Friday night was not your typical art opening at ASU Art Museum’s Ceramics Research Center – no gallery goers milling about, gawking at art objects carefully mounted on vitrine-capped pedestals spaced strategically throughout a pristine gallery space. No, this was literally an opening celebrating a large square one cut into…
Unless you’re a comic fanatic, a Mary Kay representative, or a hardcore Trekkie, chances are you haven’t haunted the halls of a convention center in a while. But don’t let that stop you from exploring the new public art projects installed earlier this year at downtown Phoenix’s impressively expanded Convention…
It’s no rumor that Marilu Knode, associate director and head of research at Future Arts Research @ ASU (F.A.R.) is leaving Phoenix for considerably less dust storms and considerably more humidity to become Executive Director of the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, Missouri. One of just a handful of…
Just got a heads-up from Eric Iwersen, Senior Planner for the City of Tempe, that the city’s talking about preserving one of artist Rose Johnson’s murals that graces a bicycle locker at Tempe City Hall. The locker mural was executed by Johnson in 1997. Iwersen, whose job involves integrating public…
For all the talk of Rose Johnson’s good-bye fete at the Icehouse being a celebration rather than a memorial, the emotional climate at Saturday night’s send-off was more somber than sunny, as hundreds of people gathered to honor the former Phoenix artist. The Icehouse proved to be a particularly fitting…
Anyone who’s traveled south on 16th Street past Thomas Road in the past 10 years has seen the fading mural that snakes along the side of the old Mercer Mortuary building. Painted by an artist named Rose Johnson in 1998, with the help of some school kids, the mural, called…
It seems that artist Rose Johnson, who died tragically in Bali on Sunday, Arizona time, as a result of alcohol adulterated with deadly methanol, touched the lives of those around her wherever she happened to be. Facebook is still buzzing over news of the artist’s bizarre death at the age…
Ghostly traces of somber Asian children’s faces are just part of the stark imagery that will haunt your dreams after seeing “Binh Danh: In the Eclipse of Angkor,” the current exhibition at Lisa Sette Gallery, open until June 27. Artist photographer Binh Danh’s photos of their anxious expressions, burned onto…
TimesOnline, the online website for The Times of London, is reporting today that noted former Phoenix artist Rose Johnson, along with a number of other people in the past week, died in Bali from consuming arak, a type of local rice wine, tainted with methanol. According to the news report,…
The Phoenix arts community is still reeling today from news that one of its pioneers, painter and muralist Rose Johnson, 48, died yesterday, Sunday, May 31, at Sanglah General Hospital in Bali. The Jakarta Post is now reporting that Johnson most probably died from acute alcohol poisoning as a result…
I’ve got to hand it to Scottsdale Public Art. Recently, they’ve been cleverly using every square inch of uninhabited space in Scottsdale for temporary public art installations created by local Valley creatives. That includes a series of installations SPA has labeled “Bell’e Art” mounted in the monastically quiet passageway slicing…
While some of us race to the SSRIs for serenity, others of us have decided that taking up a craft for comfort and creative expression is the way to go. Actually, some of us, like me, for instance, do both for balance. Blame it on either early 60’s back-to-nature hippie…
Hot dogs, cold beer, hot tunes, and cool art — I can’t think of a better way to drift through a mellow April afternoon than eating grilled pups, chewing the fat with artists and raising money for a future exhibition already in the works at ASU Art Museum. Martha +…
Hot dogs, cold beer, hot tunes and cool art – I can’t think of a better way to drift through a mellow April afternoon than eating grilled pups, chewing the fat with AZ artists and raising money for a future exhibition already in the works at ASU Art Museum. Martha…
Let’s get this straight: Millions of dollars are being hacked from Arizona university and college budgets. Entire university programs are being eliminated. There’s talk of actually closing down some of ASU’s satellite campuses. ASU employees are forced to take furloughs. The downtown Phoenix arts community is tenaciously hanging on by…
I won’t even pretend to understand exactly what artist Karolina Sussland is doing in “Goodness…in Progress,” a one-day-only showing of Sussland’s latest artistic foray mounted on Saturday at Figarelli Galleries Back Room in Scottsdale’s Cattletrack artists’ compound. In fact, I am so mathematically challenged that I usually start drooling and…
So many of the businesses along Marshall Way — until recently the heart of Scottsdale’s arts district — are shuttered, with “Space Available” signs in windows seeming to outnumber still going concerns. Still, it was well worth the trip for last night’s weekly art walk. Old standbys still are drawing…
Multi-media artist Angela Ellsworth never, ever disappoints me. And just when I think she can’t outdo herself, she proves me wrong. Her aesthetic coup this time can be seen in “Angela Ellsworth: Underpinnings” at Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale. And it’s one for the books. It was during the ridiculously…
Right: One of Ellsworth’s sister wives toting a machine gun in honor of Valerie Export’s “Action Pants: Genital Panic” (1969)It was during last night’s ridiculously crowded opening where Ellsworth, known not only for her ever-morphing paintings, drawings and sculpture, but for her amazing performance work, wove her most provocative magic…
Editor’s note/correction: The original version of this review incorrectly attributed statements made in a letter to the editor (“Feedback,” February 14, 2008) to Bob Adams, a Phoenix artist who designed one of the light rail installations. The Bob Adams who wrote the letter is not, in fact, Bob Adams the…
Wandering through “Eastern Promise: Contemporary Art from China,” the latest fare being dished up at Lisa Sette Gallery, until January 3, is like stuffing your face at a sumptuous, all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. After you’ve seen this show, you’ll have food for thought that lasts for days. According to Sette, it…
I’m sort of befuddled about the recent requiems for Phoenix arts community members who’ve left town for greener pastures — just as they always have and just as they always will. Okay, so it does seem like there’s an arts diaspora going on here, which some scene watchers view as…
