories and lasting moments (2019). Beachum has also loaned numerous artworks for an upcoming exhibition titled Narrative as Reality: A World Reimagined, which opened earlier this year at the Hawn Gallery in Dallas, part of the Meadows School of the Arts at SMU, his alma mater.

LENHARDT LECTURE On October 27, PhxArt presented the 2021 Lenhardt Lecture featuring internationally renowned artist Derek Fordjour. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, to parents of Ghanaian heritage, Fordjour creates large-scale works that examine the power, performance, vulnerabilities, and martyrdom inherent in the Black experience. His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, and reviews and features on his work have appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, among many others. The lecture was presented in-person in the Museum’s Whiteman Hall and virtually for audiences outside of Arizona. The lecture coincided with the Museum’s recent acquisition of Fordjour’s The Futility of Achievement (2020) with funds from the newly expanded Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. The large-scale painting is on view now in the Museum’s Marshall and Hendler galleries in the lower level of the Katz Wing.

O N L IN E A CCE S S F O R M E M B E R S

In addition to sharing works from his collection with audiences across the Southwest, the offensive tackle, who has played for the Cardinals since 2020 and was recently named the organization’s Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee in his second year with the team, hopes to expand his relationship with Arizona schools as part of his commitment to educational outreach. Phoenix Art Museum and Beachum are currently working together to create opportunities for classes from the Valley’s Title-I schools to meet with the football player and tour the Museum’s galleries during field trips throughout 2022 and beyond. Phoenix Art Museum is deeply grateful to both Jessica and Kelvin Beachum and to the NFL for their support of the arts and arts education in our city and region. image credits:

Arizona Cardinals.

Beginning in Spring 2022, Phoenix Art Museum will transition its online purchasing system for tickets to the Museum, Membership renewals and purchases, and so much more to a new platform. Still accessible through phxart.org, the new system will fully integrate online point-of-sale purchases with the Museum’s Membership and donor databases, ensuring our ability to provide better service for all visitors and Members, while also enabling us to improve our ability to recognize all Members for their generosity to the Museum. PhxArt Members will receive an email from the Museum with instructions for creating their new online accounts, which will replace previous usernames and passwords. Look for an email titled New Login Procedures for Our Members in the coming weeks for details. SPRING/SUMMER 2022 / PHXART.ORG

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E X HIBI T IO N S + I N S TA L L AT IO N S

Just off the southernmost coast of India, located east across the Gulf of Mannar, sits a small island nation with a complex, storied past.

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nce a stop along the ancient Silk Road, a vast system of trade routes that connected Europe with the Middle East and Asia, this nation, known for more than 100 years as Ceylon and now known as Sri Lanka, boasts a multidimensional history that spans more than 3,000 years, with a culture that was influenced by nearly every major human civilization and dominant world power, including the Persian Empire, Ancient Greece, Rome, and the European world, all of whom, at one time or another, jockeyed for power in the maritime age.

L E G A CY O F CE Y L O N : A R T A N D P H O T OGR A P H Y OF SRI L ANK A THROUGH NOVEMBER 6, 2022 ART OF ASIA GALLERIES

Legacy of Ceylon: Art and Photography of Sri Lanka explores the art history of this vibrant island nation that achieved its independence in 1948. Featuring more than 50 objects spanning 1,000 years, the exhibition provides an unprecedented glimpse into a time now lost and is a significant opportunity to experience some of the rarest examples of Sri Lankan art in the United States, many of which have never been on view publicly. The Museum’s dynamic collection of Sri Lankan art, which represents a portion of the objects in the exhibition, is the result of generous donations of objects over the past 20 years by Arizona collectors Drs. Coleene and Barry Fernando, the latter of whom was born in Sri Lanka and emigrated with his family to the United States in 1957. Legacy of Ceylon is the first exhibition organized by Phoenix Art Museum to focus on works from this renowned Sri Lankan art collection since The Guardian of the Flame: Art of Sri Lanka, organized by the Museum in 2003. With a wide range of objects, of both personal and devotional significance, the exhibition on view in the Art of Asia galleries offers a view into everyday life on the predominantly Buddhist island nation when it was known as Ceylon. Featured works date to as early as the sixth century, while the

MEMORIES FROM THE

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majority span the 16th and 19th centuries, the height of the nation’s colonization in which the island was subjugated by the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the British, until 1948. When experienced together alongside newer works, these objects provide insight into precolonial, colonial, and post-colonial life, as each rare gem was integral to the everyday life of those who used or cherished them. This breadth of work also invites viewers to discern the dramatic stylistic and technical transformations of Sri Lankan Buddhist art over an extended period of time. CONTINUED ON PAGE 12

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IT SEEMS TO ME THAT DR. QUINTUS FERNANDO CA P T URED W H AT HE LOVED A B O U T H I S H O M E L A N D BE FO RE H E L E F T. H E W A S A M A N O F M A N Y TA L E N T S — A S CI E N T I S T, S TA M P C O L L EC T O R, A N D N O W W E K NOW HIM TO H AV E BEEN A V I S I O N A RY P H O T O G R A P H E R . /// J A N E T B A K E R, P H D, CU R ATO R O F A S I A N A R T ///

“Sri Lanka has a diverse history,” said Janet Baker, PhD, the Museum’s curator of Asian art, who curated the exhibition. “As part of spice and sea trade routes between Asia and Europe, and because of this colonial history, Sri Lanka has a very multifaceted cultural influence, including Buddhism and Hinduism from India, and then the influence of Europeans.” In addition to featuring works that exhibit the influence of Buddhism and European artistic traditions, Legacy of Ceylon also provides insights into the development of bronzecasting techniques of the period. “Through works in this exhibition, drawn from both the Museum’s collection and loans from the Fernando family’s private collection, it is possible to trace how Buddhist bronze-casting techniques and aesthetics evolved over 1,000 years,” said Baker. “When Buddhism first came to Sri Lanka in the third century, artisans and artists made small, technically refined sculptures. Over time, that technique evolved and reached its apex in the 17th and 18th centuries. Visitors will be able to see that evolution through works spanning a millennia.”

W H AT ’ S IN A N A M E ? T R A CIN G T H E JO U R N E Y F R O M CE Y L O N T O S R I L A N K A As part of its examination of the influence of European aesthetics on the art of Sri Lanka, Legacy of Ceylon: Art and Photography of Sri Lanka utilizes the name “Ceylon” in its title as a reference to the legacy of colonialism. “Ceylon” was an Anglicization of the name the Portuguese gave the island, “Ceilão,” in 1505. However, the history of changing names in Sri Lanka predates this period of European colonization. Throughout antiquity, the island, sometimes called the “pearl of the Indian Ocean,” came to be known by a wide variety of monikers. In the sixth century BCE, Prince Vijaya, considered to be the first Sinhalese ruler of the island who ruled from 543-505 BCE, named it “Tambapanni,” a reference to the red-colored soil. In the Hindu Sanskrit epic Ramayana, the island was called simply “Lanka,” which means “island,” similar to the way places like New York City or San Francisco are sometimes termed, simply, “the City.” The Romans called the island “Sielen,” which likely later influenced the Portuguese and British terms. One of the most remarkable names was given to Sri Lanka by Arab traders, who called the island “Sarandib,” a word that lives on today in the English language as “serendipity.” Beginning in 1972, the island nation formally adopted the name “Sri Lanka,” a term that means “resplendent island.” Today, it is known as the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, and beginning in 2011, the government embarked on a campaign to root out all references to the British name “Ceylon” from every aspect of national and public life, a symbolic message to the world of the depth of Sri Lanka’s independence from its past subjugation by European nations.

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In some cases, the true significance of some of these bronze objects will not be immediately apparent to visitors. During the Kandyan period, many of the royal commissions of Buddhist iconography were cast not as hollow objects but as solid bronze forms, examples of which are showcased in Legacy of Ceylon.

O N V I E W SPL ENDED VISIONS: GIF T S FROM T HE ROBER T A ND A M Y CL AGUE COL L ECTIONS

“These bronzes are completely solid metal pieces,” Baker said. “Some weigh more than 50 lbs., and were very, very costly endeavors.”

ART OF ASIA GALLERIES THROUGH APRIL 24, 2022*

Alongside objects from the Museum’s collection, the exhibition features loans from the Fernando family’s private collection that showcase centuries of artistic expression. Additionally, Legacy of Ceylon includes an intimate, even more personal component: original black-and-white photographs taken by Quintus Fernando, PhD, Dr. Barry Fernando’s father, who passed away in 2004. The Fernando family only discovered these images within the past decade, and all are exhibited publicly for the first time in Legacy of Ceylon. The photographs, taken likely just prior to the Fernando family’s emigration, capture images not just of Buddhist ruins and other iconic locations, but of more simple, everyday slices of mid20th-century Sri Lanka, including scenes of fishermen, village women gathering water, and other moments of rural life.

KHANUJA FAMILY SIKH HERITAGE GALLERY THROUGH NOVEMBER 6, 2022*

“It seems to me that Dr. Quintus Fernando captured what he loved about his homeland before he left,” said Baker. “He was a man of many talents—a scientist, stamp collector, and now we know him to have been a visionary photographer.”

T HE GOL DEN T EMPL E: CEN T ER OF SIK H FAIT H

CL AY A ND PA PER: JA PA NE SE CER A MICS A ND SCREENS ART OF ASIA GALLERIES THROUGH NOVEMBER 6, 2022*

A T R A DITION REDEFINED: GIF T S FROM T HE LI FA MILY COL L ECTION OF CHINE SE PAIN TING ART OF ASIA GALLERIES OPENING JUNE 25, 2022

PHILIP C. CUR TIS A ND T HE L A NDSCA PE S OF A RIZON A THE ULLMAN CENTER FOR THE ART OF PHILIP C. CURTIS ONGOING

AMERICAN ABS TR ACTION DURING THE THIRTIES AND FORTIES AMERICAN ART GALLERIES ONGOING

A MERICA N SCENES /A MERICA S SEEN AMERICAN ART GALLERIES ONGOING

S TIL L LIFE: ORDIN A RY PL E A SURE S

Featured alongside works of historical significance, these personal photographs painstakingly and lovingly document the liminality of a nation and a people exploring the potential of hard-earned independence, while the commonplace moments of their days resembled the long continuum of life on this resplendent isle, the pearl of the sea.

AMERICAN ART GALLERIES ONGOING

Legacy of Ceylon: Art and Photography of Sri Lanka is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.

ORME LEWIS GALLERY ONGOING

image credits: (page 10, top to bottom) Unknown, Painted wood manuscript covers with ola leaf manuscript, 18th – 19th century. Private Collection. Photo: Justin Yee Photography; Unknown, Standing Buddha, Kandyan period, 17th-19th century. Ivory. Gift of Barry Fernando MD and Coleene Fernando MD. (page 11, top to bottom) Quintus Fernando, Catamarans, circa 1950s. Black and white photograph. Private Collection. © Fernando Family Trust; Quintus Fernando, Morning Launch 2, circa 1950s. Black and white photograph. Private collection. © Fernando Family Trust. (page 12, left to right) Unknown, Palanquin, Kandyan period, 18th-19th century. Painted wood, rattan, metal fittings. Gift of Drs. Barry and Coleene Fernando. Photo: John Hall; Quintus Fernando, The Street Sweeper, circa 1950s. Black and white photograph. Private Collection. © Fernando Family Trust.

SUBLIME L A NDSCA PE S AMERICAN ART GALLERIES ONGOING

T HIS JUS T IN: A SPO T LIGH T ON NE W ACQUISITIONS

S W EE T L A ND OF FUNK KATZ WING FOR MODERN ART THROUGH JULY 24, 2022 *THE ART OF ASIA GALLERIES WILL BE TEMPORARILY CLOSED FOR FIRE-SAFETY MAINTENANCE FROM WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 THROUGH FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2022. PLEASE NOTE: ALL EXHIBITION DATES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE. VISIT PHXART.ORG FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION AND A COMPLETE LIST OF EXHIBITION SPONSORS.

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THROUGH 2023 KATZ WING FOR MODERN ART

B R E A K IN G U P

/// N EI L S E DA K A ///

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SPLIT/END

DON’T TAKE YOUR LOVE AWAY FROM ME DON’T YOU LEAVE MY HEART IN MISERY IF YOU GO, THEN I’LL BE BLUE ‘CAUSE BRE A KING UP IS HARD TO DO.


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e’ve all felt it—the crushing heartache from romantic love coming to a close, the desperation and disorientation that follow a deep emotional severance. With a title like Breaking Up, visitors may assume that a new installation at Phoenix Art Museum will examine this type of love and loss, connection and disconnection—emotions similar to those vocalized in Neil Sedaka’s chart-topping (and oddly upbeat?) 1962 hit “Breakin’ Up is Hard to Do.” But really, the selection of paintings, photographs, installations, and digital media works, drawn from the Museum’s collection, the collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation, and various private collections of Arizona-based artists, are less about love lost and more about the other ways we break up with—or break free from— unhealthy parts of our inner selves, fictions that have been considered facts, and systems that no longer (or never did) serve us. On view now, Breaking Up is organized into sections based on the types of fragmentation, or “breaking up,” that featured artists explore. Works by Deborah Butterfield, Nancy Rubins, Rivane Neuenschwander, and Lia Chaia, for example, illuminate the process of deconstructing everyday objects or materials like wood, paper, metal, and incense to create alternative structures and spaces that hold new meaning despite their repurposed media. One particular favorite of PhxArt visitors— Cornelia Parker’s Mass (Colder Darker Matter) (1997)—makes its return to the galleries, in this context asking viewers to consider how gathering bits of charcoal from an incinerated church and assembling them with translucent wire to create a suspended mass yields an experience whose parts tell us something unexpected about the whole. In contrast, a second section of the installation explores how artists take apart and reconfigure one of the most familiar forms: the human body. Featured works include those by Angela Ellsworth, Janet Toro, and Frida Orupabo. For her work Untitled (2018), Orupabo used her Instagram account (@nemiepeba) to crowdsource thousands of photos and videos of the Black experience, which she then collaged together to explore the ways the Black body, Black femininity, and sexuality converge, transcend, and are continually met with violence. The film—a combination of Orupabo’s selections with Cindy Sherman’s 1979 work Untitled Film Still #50—toggles between still and moving images, revealing famous poems and verse, a scene of a young woman styling her natural hair, a clip of Nina Simone singing “Feelings,” and more. The compilation causes the eye to wander and the mind to contemplate—the commonalities across images, the progression of time, the emotions that arise as we are drawn into the piece. Finally, viewers are encouraged to consider the many ways the heartbreak of trauma affect the human mind—how, for example, our memories, languages, and visual perceptions become fractured when we experience moments of loss and abandonment. Featured here are works by Michal Rovner, Uta Barth, Renée Green, and

image credits: (page 14): Frida Orupabo, Untitled, 2018. Single-channel HD video. © Frida Orupabo from the artist’s Instagram (@nemiepeba). Collection of the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Foundation. (above, left to right) Ronna Nemitz, Endless Numbered Days, 2021. Digital video. Courtesy of the artist; Kristin Bauer, Working Title 04, 2020. Synthetic polymer pigment on canvas. Courtesy the artist. Photo: Grey Shed Studio.

Tacita Dean. This section of Breaking Up also showcases works by a number of Arizona-based artists, such as Marie Navarre and Beth Ames Swartz. Additionally included are Ronna Nemitz’s video of a dog swimming in open water that leaves us breathless with panic, Jessica Palomo’s abstract black-and-white drawings that explore the shattered emotional state following the loss of a loved one, and Kristin Bauer’s restructured words and images drawn from historical propaganda and advertising that elicit reflection on the ways mass communication and powerful institutions shape our world views. All in all, it’s safe to say the installation, curated by assistant curator Rachel Sadvary Zebro, plunges deeper into the complex notions of detachment and separation than even the catchiest of top-40 hits. Featured artists and artworks pull apart expectations and biases. They tear down commonly held truths and arbitrary borders, all in the name of exposing something—or someone—more real, more true, than we ever believed possible. There’s an anxiety, a discomfort, a twinge of self-doubt that creeps up when considering all of the unlearning and relearning that can take place when experiencing artworks of this nature. But to his credit, Neil Sedaka did warn us, it wouldn’t be easy. Breaking Up is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.

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GE N E R AT IO N PA P E R : FA S T FA S HIO N O F T H E 19 6 0 s THROUGH DECEMBER 4, 2022 ELLMAN AND HARNETT GALLERIES

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OFF THE P R E S S GENERATION PAPER: FAST FASHION OF THE 1960s EXPLORES THE WHIMSICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL WORLD OF PAPER GARMENTS While short-lived, the paper dress trend took the world by storm after Scott Paper Company launched an ingenious marketing campaign to promote “Dura-Weve,” a textile featured in their thennew disposable tableware line. With popularity skyrocketing, other companies such as Mars of Asheville joined the excitement and were soon selling upwards of 80,000 dresses per week.

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urated by Helen Jean, the Museum’s Jacquie Dorrance Curator of Fashion Design, Generation Paper explores the phenomenon of the era through more than 80 rare garments and accessories selected entirely from the Museum’s comprehensive fashion-design collection, which is home to one of the leading collections of paper fashion in the United States, made possible through donations from Kelly Ellman and Gail and Stephen Rineberg. The exhibition, on view in the CONTINUED ON PAGE 18

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N AT U R A L LY, CRE AT I O N S M A D E W I T H DI S P O S A BL E M AT E RI A L S L I K E PA P E R A N D COVERED IN CHEMICALS TO PREVENT FIRES, THERE WAS A RISK TO WE ARING PAPER FA S H I O N , A S I D E F R O M T H E R I S K O F A T E A R I N YO U R W E A R S ... L A U N D E R I N G O R D R YCL E A N I N G PA P E R A P PA RE L C O U L D L E A D TO A RI S K O F A N O P E N F L A M E , M AY BE E V E N A B O N F I R E , G I V I N G A W H O L E N E W M E A N I N G T O T H E P H R A S E “ H O T O F F T H E P R E S S .” Ellman Fashion Design Gallery and the Harnett Gallery, showcases dresses, bikinis, skirts, hats, jumpsuits, rompers, beach cover-ups, and more made from paper, plastic, laminate, and other disposable materials, many of which were highly flammable although coated in flame-retardant chemicals. Exhibition highlights include garments that mimicked kitchen countertop patterns as a promotion for Viking appliances; children’s dresses featuring Captain Kangaroo and Flintstones cartoons; a dress and matching placemats and napkins by Seagram’s 7, created so the ultimate party hostess could match her décor; and, mostly notably, the Campbell’s Souper Dress and the first two original Paper Caper dresses from Scott Paper Company. During the 1960s, paper garments influenced fashion on all levels, including the first rendition of paper underwear for women, the sanitary paper liner now a common sight in swimsuits, and other

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undergarments. Selling for mere pennies, the undergarments were advertised as extra-soft and made with “wet-proof ” tissue crepe. “Paper panties” made by Universal Sanitary Pantie Co. provided full coverage, in contrast to the liner we know today. Naturally, creations made with disposable materials like paper and covered in chemicals to prevent fires, there was a risk to wearing paper fashion, aside from the risk of a tear in your wears. Published in Women’s Wear Daily in 1967, an announcement made by Dr. Richard E. Maryland, chief of the Public Health Service’s Injury Control Program, announced that laundering or dry-cleaning paper apparel could lead to a risk of an open flame, maybe even a bonfire, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase “hot off the press.” Stories of shredded styles were recorded in The New York Times, including a near-disaster at the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Paper Dress Ball in 1966. A gown designed by


Jon Haggins, modeled by Myrna, tore at the shoulder strap but luckily, a roll of cellophane tape Haggins carried in his pocket came to the rescue and the gown was quickly mended. With the myriad of hazards and changing times, paper fashion turned into a quickly passing fad, becoming a rare sight toward the end of the 1960s. Visitors to Phoenix Art Museum can view these rare garments and accessories, safe from any clothes fire or tears through December 4, 2022. Generation Paper: Fast Fashion of the 1960s is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and made possible through the generosity of Arizona Costume Institute, the Kelly Ellman Fashion Design Endowment Fund and Stephen and Gail Rineberg, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members. image credits: (page 16, top to bottom) James Sterling Paper Fashions, Dress, c. 1966. Printed Du Pont Reemay spunbonded polyester. Gift of Kelly Ellman; Misty Modes, “Daisy Mae” Shift (detail), 1960s. Printed Du Pont Reemay spunbonded polyester. Gift of Kelly Ellman; Mars of Asheville, Dress (detail), c. 1966-1968. Printed Kaycel (nylon scrim and cellulose fiber). Gift of Mrs. Kelly Ellman. (page 17, top to bottom) The Paper Dress, Dress, Placemats and Napkins, late 1960s. Printed, 93% cellulose, 7% Nylon. Gift of Kelly Ellman; Mars of Asheville, Child’s Dress, c. 1966-1968. Printed Kaycel (nylon scrim and cellulose fiber). Gift of Kelly Ellman; The Paper Dress, Dress, late 1960s. Silkscreen printed, 93% cellulose, 7% Nylon. Gift of Kelly Ellman. (page 18-19) Installation views, Generation Paper: Fast Fashion of the 1960s, 2021, Phoenix Art Museum.

P R O F E S S IO N A L S IN PA P E R Today, paper garments are no longer “stylish wears” and have turned into paper with purpose. Paper garments are used in a wide array of professions for protection and are used for sanitary purposes for others. The thin sanitary paper liner is in undergarments and swimsuits when one needs to try it on. The liner acts as a layer of sanitary protection for the individual who decides to purchase the item and can then remove it. Additionally, mesh postpartum underwear, made with disposable materials, is recommended after giving birth to help with any leaks and act as an easy way to wear and toss without worry. Healthcare professionals will use disposable and paper garments for personal protective equipment (PPE) to help mitigate the transmission of diseases. Other professions will use PPE to provide protection from hazardous waste, sporting protective boot covers, protective hoods, and protective coveralls. Flame resistant disposable garments are also available for purchase. Professionals wear paper to protect themselves and others in their fields.

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D E S E R T R IDE R APRIL 24 – SEPTEMBER 18, 2022 STEELE GALLERY

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I I I S CE NIC DRIV E I I PUT IT WHERE I GREW UP, WHERE ALL THE BROWN PEOPLE LIVE. THERE ARE A LOT OF EMPTY DESERT LOTS AS WELL AS TIRE SHOPS, AND IT BLEW UP BECAUSE EVERYONE UNDERSTOOD EXACTLY WHAT I WAS SAYING BY PUTTING IT THERE. /// J U S T I N FAV E L A ///

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WHETHER WE SEE THEM IN MOVIES, AT CAR SHOWS, OR JUST CRUISING DOWN THE AVENUES, THE CANDY-L ACQUERED, CHROME-ENCRUSTED EXTERIORS AND BOUNCING HYDRAULIC SYSTEMS OF LOWRIDERS MAKE THEM IMPOSSIBLE TO MISS.

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he Valley of the Sun is home to countless examples of these vibrant, venerated vehicles. Each year, car clubs, super shows, and community events honor the artistry of the lowrider and the cultural traditions of its makers. Now Phoenix Art Museum will join the conversation, presenting an original, special exhibition celebrating not only these custom rides and the history from which they were born, but the impact that customization culture has on artists working in the Southwest. Opening April 24, 2022, Desert Rider showcases a diverse display of large-scale installations, prints, sculptures, and more by Latinx and Indigenous artists including Cara Romero, Douglas Miles, Margarita Cabrera, and Liz Cohen, each of whom draw inspiration from custom-car culture. In a nod to the individuality of customization, the exhibition will feature many works commissioned specifically for Desert Rider, enjoying their world premiere at Phoenix Art Museum. Through these unique works by artists from across the Southwest, visitors will discover the relationships between transportation, industry, landscape, and identity in our desert region.


Gilbert Vicario, curator of contemporary art, curated the exhibition, with support from Assistant Curator Rachel Sadvary Zebro, and Christian Ramirez, who serves as exhibitions and residency manager at ArtPace in San Antonio. For Vicario, Desert Rider began at the crossroads of culture, identity, and exploration. “I was interested in exploring the ways lowrider car culture and the southwestern landscape have influenced the work of contemporary Latinx and Indigenous artists who are examining the intersection of movement and motion, migration, gender and sexuality, labor, and identity,” he said. “It’s important to acknowledge all of the artists represented are members of communities that were forced to the margins of society within our geographic space, experiences that parallel the history of the lowrider itself.” Many Latinx and Chicanx historians trace the lowrider back to the rise of pachuco culture, a Mexican-American youth subculture that emerged in the 1940s. While there is some debate on its geographic origin—many believe it began in the El Paso/Ciudad Juárez bordertown region while others attribute its rise to East Los Angeles—it is clear pachuco culture, or pachuquismo, developed as a reaction to everyday racism Mexican-American families endured, as well as the U.S. government’s mass deportation of hundreds of Mexican and U.S. citizens of Mexican descent during the Great Depression, commonly known as the Mexican Repatriation. Pachuco youth were known for their oversized zoot suits, distinct Spanglish dialect, and affinity for jazz and swing music. While their influence on music and fashion continues to resonate today, they can also be credited with inventing the lowrider and its iconic aesthetic.

I T ’ S I M P O R TA N T T O A C K N O W L E D G E A L L O F T H E A R T I S T S RE P RE S E N T E D ARE MEMBERS OF COMMUNITIES THAT WERE FORCED TO THE M A RG I N S O F S O CI E T Y W I T H I N O U R G EO G R A P H I C S PA CE , E X P E RI E N CE S THAT PARALLEL THE HISTORY O F T H E L O W R I D E R I T S E L F. /// G I L BE R T V I C A RI O, CU R ATO R O F C O N T E M P O R A RY A R T ///

After World War II, many Mexican-Americans returned from their military service only to face the same racism they had encountered before their service. In response, pachuco youth turned their cars into statements of defiance. While white America became enraptured by the hot-rod trend, Mexican-Americans dropped their vehicles to mere inches above the pavement, riding low and slow. They adorned their cars with cultural and religious imagery, including Nahua and Mayan symbols painted on the hoods of their vibrantly colored cars, a rejection of mainstream car design. Today, for many in the Latinx and Chicanx communities, the lowrider remains a symbol of individuality, cultural identity, resistance, and pride. CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

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For Justin Favela, an artist known for his large-scale installations and sculptures that explore pop culture and themes of authenticity and place, lowrider culture also reflects the efforts of Mexican-American youth to take hold of the American Dream in their own ways. “In the Southwest, there’s a long history of car and lowrider culture, from Route 66 to familias in Española, New Mexico, to the Chicanos in East Los Angeles,” said Favela. “The symbol of American progress really is the car, so for Latinx folks to take that and make it into their own art form is very special.” Visitors will be able to experience one of Favela’s own works created specifically for Desert Rider: a lowrider made to scale and crafted from cardboard, tissue paper, and other materials “linked to or our symbols of Latinidad,” Favela adds. He will also install his work Seven Magic Tires, a satire based on Swiss-born artist Ugo Rondinone’s Seven Magic Mountains, located outside Las Vegas. Favela’s installation features a stack of brightly painted tires, arranged in varying heights, inspired by painted tires he once saw outside of a Vegas car shop. Interpreting the scene as parody, Favela reimagined Rondinone’s installation, using the same colors and composition. “When I saw the Rondinone pieces installed, I first saw it as this nod to Americana, a continuation of the traditional roadside attraction,” Favela said. “But when I read about it, the artist said things like, ‘I wanted this piece to be in the middle of nowhere in Nevada to contrast the bright colors of the rock with the arid desert landscape.’” Favela disagreed with Rondinone’s characterization of “the middle of nowhere.” “It’s on the way to the outlet malls,” he said. “I learned how to drive stick shift in the dry lakebed next to where the piece is installed. It’s a part of our town.” After its premiere in an exhibition about the unseen labor that powers the city’s wealth, Favela then installed it on the east side of Vegas. “I put it where I grew up, where all the Brown people live,” he said. “There are a lot of empty desert lots as well as tire shops, and it blew up because everyone understood exactly what I was saying by putting it there.”

FA MILY M AT T E R S While Favela’s installations pay homage to the lowrider and the labor of local llanteras, artist Sam Fresquez created a newly commissioned work drawn from her personal experiences with an entirely different aspect of car culture: NASCAR. Fresquez grew up going to Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) with her father who worked at the track managing Hispanic outreach. Her custom creation unites the scope of her current work—examining how race, stereotypes, and personal adornment affect private and public narratives—with her past exploration of NASCAR culture. “A few years ago, I envisioned this character who was the first Latina NASCAR driver,” she said. “There’s never been a Latina NASCAR driver yet, so I started making myself jumpsuits and other accessories for her.” One such example was a pair of racing gloves Fresquez made from seed beads, a material that, although used throughout Indigenous cultures to create jewelry, is actually derived from European glass technology. “I like this idea of taking something that’s supposed to be protective and turning it into a fragile object,” she said. “I also like to use seed beads to comment on colonization. Living here in the Southwest, I feel like there’s a very prescribed way of talking about the border and migration, but really, we’ve been colonized in so many ways. The history of seed beads is particularly interesting because they were brought over by colonizers. Using it in my work is a way for me to explore being mestiza.” Additionally, Fresquez’s work draws on her research on PIR and the space it occupies. “The bridge leading to the track crosses what used to be the border between Mexico and the U.S. before the Spanish-American War,” she said.

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“My family was one of the families that never migrated—the border crossed us after the war. We’ve always been here, and I feel very tied to that history.” Another featured artist, Jose Villalobos, evokes memories of his family and personal history through the newly commissioned work he’s created for Desert Rider. Born and raised in El Paso, Villalobos, whose practice focuses on deconstructing toxic masculinity and centering marginalized queer voices, grew up around cars as his father was a mechanic who loved lowriders and enhancing vehicles in his shop. For the upcoming exhibition, he will “flamboyantly embellish” saddles using techniques and accessories typically reserved for lowriders, including chain steering wheels, fiberglass, and brightly colored lacquers. For Villalobos, this work harkens back to his parents’ lives before they moved to the U.S. “My parents come from Mexico and grew up part of the rancho,” he said. “This work is about that familial history, the ranch lifestyle,

intersecting with the lavish lifestyle of car culture. It’s about looking at the ways people come from nothing to when they have something.” The piece also challenges the classic cowboy archetype of the West, which centers on the Hollywood-constructed image of a white, rugged John Wayne type, erasing the histories of Black and Indigenous cowboys and Mexican vaqueros, who, according to Kendall Nelson, photographer and author of Gathering Remnants: A Tribute to the Working Cowboy, represented one out of every three cowboys in the 1800s. “The saddle in my work represents a journey and the roots of where cowboys really come from, how that history was appropriated,” Villalobos said. The saddles provide Villalobos a chance to deconstruct the masculinity inherent in such objects. “It’s about taking car culture with all of its machismo and seeing how I can deconstruct that and the homophobia that comes with it,” he said. CONTINUED ON PAGE 26

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WOMEN’S WORK Cuban-born visual artist, documentary photographer, and visual anthropologist Carlotta Boettcher, currently based in Guatemala, first came to understand cars as beloved personal objects growing up in Cuba in the 1940s and 1950s with a father who loved Lincolns, but she did not come to the automotive arts until she first moved from Europe to San Francisco in 1971. Leaving Europe behind, she became more aware of cars as a cultural icon in California, a personal symbol of identity, especially for men. The dominance of masculinity within car culture also resulted in the marginalization of women and others who sought to participate. While living in the western coastal city, Boettcher quickly learned that not only could cars be moving art forms in which their owners took great pride, they were also necessary modes of transportation to get around the vast stretches of the San Francisco Bay Area. After securing her first car, a 1964 Volkswagen Beetle, Boettcher now needed to learn how to make repairs and improvements to the car. “So I thought I’d learn to fix it myself,” she said. “I went to trade school, but at first they didn’t let me in because I was a woman.” In fact, the instructor in the community-college automotive program informed her the men in her class threatened to quit if she were accepted. Boettcher instead tried to teach herself. As she began her work, she discovered an affinity for working with metal and perfecting finishes, finding her own unique approach and style. “Although I admired the work of Latino lowrider artists, I felt there was ample room for women to express themselves as automotive artists, as well,” Boettcher explains. She was aware that, as a woman, she would bring a different perspective and meaning to the use of cars as a medium of self-expression and taught herself auto body and paint restoration through trial and error using instructional manuals available to the trade. By the early 1980s, Boettcher opened San Francisco Art Cars, and created her first art car, a formerly bland Opel-Isuzu-Buick, a piece she titled Phoenix. Boettcher became especially fixated on the potential of automotive hoods, as the distinctive, signature part of a car’s body. “I picked the hoods because they’re the most iconic part of the car,” she said. “Car people can look at hoods and know what model, year, and brand they’re from. Also, hoods can hang on the wall, so I started transforming them into wall pieces.” Boettcher began using car hoods as canvases and created a series of uniquely designed multimedia hoods known as Shields and Mirrors, which were exhibited in San Francisco, Nevada, New Mexico, and Europe. Many of these

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I PICKED THE HOODS BECAUSE THEY’RE THE MOST ICONIC PART OF THE CAR. CAR PEOPLE C A N LO O K AT H O O DS A N D K N O W W H AT M O D E L , Y E A R , AND BRAND THEY’RE FROM. ALSO, HOODS CA N HANG ON THE WALL, SO I S TA RT ED T R A N SFO RM IN G THEM IN TO WALL PIECES. /// C A RLOT TA BO E T TCH E R ///


wall works are included in both private and museum collections, including one housed at the Tucson Museum of Art. This work will be on view in Desert Rider. As an artist, Boettcher also found ways to inspire, to create, and customize their own rides. In San Francisco, she founded an annual art-car event, known as the “Rubble Beach Concourse de Funk and Tailgate Party.” A take on the venerable antique-car show known as the Pebble Beach Concourse d’Elegance which took place each August in Carmel, the “Rubble Beach” happened each August, only in vacant parking lots across San Francisco. Community members brought their own cars, and transformed them into their own personal art cars, turning city streets into a living gallery. “Rubble Beach” became a gathering place not only for car-culture enthusiasts, but local bands and musicians who played live while artists worked on their vehicles. “Cars by then had become computer-designed cookie–cutter generics,” Boettcher said, “and people became seduced by the idea of easily personalizing their wheels.” Boettcher ultimately closed her San Francisco Art Cars studio in the mid 1990s and relocated to the New Mexico high desert, where she built a studio in Abiquiu in 1999. Although she intended to continue her art-car work, she soon discovered that the combination of highdesert altitude and aridity with the toxic fumes from paint and plastic fillers now made it difficult to work in this medium. Instead, she took up photography full time, cruising around rural northern New Mexico, photographing the amazing landscapes and visiting small, traditional villages. On her travels, she began to notice deserted cars in unlikely locations. What resulted was a photographic series entitled Cars in the New Mexico Landscape, which will also be on view in Desert Rider. Today, few if any of the photographed cars can be found in their original location. Boettcher believes that eventually the local county government may have removed them in the early 2000s due to the growing consciousness about hazardous waste, and the impact the junked cars had on waterways and soils of the fragile desert environment. Instead, we are left only with the memories of these cars, left to examine the stark images of abandoned classics, vegetation sprouting from their every crevice, encourage us to contemplate the tension between human-made machines and their natural surroundings—how we rely on vehicles and automated forms of transport to cross stunning landscapes that are, in turn, polluted with toxic chemicals emitted from our modes of movement and travel.

CR UI S IN G T O S O M E W H E R E When they hear about an exhibition inspired by custom-car culture in the Southwest, PhxArt visitors are likely to arrive expecting to see a souped-up ‘64 Impala or the infamous Gypsy Rose. But rather than a survey of the literal history of lowrider culture, Desert Rider promises something entirely different: a unique opportunity to explore what these cars—and their movement through geographic spaces—mean to artists working in the Southwest today, what they mean to our regional identity, what they meant to us. “Don’t forget that this exhibition originates in Arizona, a border state, but that featured artists hail from the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan deserts,” said Vicario. “These landscapes inherently reject and transcend the U.S.-Mexico border and federally designated boundaries that separate groups of people and their cultures through arbitrary means. Cars offer a way for us to move beyond those spaces.” Just as vehicles enable us to transcend the boundaries that separate us, Desert Rider defies division, bringing together artists from across backgrounds and specialties, now united through the commonalities,

not only of their work and artistic practices, but of their shared experiences with discrimination, marginalization, and erasure. In this way, Desert Rider is as much about featured artists as it is about featured works, while lowrider and custom-car culture serve as a starting point to explore identity and place. Ultimately, Desert Rider shares the epic stories of journeying—into uncharted territories of new experiences, into unfamiliar spaces of self-discovery. After all—what is art if not an act of simultaneously trailblazing and surrendering, of going along for the ride with both fear and bravery as your co-pilots, all in search of something unexpected about yourself and the road you’ve traveled? Desert Rider is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of the Arizona Office of Tourism and Men’s Arts Council, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members. image credits: (pages 20-21) Justin Favela, Seven Magic Mountains, 2019. Tires, paint, and glue. Courtesy

of the artist. Photo: Mikayla Whitmore. (page 22) Justin Favela, Gypsy Rose Piñata, 2017. Mixed medium. Courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum. (page 23, top to bottom) Liz Cohen, Tina Appolonia, 2018. Pigment print, enamel paint. Courtesy of the artist; Liz Cohen, Gloria Garcetti, 2018. Pigment print, enamel paint. Courtesy of the artist. (page 24) Betsabeé Romero, Columna interminable (Endless Column), 2015. Rubber tire and gold leaf. Gift of Friends of Mexican Art in honor of its 50th Anniversary, with additional generous support from Maria DeLongy, Greta Mock, Jacqueline and Paul Schulz, Kathren and Fritz Thomas, Kotzie Wheeler and Greta Woods. (page 25) Liz Cohen, Lowrider Builder and Child, 2012. Chromogenic print. Museum purchase with funds provided by the Zuber Award and the Opatrny Family Foundation. Courtesy of the artist. (page 26) Carlotta Boettcher, 13 Moons Doubled (from the Shields and Mirrors collection), 1992. Citroen DS hood, aluminum and lacquer. Collection of the Tucson Museum of Art. Gift of Ana Livingston Paddock. 2010.2.1. © Carlotta Boettcher. (above) Carlotta Boettcher, Cars in the New Mexico Landscape - 50s Chevy with Tree (from the Cars in the New Mexico Landscape collection), 1996-1998. Color photography, digital print on Dibond. Collection of the artist. © Carlotta Boettcher.

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BREAKING W I T H TRADITION By the conclusion of World War II, photography was no stranger to Japan. Long before it would be used to capture images of a nation ravaged by war and nuclear destruction, photography had come to Japan as early as 1848, when the daguerreotype camera was first imported to the island nation.

F FA R E W E L L P H O T OGR A P H Y: T H E HI TA CHI CO L L E C T IO N O F P O S T WA R J A PA N E S E P H O T OGR A P H S , 19 61-19 8 9 THROUGH JUNE 26, 2022 NORTON GALLERY

or much of Japan’s early photographic history, the medium served as a tool for documentation; portraiture and objective, journalistic-style photography was the rule of the day. However, nearly a hundred years after the first photographs were taken in Japan, the nation would experience a profound shift, not only in the availability of mass-produced camera equipment of the post-war industrial age, but in its style, mood, and aesthetic. Just as war and modernization had forever changed the face of the nation, the trauma of war, the cultural impact of occupation, and the democratization of affordable camera equipment would change the face of Japanese photography forever.

伝統を破る

THE RADICAL NEW VISION OF POST-WAR JAPANESE PHOTOGRAPHY

The newest photography exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum, drawn from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, explores the revolutionary, postwar period of Japanese photography. Entitled Farewell CONTINUED ON PAGE 30

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Farewell Photography explores the work of this era through sections dedicated to individual artists of the period, each of whom vary in subject matter and style. Rather than exploring specific commonalities and themes, visitors instead journey through the decades, and enjoy an intimate experience with each featured photographer, studying a small assemblage of works that typify the artists’ aesthetic and experience, and the subjects of their work run the gamut. One of the first collection of works visitors encounter is the moody natural photographs of Hiroshi Yamazaki, born just after the end of the war and who passed away in 2017. Yamazaki, who was formally trained in photography at Nihon University, became entranced with the role that both light and exposure play, and his body of work delved deeply into images of the sun and sea. The result is a series of black-and-white images of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Japan, among others, entitled The Sun is Longing for the Sea. An amalgam of light and shadow in which it becomes nearly impossible to separate the sky, the shore, and the sea from each other, through the images, marked by a narrow white rectangle of the rising sun, Yamazaki creates a world shorn entirely of destruction, conflict, and the frailty of humankind, leaving us only with a glimpse at a near primordial view of the elements.

Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 1961-1989, drawn from iconic photographer Daidō Moriyama’s seminal 1972 photobook, the exhibition features dozens of photographers of the postwar period who helped establish a new approach to photography known as are-bure-bokeh: rough, blurry, out-of-focus. Through an exploration of works by Moriyama, Masahisa Fukase, Shōmei Tōmatsu, Miyako Ishiuchi, and many other artists of the period, visitors can discover not only the edgier, intense mood and aesthetic of the postwar period, but a significant shift in subject matter, toward a more personal and intimate focus that tells the story of a people and a nation in a period of post-traumatic transition. The collection featured at Phoenix Art Museum were first acquired by the Center for Creative Photography in the late 1980s, due in large part to a grant from the Hitachi Corporation. Farewell Photography offers the first opportunity to see this collection together in more than 30 years. While the roots of are-bure-bokeh begin almost immediately after the conclusion of World War II during a time of recovery from the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the CCP’s collection, and thus Farewell Photography itself, delves most deeply into what is sometimes referred to as the Provoke period of contemporary Japanese photography, spanning the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The term comes from a magazine of the same name first published in the 1960s, and founded by photographers Yutaka Takanashi and Tukama Nakahira, as well as critics and writers who were close associates. The exhibition also calls to mind the seminal 1974 exhibition, New Japanese Photography, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which enticed Western audiences into taking note of the groundbreaking work and distinct perspective of contemporary Japanese photographers working in the period.

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This sparse loneliness is echoed in the work of Miyako Ishiuchi, the only woman featured in the exhibition, and a pivotal figure in the heavily male-dominated field of Japanese photography. The works included in this exhibition are drawn from Ishiuchi’s Yokosuka Story (1976-1977) series, intended to be a photographic essay of Ishiuchi’s hometown which was dominated by a U.S. military base, and another series, Apartment (1977-1978), which reflects on the very basic, workaday housing of postwar Japan, in which she grew up. In one image, a young girl runs through an urban alleyway, devoid of any adults, and only the ramshackle remnants of urban life, all cast in the harsh light of the afternoon sun. The child, whose face is out of focus, whose presence in the image seems unplanned and happenstance, appears to be running alone, untethered, free, and most of all, unsecured. Her tiny, distorted shadow seems to underscore her vulnerability, her overexposure to this place marked by the air of hardened industry. Despite her smile and the gaiety of her movements, the photograph captures a sense of danger and dread. This similar sense of danger and dread that is, in some ways, incongruous with the subject matter is echoed again in Kikuchi Kawada’s work. A self-taught photographer, Kawada worked as a freelance photographer, focusing in part on both the traumas of World War II and scenes of everyday life in Tokyo that capture the subtle disquietude of the postwar city. This is seen best, perhaps, in his Wedding Veil, Tokyo, 1968. The bride wears a Western-style white tulle veil, a departure from traditional Japanese wedding garments, and her face is obscured in shadow, the gossamer veil lit from the sun to the left. She holds up a single hand as if to signal at someone to stay back, not to draw too close. Kawada manages to capture a moment in the midst of what should be a celebration, but instead feels heavy, dark, and ultimately, lonely. Similarly, his 1975 photograph, The Youth Who Pilots a Glider, Tokyo, 1975, features a teenage boy, wearing what resembles a Western-style letterman’s jacket, enclosed in the glass cockpit of a small glider. The framing of the image crops out the wings and other aerial aspects of the


glider, leaving the viewer with an image that more closely resembles a teenage boy in a coffin, eyes closed, calling to mind images of the war dead. While much of the work clearly references and hints at the impact of World War II and nuclear weaponry on postwar Japan, some of the works include a more direct mention of those effects. The featured works by photographer Shōmei Tōmatsu, drawn in part from his photobook Hiroshima-Nagasaki Document 1961, delve deeply into the impact of nuclear war on the people and nation, as seen through images that depict everyday objects twisted and warped by the blast. In Melted Beer Bottle after the Atomic Explosion, 1945, Nagasaki, (1961) the visitor is witness to an unrecognizable, amorphous shape, mutated glass warped by the intense heat of the bomb, now resembling the eerie, repulsive outline of a human body part that cannot be identified.

“I hope this exhibition introduces viewers to this special group of photographers who represented a radical new vision,” said Audrey Sands, PhD, the Museum’s former Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography, who co-curated this exhibition with her colleague, Andrew Monohon, an independent curator who formerly served as a curatorial assistant at the Center for Creative Photography. “I want to highlight how provocative this style was during a loaded and controversial political moment in Japan. I want to broaden the view beyond the North American-centric story of the history of modern photography, to look at this extraordinary rich and edgy cultural output, and the ways in which photography was used for protest. To have a more global understanding of this period of social unrest and of a generation that challenged governments and societal norms is, I think, a critical vocabulary for all of us to better understand our own time.” Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 19611989 is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography. It is made possible through the generosity of the John R. and Doris Norton Center for Creative Photography Endowment Fund, with additional support from the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.

image credits: (page 28, top to bottom) Ikkō Narahara, Japanesque #53, Sojiji, Japan, 1969. Gelatin silver print. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Gift of the artist. © Ikko Narahara; Kikuji Kawada, New Couple Who Closed Their Eyes, Tokyo, 1974. Gelatin silver print. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Purchase, with matching funds from Hitachi America, Ltd. © Kikuji Kawada. (page 29) Installation view, Farewell Photography: The Hitachi Collection of Postwar Japanese Photographs, 1961-1989, 2022, Phoenix Art Museum. (page 30) Taku Aramasa, Yurio Hasegawa (Japanese), Zenji Watanabe (Japanese), Harunaga Hasegawa (Japanese), 1984. Gelatin silver print. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Purchase, with matching funds from Hitachi America, Ltd. © AMARASA Taku. (page 31) Kozo Miyoshi, Irouzaki, 1988. Gelatin silver print. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Purchase, with matching funds from Hitachi America, Ltd. © Kozo Miyoshi.

Whatever the visitor sees in this exhibition, they will bear witness to a revolutionary departure from the origins of photography in Japan to a more personal perspective into a world that was lost in war, and the new world that took its place. Each of the artists, by stepping away from technical proficiency, releasing their own cultural inhibitions, and embracing a new aesthetic that prioritized the personal over the perfect, expressed an uncanny bravery, a profound courage to reinvent what

photography could mean in the new Japan. In many ways, this bravery, this willingness to confront difficult subject matter, to tell the whole truth about the world around them, has lessons for all of us today, as we face the challenges of our own troubled times.

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SUPPORT

MEN’SARTSCOUNCIL SUPPORTING PHOENIX ART MUSEUM SINCE 1967

M

en’s Arts Council (MAC) is a 501(c)3, non-profit organization that supports the exhibitions, acquisitions, education programs, and vital operations of Phoenix Art Museum through three unique events: the Bell Lexus North Scottsdale Copperstate 1000 vintage-car road rally, the Copperstate Double Gun, and the Copperstate Overland vintage off-road rally. Over its 55-year history, MAC has raised more than $10 million in support of Phoenix Art Museum. MAC membership is by invitation only. To learn more about the organization’s exciting events, visit www.mensartscouncil.com.

B E L L L E X U S N O R T H S CO T T S D A L E CO P P E R S TAT E 10 0 0 The Bell Lexus North Scottsdale Copperstate 1000 is one of the premier vintage-car road rallies in North America. Created by MAC in 1990, the annual four-day fundraiser continues to set the

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benchmark for excellence, as the finest vintage automobiles in the world grace the scenic highways of Arizona.

CO P P E R S TAT E DO U B L E GU N The Copperstate Double Gun is an annual sporting-clays, targetshooting event for those who appreciate and collect double-barrel, break-action shotguns in various configurations. The winner takes all in this one-round, 75-shot competition.

CO P P E R S TAT E O V E R L A N D The Copperstate Overland is a fully-supported on-road/off-road driving adventure open to vintage off-road vehicles. Modeled after the renowned Copperstate 1000 vintage-car road rally, the annual Overland event provides a fully catered, first-class, off-road driving experience. image credit:

Tom Leigh, Tommy Gun Images.


WHY WE GIVE

Philanthropy helps to keep the Museum’s doors open, which is why Men’s Arts Council has supported Phoenix Art Museum for more than 50 years.” CHUCK COOLIDGE

PRESIDEN T, MEN’S A RT S COUNCIL CHIEF ST R AT EGY OFFICER, VIEMED HE A LT HCA RE Suppor ting Phoe nix Ar t Mu se um since 2011

T

en years ago, I was asked by a friend to participate in a fundraiser benefitting Phoenix Art Museum. I anticipated a stuffy room of people, but to my surprise, the event integrated vintage vehicles with artwork and I met many friendly and likeminded individuals interested in learning about art. Now, I am the president of that group of passionate volunteers serving the Museum: Men’s Arts Council. All too often, art museums can be intimidating spaces for those who don’t consider themselves to be artists or art experts. Phoenix Art Museum strives to make an impact on our community not only through thoughtful exhibitions but by increasing access and empowering students, families, and others to experience the transformative power of art. But the Museum can only cultivate these meaningful relationships if individuals, corporations, and volunteers donate their time, financial resources, and efforts. This philanthropy helps to keep the Museum’s doors open, which is why Men’s Arts Council has supported Phoenix Art Museum for more than 50 years and why we will continue to support the Museum through exhibition sponsorships and fundraisers like the Copperstate 1000 that benefit art-education programs and acquisitions.

image credit:

Courtesy of Chuck Coolidge.

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SUPPORT

T H A N K Y O U Phoenix Art Museum gratefully acknowledges the generosity of our Circles of Support donors, whose annual gifts benefit our exhibitions, educational programs, and services for the community. Please note: This list recognizes those Circles of Support donors who have made a gift between May 1 and November 30, 2021. Institutional donors, 21st Century Society members, Corporate Council members, and Museum Members at the Fellow level will be mentioned once a year in the Summer/Fall issue of PhxArt Magazine.

DIR E C T O R ’ S CIR CL E Allison and Robert Bertrand Bud and Gerry Grout

T R U S T E E ’ S CIR CL E Anonymous Jett and Julia Anderson *Gloria and Philip Cowen Jan and Tom Lewis Lois and John Rogers Iris and °Adam Singer °Miriam and Yefim Sukhman Irit and Jonathan Tratt

CU R AT O R ’ S CIR CL E Anonymous *Alice and Jim Bazlen °John and Oonagh Boppart Richard and Ann Carr Katherine and Charles Case Pam Del Duca Jane and Andrew Evans °Dr. and Mrs. Meryl Haber Judith Hardes Carol and Kenneth Kasses Diane and Larry McComber Robert and Myra Page Matthew and Mary Palenica Timothy Schwimer °Angela and Leonard Singer Nancy Swanson Charles and Vonnie Wanner °Mr. and Mrs. Louis A. Weil III

B E N E FA C T O R ’ S CIR CL E Philip and Lydia Bell David and Susan Berman Karen and Gary Bethune °Donna and Gus Boss Robert M. Dixon Jim and Betsy Donley Paul Giancola and Carrie Lynn Richardson Chip and Janet Glaser Victoria and Rod Granberry Beverly N. Grossman

Jeanne and °Gary Herberger Cheryl J. Hintzen-Gaines and Ira J. Gaines Doris and Martin Hoffman Family Foundation John and Susan Horseman Ellen and Bob Kant Dr. and Mrs. Jamie Kapner °Margot and Dennis Knight James and Ina Kort Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Lavinia Thomas S. and Sheri A. Levin Cheryl Londen Lucy and Robert Lorenzen Frank and Mary Lynott °Paul and Merle Marcus Pat and Keith McKennon Nathaniel and Yvette Meek Dr. and *Mrs. Hong-Kee Ong James and Linda Saunders Michael Schwimmer and Jacqueline Schenkein Mr. George F. Sheer and Linda Porter Paula and Jack Strickstein °Gary and Diane Tooker Mollie C. Trivers and Shelley Cohn Mrs. Betty Van Denburgh Dr. and Mrs. William Weese Daniel and Joy Wilhelm

PAT R O N ’ S CIR CL E Anonymous (4) Judy Ackerman and Richard Epstein °Roberta Aidem Bert and Jill Alanko Makenna and Mike Albrecht  Caralee Allsworth Megan and John Anderson Ellen Andres-Schneider and Ralph Andres  Milena and °Tony Astorga Linda and Jim Ballinger °Peter and Pari Banko Erin Bauscher Uta Monique Behrens Neil Berman James T. Bialac Nancy and Joe Braucher  Linda H. Breuer

 Arizona Five Arts Circle * Current Trustee ° Past Trustee.

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Eric and Dorothy Bron Laurie and *Drew Brown Sumner Brown and Lyn Bailey Kay Butler  Jerry and Stefanie Cargill John Chamberlain and Peggy Sharp Chamberlain Sandy Chamberlain and David Kest Mr. Tom Chauncey, II Jennifer and Bill Clark Marilee and David Clarke The Clements Family Elaine and Sidney Cohen Deborah and Richard Cookson  °Joyce Cooper Sam Coppersmith Richard Corton °Joan D. Cremin Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Damico Leslie Dashew and Jack Salisbury JoAnne Doll  Sydney and Michael Dye Gary Egan Judith and John Ellerman  John Engen and Lisa Spahr Maureen and Tom Eye  Richard and Suzanne Felker Katalin Festy-Sandor Noel and Anne Fidel Peter Fine and Rebecca Ailes-Fine George and Ann Fisher Amy Flood and Larry West Dr. Paul and Amy Gause Elton Gilbert  Angela and Jeffrey Glosser  *Judy and Bill Goldberg  °Richard and Susan Goldsmith Laurie and Charles Goldstein Peter and Wendy Gordon  Karen and James Grande Heather and *Michael D. Greenbaum Jackie and Larry Gutsch  Dr. Oliver Harper and Mrs. Sharon Harper Karen and Lawrence Harris Josh and Cat Hartmann Dr. and Mrs. Douglas Hauser Michael Hawksworth and Anna Sokolova


SUPPORT Maxine Henig and Jodi Freeman Ms. Mary Beth Herbert and Mr. Cecil Penn Linda Herman Paul and Yinglu Hermanson Lori and Howard Hirsch  Lynda and Arthur Horlick  Mimi Horwitz  Gigi Jordan and Bob Patterson Ruth R. Kaspar Elise Kausen Kathy and Fred Kenny Eleanor and Bruce Knappenberger Carolyn Refsnes Kniazzeh Susan Kovarik and Brian Schneider Judy Krolikowski °Carolyn R. Laflin Bruce and Jane Lawson °Gene and Cathie Lemon Benjamin and Cindy Lenhardt David and Leslie Lewis Jerry Lewis Dr. Dorothy Lincoln-Smith and Dr. Harvey Smith  Sam and °Judy Linhart Michael and Susan Little Don and Debra Luke Mr. and Mrs. Daniel G. Maloney Roger and Victoria Marce

Sandra Matteucci Katherine May Tammy McLeod and John Hamilton °Jim and Jean Meenaghan Belle and Bob Merwitzer Arthur Messinger and Eugenie Harris Sherrell Miller Doris and Eliot Minsker  Cindy and Mike Moore Richard B. and °Patricia E. Nolan Michael and Kathleen Norton Kenneth O’Connor and Deedee Rowe *Rose and Harry Papp  David and Mary Patino  Jody Pelusi James and Karrie Pierson Elodee Portigal Mrs. Maritom K. Pyron Ida Rhea  Nancy Riegel Karen Riley Gail Rineberg Carol and Thomas Carlton Rogers, II  Stephena C. Romanoff  Merle and Steve Rosskam  Betsy Retchin  Sandra and Earl Rusnak  Vincent and Janie Russo

Mary and Tom Sadvary Jana and Charles Sample Stella and Mark Saperstein  Carol and Randy Schilling  Colby Schmeckpeper Patricia Ann Schmidt Fred and Arleen Schwartz Sheila Schwartz Mr. Morton Scult Mary and Stanley Seidler Donald and Dorothea Smith Lynne Smith Woody and Nancy Spivey Judy and Bud Stanley Richard and Phyllis Stern °Betsy and Bruce Stodola Fred and Gail Tieken  Pat and Phil Turberg  Jacquie and Merrill Tutton Mildred B. Williams Kenneth and Deirdre Vecchione Elaine Warner Gerald Weiner Gretchen and Dick Wilson  Georgia Ray and R. Stephen Wolfe Delwyn and Diana Worthington

GIV EGOOD We’d love the opportunity to tell you more about our planned giving program and how gifts like a charitable IRA rollover can help the Museum remain a place where all people are welcomed to discover, grow, and dream.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT PLANNEDGIVING@PHXART.ORG. If you already have included Phoenix Art Museum in your estate plans, please let us know so we may thank you for your generosity and recognize you as a member of our 21st Century Society. image credit:

Odilon Redon, Flowers in a Vase, c. 1905-1910. Oil on canvas. Bequest of Mrs. Oliver B. James

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T H E PA R T Y CO - CH A IR S

Tess Loo / *Sally Odegard / *Ann Siner

T H E PA R T Y S P E CI A L CO M MI T T E E Cheryl Londen / Ron Miller

T H E PA R T Y B E N E FA C T O R S RI N G M A S T E R – $ 5 0,0 0 0

Philip C. Curtis Charitable Trust & Philip J. Curtis *Jacquie and Bennett Dorrance Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Garcia, II Laurie and Budd Florkiewicz Carole and Arte Moreno *Mr. and Mrs. Donald C. Opatrny, Jr. William A. Pope Sue and Bud Selig *Ann Siner

A CRO B AT – $ 25,0 0 0

Laurie and *Drew Brown *Mr. and Mrs. Carter Emerson Kathleen and *John Graham & *Jon and Carrie Hulburd *Nancy Hanley Eriksson & Ronald J. Eriksson *Ellen and Howard C. Katz Lincoln Heritage Life Insurance Company *Blair and Lisa Portigal & Versant Capital Management

T

he pARTy: The Show Must Go On! will be inspired by the surreal and captivating works of Philip C. Curtis, one of Arizona’s most beloved artists and founder of the Phoenix Federal Art Center, an early iteration of Phoenix Art Museum. Guests will enjoy an immersive cocktail hour, followed by exclusive access to The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis and the Gail and Stephen Rineberg Gallery to experience works from the Museum’s extensive collection of Philip C. Curtis paintings. Additional highlights of the evening will include live entertainment, captivating performances by surreal-costumed characters, custom cocktails, and an exquisite dinner.

L I O N TA M E R – $10,0 0 0

*Alice and James Bazlen Matthew Boland and Christopher Greulich & Donna and Steve Johnson & Lauri and Eric Termansen & Chrissy and Mitch Sayare *Gloria and Philip Cowen & *Jane and Mal Jozoff Ellman Foundation *Mark and Diana Feldman JPMorgan Chase & Co. *David and Dawn Lenhardt Nancy and Mark Loftin *Sally Odegard *Doris and Hong-Kee Ong *Rose and Harry Papp SRP UMB Bank *Meredith and Charles von Arentschildt Mr. and Mrs. Louis A. Weil, III

T H E PA R T Y S P O N S O R S GENERAL EVENT SPONSOR

Michele and Matthew Feeney Randy Knight Robert J. Lavinia Neiman Marcus Pat Petznick Beverly Stewart The Rob and Melani Walton Foundation

D ÉC O R A N D F LO R A L S P O N S O R S *Judy and Bill Goldberg Richard and *Sally Lehmann

DESSERT SPONSOR

Neiman Marcus *Rose and Harry Papp (List as of 2.9.2022) *Trustee

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THESHO THIS SPRING, JOIN PHOENIX ART MUSEUM TO CELEBRATE THE RETURN OF OUR BELOVED GAL A FOLLOWING AN UNPRECEDENTED HIATUS T H E PA R T Y: T H E S H O W M U S T GO O N! M A RCH 26, 20 2 2 P H O E N I X A R T M U S EU M

ALL NET PROCEEDS FROM THE PARTY BENEFIT EXHIBITIONS, EDUCATION PROGRAMMING, AND ESSENTIAL GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT AT PHOENIX ART MUSEUM. FOR INFORMATION ON SPONSORSHIP AND TABLE-HOSTING OPPORTUNITIES, CONTACT SPECIAL.EVENTS@PHXART.ORG OR 602.307.2082.


SUPPORT

OWMUSTGOON! TESS LOO

A N N S IN E R

S A L LY O DE G A R D

Supporting Phoenix Art Museum since 2013

Supporting Phoenix Art Museum since 1991

Supporting Phoenix Art Museum since 2010

A RT S A DVOCAT E

I

have loved art since I was a young child. My mother was an artist so I learned the importance of appreciating art and expressing myself through my creativity, and any time I traveled, I visited and learned from local museums. Phoenix Art Museum has been important to me since moving to the Valley a decade ago. My sister, Ann, and I chaired the Warhol pARTy gala in 2015 and are excited to once again use our creativity to give back to the community and support the Museum’s efforts to bring art from around the world to people here in Arizona.

T RUST EE, PHOENIX A RT MUSEUM

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ndy Warhol once said, “Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” This sentiment nicely sums up the 2022 pARTy gala theme “The Show Must Go On,” as well as my personal thoughts on art. I support Phoenix Art Museum because of its dedication to bringing art to all of us, no matter what “art” means to each person. I look forward to celebrating art and togetherness with our community and supporters at The pARTy this coming spring.

T RUST EE, PHOENIX A RT MUSEUM

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rt has the power to bring us all together, and with its range of exhibitions and education programs, Phoenix Art Museum educates, entertains, and inspires, enriching our community immeasurably. It is an honor to serve alongside the Museum’s dedicated Board of Trustees and staff, and I encourage others to support this beloved institution, which relies on the generosity of our community to flourish and grow.

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SUPPORT

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SUPPORT

2021 ACI HOLIDAY LUNCHEON

T H A N K Y O U

O

n December 6, 2021, Arizona Costume Institute (ACI) hosted its 2021 Holiday Luncheon at Phoenix Art Museum, marking the return of the beloved annual event following an unprecedented hiatus precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The sold-out luncheon featured keynote speaker Michael Costello, an award-winning fashion designer known for his exquisite dresses that have dominated every prestigious red-carpet award show, from the GRAMMYs to the Oscars, and that have been worn by stars such as Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Kate Hudson, and more.

2 0 21 A CI H O L ID AY L U N CH E O N CO M MI T T E E

The 2021 Holiday Luncheon raised more than $300,000 in support of the fashiondesign program at Phoenix Art Museum.

Perrine Adams Ronna Beeson Lisa Bell Matthew Boland Jennifer Carmer Libby Cohen Oscar De las salas Emily Dietz Shawnee Doherty Katherine Emery Wendy Farrell Kati Festy-Sandor Ann Fuller Amanda Garmany Lisa Geyser Janet Henrich Glaser Jan Herwick Dawna Holtz Jill Krigsten Riley Lynne Love Barbara Lytle Kathie May Mary Ellen McKee Beth McRae Priscilla Nicholas Patti Oleson Donna Pettigrew Hicks Shirley Prest Helene Presutti

Thank you to all who attended, and a special thank you to the Holiday Luncheon planning committee, their corporate sponsors, the generous table hosts, and all event partners and underwriters who organized and supported this record-breaking event.

A B O U T A R IZ O N A CO S T U M E IN S T I T U T E Arizona Costume Institute was founded in 1966 to support the fashion-design department of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition and preservation of garments and accessories of historical and aesthetic significance and through events and fundraising efforts that support and deepen awareness of the Museum’s fashion-design exhibitions and education programs. To learn more about ACI, visit arizonacostumeinstitute.org.

C O M M I T T E E CH A I R S Donna Johnson Lisa Shapiro

H O N O R A RY CH A I R Diane Halle

COMMIT TEE

Sherri Quinn Marc Reid Chrissy Sayare Tracy Serena Carol Shriber Khamsone Sirimanivong Amy Slethaug Joy Sprink Kelley Sucher Lauri Termansen Vicki Vaughn DeeDee Vecchione Kelly Welty

C O RP O R AT E S P O N S O R

To Be Continued…a consignment boutique

PA R T N E R S A N D U N D E R W RI T E R S Main Dish Miriam Sukhman Psyne Co FORD/Robert Black Agency Brenda Howard Lauri Termansen DeeDee Vecchione House Home & More Karma Event Productions Scott Foust Photography image credits:

Photos: Scott Foust Studios.

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EDUCAT IO N

R O C K O F P A G E S In November 2021, Phoenix Art Museum unveiled the reinvigorated James K. Ballinger Interactive Gallery, colloquially known as the BIG Little Library, on the second floor of the Museum’s North Wing.

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satellite location of the Gene and Cathie Lemon Art Research Library, a private artresearch library located in the Museum’s Education Building, the BIG Little Library is designed as an interactive space in which PhxArt visitors can explore diverse library materials and media to broaden their understandings of featured exhibitions. From October through March 2022, the BIG Little Library installation complemented the special-engagement exhibition Landscapes of Extraction: The Art of Mining in the American West. The exhibition illuminated the evolution of mining imagery in the western United States through historical artworks that depicted regional landscapes of enterprise and contemporary prints and paintings that reflected on the detrimental effects of industry on the natural environment and sacred Indigenous lands. Jesse Lopez, head librarian of the Lemon Library, oversaw the reinstallation of the interactive space and hand-selected the various books and media that further explored the complexities of industrial mining in the West. “My process included pulling all of the books in our library collection related to artists whose works are featured in Landscapes of Extraction,” Lopez said. “I went through each of them page by page, and those books are my favorites in terms of display and impact.”

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IT’S EXCITING TO HAVE A SPACE TO

CREATE

THESE

TYPES

OF

UNIQUE EXPERIENCES BECAUSE IT PROVIDES THE OPPORTUNITY FOR P H O E N I X A RT M USEU M TO COL L A BOR AT E W I T H M A N Y DIF F EREN T ORGANIZATIONS AND GROUPS. / / / JESSE LOPEZ, HE AD LIBRARIAN / / /

Along with art publications that showcase the work of artists like Edward Burtynsky and David Maisel, who document climate change and the “aesthetics of annihilation,” featured books examined the boom-and-bust economic cycles of mining towns, the ongoing local conflict between Indigenous communities and Australian mining conglomerates over the sacred land of Oak Flat, and more. Visitors also browsed the Landscapes of Extraction exhibition catalogue, still available for purchase in The Museum Store. Finally, the installation presented two short films and a video tour of Arizona mines created by the Museum in collaboration with Arizona State University Library, all of which further explored the ways large-scale mining imperils tribal lands in the Copper State and elsewhere. Coming soon, the BIG Little Library will pivot to showcase the wealth of resources housed within the Lemon Library to help expand perspectives on the upcoming exhibition, Desert Rider, but according to Lopez, the space has the potential to create connections even beyond the galleries. “It’s exciting to have a space to create these types of unique experiences because it provides the opportunity for Phoenix Art Museum to collaborate with many different organizations and groups, including other special libraries in Metro Phoenix,” he said. “We look forward to growing those relationships and bringing dynamic art-engagement experiences to our community together.” image credits:

Installation views, James K. Ballinger Interactive Gallery, 2021, Phoenix Art Museum.

DI S CO V E R T H E L E M O N A R T R E S E A R CH L IB R A R Y The Eugene and Cathie Lemon Art Research Library is a private, noncirculating, art-research library at Phoenix Art Museum located in the Education Building just across the Dorrance Sculpture Garden. The Lemon Library is home to print and special collections of more than 40,000 items, with particular strengths in Latin American and Asian art books. It also houses the Astaire Costume and Fashion Library, which was founded by Arizona Costume Institute and features many art- and fashion-related periodicals and academic journals, including a nearly full run of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar magazines spanning nearly 150 years. The Lemon Library has open Wi-Fi and several computer terminals connected to major research databases like JSTOR, Artstor, and the Vogue Archive. It also features a robust collection of artists’ files, with article clippings, exhibition guides, mailings, and other rare, one-of-a-kind paper ephemera that cannot be found online. With its variety of traditional and digital media, the Lemon Library is an exceptional resource for Museum curators and Docents, scholars, and members of the general public who wish to enhance their personal research. For more information, visit phxart.org/ visit/library. To schedule a time to explore the library’s resources, email jesse.lopez@ phxart.org. SPRING/SUMMER 2022 / PHXART.ORG

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I N D O C E N T P R O P O S A L We can’t do it without you. Volunteer at the Museum to become a Docent, and engage in the arts and our community.

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ou make a significant impact on our shared community when you donate your time and talents to Phoenix Art Museum. Whether you’re an art lover, an educator, or simply a dedicated member of the public, the Docent program offers a variety of ways that you can help us further our mission of cultivating greater access to the arts and arts education.

W H AT I S A D O CE N T ? A Docent is a volunteer educator who helps visitors connect with the collection and exhibitions of Phoenix Art Museum. Docents provide opportunities for Museum visitors to engage, interpret, and deepen their appreciation of art.

A S A D O CE N T, YO U H AV E T H E O P P O R T U N I T Y TO: • Lead Museum tours for adult and school groups • Present interactive talks about art to schools, community centers, or senior living centers • Assist visitors, Docents, and Museum staff in the Lemon Art Research Library • And much more!

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SPRING/SUMMER 2022 / PHXART MAGAZINE

H O W DO I JOIN ? Art-lovers of all ages, experiences, and backgrounds are welcome in our Docent community! The PhxArt Docent Training Program is a 9-12 month program covering topics such as art history, audience engagement, research techniques, and everything Docents need to know about Phoenix Art Museum and its collection. Trainees do not need a background in art, art history, or teaching to participate. All Docent trainees complete a foundational course, after which they enroll in one or more service modules, which will train them to give public tours, student tours, or offsite talks.

FO R M O RE I N FO RM AT I O N , C O N TA C T U S AT ED U CATI O N@ PHXA RT.O RG.


THE MUSEUM STORE

TREAT YO’SHELF Book a vacation for your imagination with these artful publications from The Museum Store.

MOST P OPUL A R ART BOOZEL BY JENNIFER CROLL $17.05 (MEMBERS) / $18.95 (NON-MEMBERS)

Learn how to masterfully craft more than 50 cocktails, each inspired by an iconic artist.

ARTCURIOUS: STORIES OF THE UNEXPECTED, SLIGHTLY ODD, AND STRANGELY WONDERFUL IN ART HISTORY BY JENNIFER DASAL $15.30 (MEMBERS) / $17.00 (NON-MEMBERS)

Indulge in art history’s most amusing and weirdly interesting dirty secrets—some figuratively, some literally.

MORENO V E LIDE A S YOUNG, GIFTED, AND BLACK: A NEW GENERATION OF ARTISTS BY ANTWAUN SARGENT $45.00 (MEMBERS) / $50.00 (NON-MEMBERS)

Discover the voices of a diverse team of contemporary art curators and Black artists, including Mickalene Thomas, Arcmanoro Niles, and more.

KUSAMA: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL BY ELISA MACELLARI

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE: A LIFE WELL LIVED BY MALCOLM VARON

$35.99 (MEMBERS) / $39.99 (NON-MEMBERS)

$44.96 (MEMBERS) / $49.95 ((NON-MEMBERS)

Explore this graphic biography detailing the life of the artist behind PhxArt’s beloved Fireflies infinity mirror room.

Survey the first collection of color photographs to intimately portray Georgia O’Keeffe as she approached her 90th birthday.

SPRING/SUMMER 2022 / PHXART.ORG

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O P E NIN G FA L L 2 0 2 2 SPECIAL-ENGAGEMENT EXHIBITION STEELE GALLERY

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Nonprofit Organization US Postage Paid Phoenix AZ Permit Number 402 Phoenix Art Museum 1625 North Central Avenue Phoenix, Arizona 85004-1685 phxart.org

COMING SOON

image credit: Mr., Maybe I’ll Go to the Convenience Store - Summer Is Coming, 2021. Acrylic paint and silkscreen print on canvas. © 2021 Mr. /Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London.

SPRING/SUMMER 2022 / PHXART MAGAZINE


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