Despite the rain, there was plenty of action in the downtown Phoenix arts scene during June’s First Friday, as assorted visual and performance artists activated spaces from a local restaurant to a vacant gallery turned pop-up exhibit space. These are several of our favorite finds. Sheriff satire Most works we…
Blackesque Vixen Noir is a multihyphenate artist so multi that she’s based out of both San Francisco and Los Angeles. The singer, songwriter, recording artist, erotic performance artist, producer, and director is dropping a megaton bomb of black queer sensuality in downtown with Blackesque on Monday, June 8. The mix…
In the 2015 edition of our Summer Guide, we’ve rounded up our 10 favorite pools for a summertime splash. Talking Stick Resort The Main Pool is the place to get tanned and tipsy with no cover, private cabanas and daybeds with bottle service, traveling DJs, and cheaper drinks than you’ll…
Cory Baker left her position as director of Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts on June 3. Scottsdale Cultural Council public relations manager Bill Thompson confirmed the news in a June 5 e-mail to New Times. The Scottsdale Cultural Council oversees Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, Scottsdale Museum of…
Back in January, New Times issued a survey. We wanted to take the pulse of Phoenix’s arts scene — to find out what was happening and what people wanted to see happen in the near future. Curators, artists, performers, art lovers, and assorted movers and shakers responded with their opinions,…
Amy K. Nichols grew up here. Yet Phoenix, she admits, sometimes eludes her. “I can never really explain this place to people,” says the author of Now That You’re Here. “Other cities have a brand or a culture they’re known for. It’s hard to pin down Phoenix in…
“LAYERS” Go ahead and shake off the shame of being called out for tracing drawings in your elementary school days. There are plenty of pros who use stencils to create works of art, and two of them just so happen to have pieces on display at MonOrchid’s Shade Gallery this…
Bentley Gallery officials announced Monday, June 1, that it’ s planning a “major restructure” that involves “dramatically changing its facility.” Brian Stark of StarkJames, LLC is spearheading the design of a new exhibition space within the existing 25,000-square-foot facility. The Scottsdale-based architectural firm designed Lisa Sette Gallery within a historic Al Beadle…
It’s a word that’s fallen out of fashion, but still “potpourri” seems the best way to describe this month’s First Friday offerings — which feature everything from ceramic iterations of fish in frying pans to projections of anatomy onto a planetarium surface that looks almost like a canvas. This month…
“You may have heard the rumors and they are true.” So begins a statement recently posted on the Method Art website by owner and photographer Davin Lavikka, who says he is closing the gallery at the end of June in part because Scottsdale’s art market has collapsed. But he’s not leaving the…
It’s summer, you’re cheap, and you’ve got a date. Don’t worry, we’re here for you. Here are 10 low-cost summer date ideas so you don’t look like a total stingy loser. 10. Watch a baseball game Arizona’s one of the biggest baseball hotbeds in the world, and there’s almost always…
I’ve been pissing and moaning about Phoenix, pretty much nonstop, for more than a half-century now. It’s getting harder to do, though, because Phoenix is getting a heck of a lot more interesting. “There’s no culture here!” has become “I think I’ll go…
What does the world sound like when you’re Brian Wilson? When you’ve made a record that sounds like cirrus clouds look — as Wilson did with the Beach Boys’ small modern miracle of harmony, the 1966 Pet Sounds — all bets are off when it comes to the way ordinary…
iZombie is about as sunny and optimistic as the zombie genre gets, which of course isn’t all that much. Even by supernatural standards, it’s a bloodthirsty canon, demanding regular sacrifices of innocents and grisly feats of skull splitting and cerebellum cannibalizing. The CW’s Seattle neo-noir boasts plenty of both to…
Both the artist’s interest in celebrity and his own eventual fame form a loose theme in “Warhol: Portraits,” now in its third month at the Phoenix Art Museum. The traveling exhibition, which debuted in 2010 at Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum, features nearly 200 works from Warhol’s childhood and…
Once the season of blooming cactus and spring breezes is behind us, it’s time to trade the glorious outdoors for indoor experiences that offer the added bonus of air conditioning. Happily, metro Phoenix has all sorts of art spaces that fit the bill — including those offering this year’s crop…
If you were to compile a list of the greatest sketch comedy shows of all time, there are a few obvious choices that you’d want to include. Naturally, Britain’s influential Monty Python’s Flying Circus would probably top the list, followed closely by the equally iconic Saturday Night Live and SCTV,…
Anna Are You OK? Studio Ghibli’s Marnie is a joyous-glum outsider drama. “I hate myself.” That’s an unusual statement coming from the hero of an animated film, let alone in the first two minutes. But 12-year-old orphan Anna (Sara Takatsuki), the protagonist of Hiromasa Yonebayashi’s lovely anime When Marnie Was…
Never Say ‘Not Her’ Again In Spy, Melissa McCarthy triumphs for the Susans everywhere. The Melissa McCarthy of Spy is different from the one who rose to prominence by shitting in a sink. Bridesmaids scored her an Oscar nomination, and for the ceremony McCarthy donned a glamorous rose gown with…
The Crimes Remain the Same The Connection’s glorious technique can’t disguise its familiarity. A movie about bringing down druglords that’s actually mostly about movies, Cédric Jimenez’s The Connection is stretched over driven-cop beats so familiar American audiences could probably follow it without subtitles. (It’s in French — add that to…
The first line in Entourage is a good indication of what the next 104 minutes will bring. Peering through a pair of binoculars while a speedboat carries him toward a yacht in the dazzling waters of Ibiza, Johnny…
It ain’t easy being a cosplayer at Phoenix Comicon, or any other convention during the warmer months. It can be uncomfortable walking around downtown Phoenix to begin with, let alone layers of cardboard, PVC, or other costuming material. And believe us, you tend to do a lot of walking at…
