Tonight: Nine Shows We're Excited to Check Out on Third Friday

Be it a First Friday or a Third Friday -- we're just excited about having an excuse (not that we need one) to see some great art exhibitions. Some are opening tonight Downtown, others have opened this month throughout metro Phoenix. But you better believe that we're making the loop and...

By Claire Lawton

February 17, 2012

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Be it a First Friday or a Third Friday -- we're just excited about having an excuse (not that we need one) to see some great art exhibitions.

Some are opening tonight Downtown, others have opened this month throughout metro Phoenix. But you better believe that we're making the loop and stopping by these nine.

9. Are You Experienced? Joe Willie Smith + Michael Hannan @ The Hive

Tonight from 7 to 10 p.m. artists Joe Willie Smith and Michael Hannon will host the opening for their exhibition "Are You Experienced?", in which they've transformed The Hive on 16th Street into an interactive instrument. The show will be open until March 14. More info here.

8. The Procession @ ASU Art Museum
Today and tomorrow, local artist Angela Ellsworth is bringing a Chicago-based performance group to Phoenix. These visual artists, programmers, and dancers, along with Phoenix-based singers, astrologers, and physicists to perform "The Procession." According to Ellsworth, the procession "constructs a performance of visual poetics and movement combining writing, text-mining and processing the real-time positions of celestial objects," which is communicated to a live audience.

The performance is three-hours long, and ASU Art Museum guests are encouraged to enter and leave at any time during the performance. The Procession will take place today and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.. More info here.

7. Latino AZ @ ALAC
In the 100 years since Arizona became an official state, the history of its Latino population has been documented and celebrated in the form of artwork.

ALAC curators Marco Albarran, Jose Benavides, Jose Andres Giron, and Casandra Hernandez have gathered a collection of historic photographs from photographers Cathy Murphy, Julie Gallegos, Frank Barrios, Liz Archuleta, as well as the Sharlot Hall Museum and Chandler Vision Gallery in Latino AZ, which, according to its curators "holds a mirror to our past, and chronicles the contributions Latinos of Mexican descent have made to Arizona."

See the show tonight until 6 p.m. and during regular hours (Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.). More info here.

6. Christopher Reynolds' New Art "Bio:logy" @ Trunk Space

5. And the Land Grew Quiet: New Work by Matthew Moore @ Phoenix Art Museum
Matthew Moore's a fourth-generation Arizonan who grabbed his camera when he leaned that his family's farmland in Surprise would be "transformed into suburbia" within the next five years. The local artist and farmer has been on a mission to document the importance of the land and to explore the environmental and economic sustainability issues involved through video, installation, and earthworks. The results are his Digital Farm Collective, which will serve as a platform for farming and consumer education, an informational guide to the farm-to-table process, and a networking tool for growers, and his latest show at the Phoenix Art Museum.

And the Land Grew Quiet includes Moore's documentation that revolves around ideas of land transformation, the Western view and fascination with Manifest Destiny, and the similarities between commercial agriculture and suburbia. His work will be at Phoenix Art Museum through June 10. More info here.

4. PHX: Icons @ Willo North
Local designer Jason Hill is known for his bright interpretations of Phoenix Icons. His "urban dreamscapes" include the Financial Center, Bikini Lounge, Arcosanti, the Westward Ho, and Hanny's, in which the fine details are muted and replaced with bold colors.

Hill's latest collection includes a series of watercolors that feature buildings along Downtown's Central Avenue corridor and a collection of silkscreen prints. PHX: Icons will be on exhibit through February 24. More info here.

3. Arizona Re-Viewed @ Art Intersection
Currently on view at Art Intersection in Gilbert is Arizona through the lenses of nine local photographers. Arizona Re-Viewed includes historical images before and after our official statehood as well as contemporary images.

The exhibition is in the space's North, South, and East galleries, and includes images of mining towns, urban landscapes, and communities that are all influenced by each photographer's time spent living and working in Arizona. More info here.

2. Beyond Geronimo: The Apache Experience @ The Heard Museum
The man behind the Geronimo legacy and name comes to life this month at The Heard Museum. Curators have gathered objects from Heard's collection as well as pieces from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of the American Indian, the Autry National Center, the Oklahoma Historical Society, the Southern Plains Indian Museum, Allan Houser, Inc., the Amerind Foundation, the Arizona Historical Society, the Desert Caballeros Western Museum, and a few private lenders that help shine light on the personal life of the medicine man-turned-warrior, and will explore how he became an icon as a result of his capture, time spent as a prisoner of war and forced time in the spotlight. Beyond Geronimo will be on display through January 2013. More info here.

1. The Forty Eighth @ monOrchid

Local artists William Legoullon and Jason Roehner weren't looking to put together a retrospective of Arizona artwork or a look into the state's past when they curated 48th State. Instead, Legoullon says, they were looking for context.

"We've specifically chosen photographers whose work covers a multitude of contemporary elements, each representative of what makes up our great state," he says. "Our focus is not about where Arizona has been over the last 100 years, but rather where we are "now" with respect to our past." The Forty Eighth includes work by Andrew Phelps, Mathew Moore, William Rugen, Jesse Rieser, Bryon Darby, Michael Lundgren, Jason Roehner, Thomas Schultz, Tiffiney Yazzie, Edgar Cardenas, and Michael Mulno. It will be open through March 17. More info here.

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