It’s difficult to enter “Lowriders and Tattoos” at Mesa Contemporary Arts without preconceptions. Let’s be honest: Both cultural phenomena carry a negative stigma, even in a country where Hispanic culture is blossoming and, according to exhibit curator Patty Haberman, nearly half the population is inked. My fondness for body modification…
By Lilia Menconi Some of the goodies for sale by Roy Wasson Valle. If I don’t see something art related at least once a week I just kinda feel yucky all over. First off, it’s my job to check out local museums and galleries on a regular basis and I…
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…
By Lilia Menconi For legal purposes, the longest caption ever: James Turrell”Knight Rise,” 2001Venetian plaster, stainless steel, concrete, neonA “skyspace” commissioned by the Scottsdale Public Art Program for the Nancy and Art Schwalm Sculpture Garden, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary ArtPhoto: Florian Holzherr I have a daily early morning ritual that…
By Lilia Menconi A Katrina pool photo. People person or not, interaction with undesirable personalities is inevitable during the course of a life. Thankfully, we get to pick our friends. And now that I’m pushing 30, I’ve finally perfected my craft of surrounding myself with truly phenomenal folks. I prefer…
Stephen Strange and Mike Red look kinda tired. It’s only natural, given that the two have been working around the clock since May on Television Noir, their beyond-bizarre late-night TV series that’s debuting this weekend on local station KAZT. But despite his fatigued state, Red’s able to summarize the frenetic…
By Benjamin Leatherman Perehelion Arts’ new home at the Artisan Villages complex. Here’s a news tidbit just in time for tonight’s monthly First Friday event: Perehelion Arts has left its long-time home on Grand Avenue and relocated two miles east to Roosevelt Row in the Evans-Churchill neighborhood. The renowned downtown…
Arty Girl, Phoenix Art Museum, Jumpsuit
At first glance, Allison Manch’s work looks quaint, maybe a little fussy. Her delicate, hand-embroidered handkerchiefs recall a prettier era, before someone thought to invent Kleenex; back when no gentleman or lady left home without a clean, pressed hanky tucked into pocket or purse. But a closer look at Manch’s…
By Lilia Menconi Bats II If you’re at all a part of the downtown art scene, you’ve surely found yourself sharing a Bikini Lounge booth with strangers. That’s how I met Kathryn Pinto. She graciously let my best friend and I join her highly coveted booth on the evening of…
By Lilia Menconi I’ve always given myself a big, fat pat on the back for being somewhat self-aware. Usually, I can admit to my flaws without too much of a problem. So here’s a little confession: I grew up in the suburbs and I’m a consumer. I can’t help it…
For the downright dazzling opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, world-famous film director Zhang Yimou utilized the form of a basic painting scroll as the quintessential backdrop for his techno-savvy take on 5,000 years of Chinese cultural history. As it unfurled, Zhang’s mammoth 95-by-381-foot roll became the perfect prop…
By Lilia Menconi By The Mighty Human Race Lincoln’s face – which I personally can’t decide is attractive or not – is one we’ve seen a million times over. In fact, I don’t think the image even registers for me anymore. At most, if I see the guy on a…
By Sarah Fenske and Amy Silverman Just when it felt like the Valley’s arts community was growing strong, it shrunk. First it was Wellington “Duke” Reiter, dean of the college of design at Arizona State University, announcing that he was headed for greener pastures (namely, the Art Institute of Chicago)…
Weston’s life was as sensual as his photographs.
Walk into an art gallery on a First Friday and you’ll see people with drinks in their hands, chatting and laughing — not noticing they just knocked a painting with their elbow. But the crowds at a contemporary art show at, say, the Museum of Modern Art in New York,…
On a recent monsoon-ravaged July evening, people were showing the love on Marshall Way in Scottsdale. The Thursday night art-walk crowd was sporting white buttons with phrases like “your thumb print on my skin,” “I could jump into you . . . and land without consequences,” and “you could give…
In the 1930s, in what can only be considered the first official culinary performance art piece, Mexican émigré painters Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varos passed off tiny tapioca pearls dyed with squid ink as caviar to their surrealist buddies. In 1992, photographer Sandy Skoglund immortalized Britney Spears’ favorite comfort food…
Whether you realize it or not, your day is a minefield of perception pitfalls. It starts with that first glance in the mirror, when your nose looks like a flamingo beak and that pimple looks like Mount Vesuvius. On the drive to work you wonder if that asshole cut you…
Besides the notion of ultimate creation, God and painting clearly have something in common. For the past 60 years or so, both have been declared dead and buried innumerable times by the usual suspects. But to paraphrase Mark Twain, the demise of both has been greatly exaggerated. Scottsdale Museum of…
If I were the sitter for the portrait Martha, I’d hate John Dawson. Martha is one of the most compelling paintings showing at the Mesa Contemporary Arts exhibition “Dawson: Thirty Years.” And she looks like hell. Dawson’s portraits have a no-mercy, take-no-prisoners attitude. But it’s within these harsh paintings that…
Nine years ago, a guy named Brian Boner moved to Phoenix as a fresh college grad with an art degree from Minnesota State University. Boner stopped by gallery after gallery in Phoenix and Scottsdale, trying to make a connection. Inexperienced and shy, Boner didn’t have a résumé or portfolio —…
