PHOENIX (March 1, 2026) – Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has opened the annual call for submissions for the institution’s Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards (Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards), a juried grant program that provides recognition and $10,000 in financial support for emerging, professional artists based in Arizona. Additionally, applicants who are not chosen for the Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards will be automatically entered into the running for the Sette/Cohn Artist Award, a $5,000 prize awarded to an emerging Arizona artist selected from the Lehmann Emerging Artist Award application pool. This year’s open call will again be hosted in partnership with Artlink, a Phoenix-based arts organization who has partnered with the Museum on the institution’s Arizona Artist Awards open call for nearly a decade. The call will be open from March 1 – April 27, 2026 to qualifying artists who wish to present their work for consideration. There is no cost to submit an application. Up to two Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients and one Sette/Cohn Artist Award recipient will be announced the week of September 21, 2026.

“Investing in and supporting artists who live and work in Arizona remains at the heart of the mission of Phoenix Art Museum,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “We are immensely thankful to our donors who allow us to enact on that commitment with their support of the artists’ prizes. Not only does their generosity support the work and lives of local artists, but also creating greater awareness more broadly of the incredible work Arizona artists are creating in our state, enabling the Museum to display these remarkable, compelling works to our Arizona community and beyond.”

The Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards fosters the creation of contemporary art by encouraging emerging artists working in Arizona through grants and annual exhibitions, in addition to providing additional programming opportunities for artist talks with the community at PhxArt. Each year, two artists are selected as award recipients by a jury assembled by Christian Ramírez, the Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Director of Engagement at PhxArt. The jury includes curators, artists, and other visual-arts experts from both in and outside of Arizona. In addition to each artists receiving a $10,000 prize, Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients also receive a lifetime Museum Membership and an invitation to present their work in a group exhibition at PhxArt.

For those individuals who are not selected as Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients, their applications will be considered for the Museum’s Sette/Cohn Artist Award. The Sette/Cohn Artist Award is a five-year initiative dedicated to strengthening community partnerships and local artists through the Museum’s annual Arizona Artist Awards program. It is named in honor of Lisa Sette, who has supported and represented Arizona-based artists, both through her gallery and personally, for more than 40 years, and Lee and Mike Cohn, longtime Museum supporters who in 2023 provided the seed funding to launch the Phoenix Art Museum Education and Engagement Excellence Fund and are now extending their generosity to support local artists. Artists who apply for the Lehmann Emerging Artist Awardswill be automatically entered into the running for the Sette/Cohn Artist Award and do not need to reapply.

Call for 2026 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards + Sette/Cohn Award Submissions

PhxArt will accept submissions for the 2026 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards and the Sette/Cohn Award from March 1 – April 27, 2026. Applications are accepted online only and are due by 5:00 p.m. MST on April 27, 2026. The selection committee will award up to two Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards of $10,000 each and one Sette/Cohn Artist Award of $5,000. Lehmann Award recipients will also be invited to present work in a 2026 group exhibition at the Museum and receive a lifetime Membership to PhxArt. There is no fee to submit to the open call.

Eligibility Requirements:

Artists must be considered emerging artists to apply, meeting at least one of the following criteria: 

• Artists with at least four years of professional experience and who are currently making and exhibiting new work.
• Artists whose work has been shown in Arizona but not extensively outside of the state.  
• Individuals returning to art after a hiatus. 
• Artists must have been living in Arizona for at least one year at the time of application.
• Artists working in all media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, new media, performance, photography, and video, may apply.
• Submitted artwork must have been produced within the past three years.
• Artists must be registered as an Artlink Articipant. Register as an Articipant* with Artlink here.

Applicants are ineligible if they are:

• Artists who have not yet resided in Arizona for one year
• Enrolled full-time in an academic program
• Individuals who engage in art making as a hobby
• Previous winners of an Emerging Artist Award from Phoenix Art Museum
• Current Phoenix Art Museum staff, board, or volunteers.

Submission Requirements:
Applications must be submitted online USING THIS LINK and include:

• Artist name, mailing address, email address, and telephone number
• Artist website
• Resume/CV
• Artist statement (300 words or fewer)
• Six (6) images of the artwork you wish to be reviewed by jurors:
  • Artwork must be produced in the last three (3) years.
  • Video work samples will be accepted; they are not to exceed three minutes each.
• Descriptions of each submitted artwork
  • Please include title, date completed, medium, and dimension
  • Short description of the work is optional (100 words or fewer)

Submission Deadline:

All materials must be submitted online by 5:00 pm MST on April 27, 2026. Submit applications to this link.Application materials apply to both the Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards and the Sette/Cohn Artist Award. Please email curatorial@phxart.org with any questions.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and experiences with art. Each year, 300,000 guests on average engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion design, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson. PhxArt also presents live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education programs and workshops, an art+music festival, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About the Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards

The Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards are presented annually by Phoenix Art Museum. The artists’ grants recognition program is a continuation of a program begun by former Museum support group Contemporary Forum, which awarded more than 180 artists’ grants over more than 30 years. The Contemporary Forum Artists’ Grants concluded in 2017, at which time Phoenix Art Museum continued to subsidize an annual artists’ grants program to support the efforts and recognition of Arizona-based artists. In April 2021, the annual artists’ grants program was rebranded to acknowledge the support of local donors Sally and Richard Lehmann, who have committed to funding the Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards annually for a minimum of 10 years. Effective with the 2024 cohort of Arizona Artist Award recipients, PhxArt increased monetary support for the annual Lehmann Emerging Artists Awards from $5,000 to $10,000 per artist (two awarded), made possible through the generosity of the Cohn Fund for Arts & Culture at the Arizona Community Foundation.  

About the Sette/Cohn Artist Award

The Sette/Cohn Artist Award is a five-year initiative dedicated to supporting arts engagement and strengthening community partnerships through the annual Arizona Artist Awards program at Phoenix Art Museum. This $5,000 unrestricted prize is awarded to an emerging Arizona artist selected from the Lehmann Emerging Artist Award applicant pool by a jury panel. It is named in honor of Lisa Sette and Lee and Mike Cohn. Sette is a leading advocate for original and thought-provoking artistic expression, and for more than 40 years, Lisa Sette Gallery has been at the forefront of contemporary art, exhibiting artists from Arizona and across the country working on the edge of aesthetic, social, and conceptual investigation. The Cohns are longtime Museum supporters who in 2023 provided the seed funding to launch the Phoenix Art Museum Education and Engagement Excellence Fund and with the Sette/Cohn Artist Award have now extended their generosity to support Arizona-based artists.

About Artlink Inc.

Artlink keeps the arts integral to our development by connecting artists, businesses and the community. Founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by artists in 1989, the Artlink name is a guiding principle for the organization, as it supports stakeholders of the arts and culture community, amplifying its collective strength. Visit artlinkphx.org and artinerary.com.

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PHOENIX (June 24, 2024) – Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has named Safwat Saleem the recipient of the 2024 Scult Family Artist Award (Scult Artist Award) and Elizabeth Z. Pineda and Omar Soto as the recipients of the 2024 Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards (Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards). In addition to a lifetime Phoenix Art Museum Membership, Saleem receives monetary support in the amount of $20,000, while Pineda and Soto receive $10,000 each, as well as the opportunity to show work in solo and group exhibitions at the Museum. Exhibitions featuring works by Safwat Saleem, Elizabeth Z. Pineda, and Omar Soto will premiere summer 2025, in conjunction with an artist talk presented by Saleem. Exhibition details will be available soon on phxart.org.

“We are thrilled to confer this year’s Scult and Lehmann Artist Awards to Safwat Saleem, Elizabeth Z. Pineda, and Omar Soto, in recognition of their artistic contributions to our local arts and culture landscape,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “Each of these artists have built dynamic practices that offer intimate views into their personal stories, providing nuanced perspectives on themes such as identity and community. We are honored to share their work  with our audiences and advance our ongoing commitment to amplifying the voices of artists from our shared state through our Arizona Artist Awards program.”

Each year, Phoenix Art Museum recognizes a mid-career Arizona-based artist with the Scult Artist Award. Eligible candidates have resided in Arizona for a minimum of four consecutive years and are nominated by a group of curators, museum directors, and other arts professionals from across the state. Their candidacy is evaluated based on their demonstration of artistic excellence, active creation and exhibition of new work, and career-spanning evolution. Following a robust review process, a jury of curators, art scholars, artists, and other experts and professionals in the field from across the state selects the recipient. The Scult Artist Award now includes monetary support of $20,000—the highest amount awarded to a Scult recipient in the program’s history—as well as an invitation to present a solo exhibition of new and past work at the Museum, at the discretion of the artist, and a lifetime PhxArt Membership. The 2024 Scult Family Artist Award jury was assembled by Christian Ramírez, Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary and Community Art Initiatives at Phoenix Art Museum The panel of jurors included 2023 Scult Award recipient Jenea Sanchez, Communications Director at the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona; Andrea Alvarez, Associate Curator at Buffalo AKG Art Museum; Alexis Wilkinson, Curator at Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Tucson; and Morton Scult.

The 2024 Scult Family Artist Award recipient is Safwat Saleem. Saleem’s multidisciplinary practice ranges from graphic design and illustration to writing, film, and sound, centering on immigrant narratives and the cultural loss that results from assimilation. His body of work weaves together themes of preservation, desire to belong, resistance, and joy as an immigrant father raising a multiracial child in the southwestern United States. Humor is a critical element of his work; he uses satire as a tool to challenge perceptions. He aims to bring to the foreground points of view that historically have been obscured by hegemonic systems. Saleem has been named a TED Fellow, a Define American Fellow, and an AAPI Creative Catalyst Fellow. He believes in using art for social impact and has collaborated with change-making organizations including Represent Us Now (RUN) AAPI, South Asian American Digital Archive (SAADA), 18 Million Rising, and Fine Acts. He is the founder of the former online Pakistani music magazine Bandbaja, which advocated for using popular music as a tool for activism and change. As part of the Scult Artist Award program, Saleem will present work in a solo exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum in summer 2025.

In addition to the Scult Artist Award, Phoenix Art Museum annually presents the Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards. The program fosters the creative practices and careers of emerging Arizona-based artists through recognition, financial support, and an opportunity to exhibit their work. Candidates must have resided in Arizona for a minimum of one year and are invited to apply through an annual open call hosted by Artlink, a nonprofit organization that has supported and amplified Arizona artists and community-based art events and initiatives for more than 30 years. A jury of curators, art scholars, artists, and other visual arts experts and professionals from across the state select recipients, who, in addition to the lifetime PhxArt Membership, receive $10,000 in monetary support, as well as the opportunity to present a joint exhibition at the Museum with fellow Lehmann awardees. The 2024 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards jury was assembled by Christian Ramírez and included 2023 Scult Award recipient Jenea Sanchez, Andrea Alvarez, and Alexis Wilkinson.

The Museum has named Elizabeth Z. Pineda and Omar Soto as the recipients of the 2024 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards. Originally from Mexico City, Pineda is an emerging artist whose practice using historical and untraditional photographic, printmaking, papermaking, and book-art processes explores issues surrounding immigration, identity, displacement, and migrant deaths that occur in the Arizona desert. Pineda visually articulates  community, touching on language barriers, culture, and society. Her work has been showcased in solo and group exhibitions nationally, and have been published in PhoenixTransect.org, Femme Fotale, Vol. V: Resistance, Resilience, and Hope, and The Experimental Darkroom: Contemporary Uses of Black & White Photographic Materials. In 2023 she was awarded the Pat Mutterer Award at the Arizona Biennial at the Tucson Museum of Art , as well as first prize and honorable mention in the 18^th, 20^th, and 22^nd Julia Margaret Cameron Awards. Pineda’s portfolio was recognized for Outstanding Work in the 2022 Denis Roussel Award, and her project Maíz was selected as the CENTER 2023 Personal Award recipient and the inaugural recipient of the Jay and Susie Tyrrell Excellence in Works By Hand Award. Pineda holds an MFA in Photography from Arizona State University and is a member of Undoc + Collective. In addition to her studio practice, she teaches photography as a faculty associate at Arizona State University and works in Library Information Services at the University of Arizona, College of Medicine.

Omar Soto is a DACAmented Phoenix-based photographer who creates surreal imagery that explores queer joy and escapism to navigate the marginalization they endure while living at the intersection of race, gender, and social class. Born in Tijuana in 1996, Soto migrated to the United States in 2000. With a passion for the arts, they studied at South Mountain High School under the institution’s magnet photography program, learning fundamental photography skills while enriching their artistic practice. As part of the Lehmann Artist Awards program, Soto and Pineda will present work in a group exhibition scheduled to open at Phoenix Art Museum in the summer of 2025.

“I am thrilled to collaborate with Safwat, Omar, and Elizabeth on their upcoming exhibitions and engage museum visitors with their dynamic practices and wide range of perspectives,” said Christian Ramírez, the Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary and Community Art Initiatives, who oversees the Arizona Artist Awards program. “Their unique artistic voices greatly enrich Arizona’s cultural landscape.”

The Arizona Artist Awards at Phoenix Art Museum are made possible through the generosity of Arlene and Morton Scult; Sally and Richard Lehmann; and the Cohn Fund for Arts and Culture, a founding gift of the Phoenix Art Museum Education and Engagement Excellence Fund.

For more information, contact the Museum’s Communications Office at samantha.santos@phxart.org or 602.257.2117. For high-resolution photography, click here.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 350,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Artlink Inc.
Artlink keeps the arts integral to our development by connecting artists, businesses, and the community. Founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by artists in 1989, the Artlink name is a guiding principle for the organization, as it supports stakeholders of the arts and culture community, amplifying its collective strength. Visit artlinkphx.org to sign up for the Artlink newsletter, or connect socially on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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PHOENIX (February 26, 2024) – This spring, Phoenix Art Museum presents Larry Bell: Improvisations, showcasing the artistic achievements and career of one of the most influential artists to emerge from the Light and Space movement. The survey explores the progression of Bell’s process from the 1960s through the present day, featuring a wide range of glass cubes, sculptures, large-scale standing walls, and mixed-media collages Bell created using a cutting-edge vacuum deposition technique. Larry Bell: Improvisations is on view from May 22, 2024, through January 5, 2025, in the Katz Wing of Modern Art at Phoenix Art Museum.

“We are excited to bring together this captivating body of work by the Light and Space artist Larry Bell,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Bell has dedicated his practice to investigating and perfecting techniques to create his distinctive work, and this survey not only celebrates his achievements across a notable 60-year career but his influence on the field of contemporary art and our understanding of how art can shape the ways we perceive our environment and reality.”

Born in Chicago in 1939, Larry Bell is an experimental artist who has long explored interactions between light and surface through glass sculpture, monochrome painting, collage, and furniture design. First recognized for his central role in the Light and Space movement of the 1960s alongside Robert Irwin, Ed Ruscha, James Turrell, and others, Bell began his career by creating cubic volume using shaped canvases and incorporating mirror, wood, and glass. Early on, he discovered a vacuum deposition technique that allowed him to transfer thin film deposits onto glass panes, resulting in his early cubes that had dazzling visual effects. From there, Bell used light as a medium to home in on how different surfaces reflect, absorb, and transmit light. He went on to use a vacuum tank and later a mounting press to experiment with heat and vapor-coated paper, resulting in various series of collage works.

Larry Bell: Improvisations demonstrates the progression of Bell’s practice through a wide selection of glass sculptures and collage works from the 1960s to today. Visitors begin by surveying a selection of smaller scale glass cubes that appear either in their entirety or deconstructed alongside other smaller works that explore the right angle, underscoring Bell’s fascination with geometric elements. Next, large-scale standing walls composed of 12 pieces of solid glass reveal how Bell scaled up his cubic investigations to installations and environments. Each standing wall is configured on-site, their shapes created in direct response to their settings. At 6 feet tall, they affect viewers’ perception, emphasizing the relationship between perceived versus physical realities. Exemplifying Bell’s most recent work, Improvisations debuts a selection of Light Knot sculptures that suspend from the ceiling and appear to dance as they absorb and reflect the surrounding light, along with one newly commissioned large-scale work—a cubic form representing the mercurial sun, surrounded by clouded glass evocative of the fog of Venice Beach, California.

In addition, Improvisations features rarely exhibited collage works from the Phoenix Art Museum Collection, including examples from Bell’s Vapor Drawings (1978-present), Mirage series (1980s-present), and Fraction series (1996-2001). These works on paper mirror the reflective, ambiguous, and spatial qualities of Bell’s sculptural works and were created by submitting mylar, paper, and other materials to the vacuum deposition technique and mounting press.

“Throughout the exhibition, visitors discover the intuition, spontaneity, and improvisation inherent in Larry Bell’s process,” said Rachel Sadvary Zebro, the Museum’s associate curator of collections and the exhibition’s curator. “Across each decade, Bell has experimented with new techniques and materials, but what is abundantly clear when considering the works in Improvisations is that Bell always returns home—to the cube.”

High-resolution photography can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About the Exhibition
Larry Bell: Improvisations is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Rachel Sadvary Zebro, associate curator of collections at Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of Lee and Mike Cohn. All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation, with additional significant support provided by Joan Cremin.

Admission is free for Museum Members; youth aged five and younger; and Maricopa County Community Colleges students. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public, including during voluntary donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and the City of Phoenix. For a full breakdown of general-admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (February 21, 2024) – This spring, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) presents Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s, a major survey featuring nearly 100 artists from six Central-Eastern European nations, including East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Organized by the Walker Art Center, the exhibition features rarely seen and newly reconstructed works, tracing how a generation of artists with distinct experiences of locally specific state-sanctioned control embraced experimentation and interdisciplinary practices to confront at times harsh conditions of everyday life. Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s will be on view from April 17 through September 15, 2024 in Steele Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum.

“Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s is an incredible opportunity in the Southwest to experience art from a region and time that is neither represented in the Phoenix Art Museum Collection nor often explored in U.S. museums,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Through each of the artists represented, we hope this exhibition broadens our audience’s understanding of the challenges artists faced in Central and Eastern Europe during the tumultuous period of the 1960s to the 1980s. Multiple Realities and its subject matter are a stark reminder of the ways artists throughout history have fought for artistic freedom by devising experimental modes of expression to survive periods of censorship and struggle, all while persevering and creating some of the most arresting and engaging work in art history.”

Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s draws on visual arts, performance, music, and material culture to demonstrate the conceptual and formal innovation practiced by Eastern Bloc artists of the era, who were daily negotiating and adapting their artistic practices within societies that enforced restrictions on how art could be produced, circulated, and received by the public. The exhibition is organized into four thematic sections. Public and Private Spaces of Control explores how artists used documentary and covert photography, impromptu performances, and somber memorial works to reflect on state regulation of space, including the policing of artist behavior. Dimensions of the Self showcases how artists used their own bodies as media to explore different representations of self-expression and subversion. This section includes examples by women artists who radically reconsidered the female form, merging the body with landscape or representing the body as a site of sickness, trauma, pleasure, eroticism, and sexuality. Being Together: Alternative Forms of the Social explores the many ways artists built community and networks of exchange to move beyond the prescribed system of making and presenting art as dictated by the state. Looking to the Future: Science, Technology, and Utopia speaks to how the Space Race, the advancement of nuclear energy, and new forms of communication sparked major technological advancements, all of which inspired utopian thinking and experimentation. Works in this section chart the rise of Op art, kinetics and cybernetics, and the use of experimental sound and images.

“This expansive survey takes a fresh and interdisciplinary look into the defying moments and experimental art forms that characterize a 20-year period in Central and Eastern Europe,” said Rachel Sadvary Zebro, associate curator of collections and the exhibition’s coordinating curator at Phoenix Art Museum. “Independently seeking new artistic practices under varying degrees of censorship, surveillance, and control, artists in Multiple Realities explore a complex history filled with creativity, community, self-expression, and adventure.”

Key highlights from the exhibition include:

• Hungarian artist Bálint Szombathy’s Selection from Lenin Budapesten (Lenin in Budapest) (1972), in which Szombathy poses with a portrait of Vladimir Lenin, the architect of the Russian Revolution. Discarded after the May Day parade, and hollowed of its weighty symbolism, Lenin’s image is reduced to a prop on Szombathy’s casual walk through the streets of Budapest.

• Jürgen Wittdorf’s Baubrigade der Sportstudenten from the series Jugend und Sport (Sport Student’s Builders Brigade from the series Youth and Sport) (1964), which was commissioned by the Academy of Sports in Leipzig. The linocuts hung for years at the school and were published in the Communist Youth Organization’s daily newspaper. The prints seem to depict the heroic, strong men of socialist realism, the Soviet-promoted art style that featured idealized portrayals of workers and industry, but a barely concealed homoeroticism courses through the scenes.

• Works by German artist Gabriele Stötzer, including Nora (1983). A rare voice of open dissent in East Germany, Stötzer paid a high price for her activities when she was detained for a year at the Hoheneck women’s prison for signing a petition in support of exiled musician Wolf Biermann. The artist’s underground gallery in Erfurt was shut down in 1981 by the Stasi, the East German secret police.

• A selection of Czech artist Libuše Jarcovjáková’s photographs, including Selection from the T-Club series, Prague (1980s), which capture the vibrant nightlife of the T-Club, a legendary underground LGBTQIA+ bar in Prague. Shot in black and white with a dramatic camera flash, these images offer a glimpse into Prague’s vivid and joyous nightlife. Rather than publish the photographs, the artist gifted them to her subjects.

• Système Esthétique (Aesthetic System) (1973) by Sherban Epuré, who focused his artistic practice on the intersections of art and science, incorporating algorithms, geometry, and mathematical principles into his visual experimentations. His core reference points—information theory, cybernetics, structuralism, and Constructivism—were explored in relation to spirituality, intuition, rational thought, and the relationships between humans and machines.

• Bleeding Monument(1969/2023) by Gyula Konkoly, which was recreated especially for Multiple Realities and” represents the first time the work is being shown in the U.S. The sculpture offers a pointed critique and meditation on the thaw that followed the 1956 Hungarian Revolution of the decade prior, while also acknowledging the aggression of the Soviet invasion of the 1968 Prague Spring. An iconic work by the Hungarian artist, it suggests a bleeding torso and constitutes a rare example of a work that immediately registers as a commentary on the political situation of the time.

• Revisiting of Herakles (1982/2023) by Lutz Dammbeck. This work draws from the artist’s interdisciplinary “media collages,” in which he layered painting, objects, sound, moving images, and performance to create highly atmospheric installations that blurred the boundaries of mythic and historical events to explore and create new meanings.

The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue produced by the Walker Art Center and featuring newly commissioned essays, a roundtable discussion, and thematic timelines that not only reflect on the specificity of the period but consider how the exhibition’s artworks and themes will resonate with today’s audiences.

High-resolution photography can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About the Exhibition
Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s–1980s is organized by the Walker Art Center with major support provided by Martha and Bruce Atwater. Exhibition research was supported by a curatorial fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The exhibition is curated by Pavel S. Pyś, Curator of Visual Arts and Collections Strategy, at Walker Art Center. Its presentation at Phoenix Art Museum is coordinated by Rachel Sadvary Zebro, associate curator of collections. The presentation of Multiple Realities: Experimental Art in the Eastern Bloc, 1960s-1980s at Phoenix Art Museum is made possible through the generosity of The Opatrny Family Foundation, Joan Cremin, Men’s Arts Council, and Diana and Mark Feldman. In-kind support provided by Kimpton Hotel Palomar Phoenix and KJZZ/KBACH. All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation, with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin.

Admission is free for Museum Members; youth aged 5 and younger; and Maricopa County Community Colleges students. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (February 7, 2023) – This spring, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) and Arizona State University Art Museum (ASU Art Museum) will co-present a new exhibition, Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been: Selections from the ASU Art Museum’s Cuban Art Collection, the first major curatorial collaboration between the two institutions in more than a decade. The collaboration explores artistic expression during times of humanitarian crises and social upheaval while presenting a record of human experiences that will resonate across audiences of varying identities. The new exhibition draws from the contemporary Cuban art collection at ASU Art Museum to provide deeper context to PhxArt’s simultaneous presentation of the special-engagement exhibition Juan Francisco Elso: Por América, the first retrospective in more than 30 years of the late Cuban artist and a project organized by El Museo del Barrio in New York City. The two exhibitions will provide a deeper understanding of the social and political context in which Elso’s art emerged in 1980s Communist Cuba, in addition to the culture and political climate of post-Soviet Cuba in the decade following Elso’s death in 1988. PhxArt and ASU Art Museum will also partner to present community programs designed to engage visitors with these dynamic art works and bring greater visibility to the complex histories of migration in Cuba and Mexico. Both Juan Francisco Elso: Por América and Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been were curated by Olga Viso, a dual-appointee of PhxArt and ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. They will be on view from May 6 through September 17, 2023 at Phoenix Art Museum.

“As institutions, we often overlook the richness of shared expertise and resources within our own communities,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Through this collaboration with the ASU Art Museum, Phoenix Art Museum has the opportunity to bring works by Cuban artists from ASU’s incredible collection to our galleries while partnering on a series of public programs to better understand the complexity of issues surrounding exile faced by Cuban artists. These exhibitions present a distinctive look at the impact of a singular artist and his place in art history, as well as how the Phoenix community has embraced and supported artists whose voices and artistic practices have been challenged by political establishments.”

“ASU Art Museum has a 25-year history of highlighting the work, voices, and perspectives of Cuban artists,” said Miki Garcia, director of ASU Art Museum. “Our partnership with PhxArt is a great opportunity to deepen our connection with the community. The artists in these exhibitions demonstrate how Cuban artists created a new visual culture—one that challenged the Soviet-era preference for art imbued with a political agenda and censorship. Cuban artists of the ’80s and ’90s experimented with both the materials they used and the messages they crafted. We see a mixture of conceptual art, folkloric themes, and institutional critiques that simultaneously shaped the new culture and served as a space to process the impact Communist ideologies had on artists’ sense of personal and communal identity.”

Curated by Olga Viso, in collaboration with Susanna V. Temkin, curator at El Museo del Barrio, Juan Francisco Elso: Por América provides a rare opportunity to experience Elso’s fragile extant works that draw influence from Indigenous Mesoamerican traditions, Afro-Caribbean religious beliefs, and the traumas of colonial oppression on contemporary Cuban, Caribbean, and Latin American identities. Elso’s sculptures and installations reveal a more expansive understanding of the Americas, free of geopolitical borders and nations, and likewise provide insight into the social and political context of 1980s Communist Cuba, a period that led up to the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and birthed the first generation of artists to be educated fully within a post-revolutionary system. These artists eventually emerged on an international stage and began to reflect critically on Cuban society. 

The story continues with Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been: Selections from the ASU Art Museum’s Cuban Art Collection, which features ASU Art Museum’s most iconic artworks created during the period immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. Termed Cuba’s “Special Period in a Time of Peace” by then-president Fidel Castro, the early 1990s through the mid-2000s on the island were marred by severe food and material shortages caused by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its financial subsidies, along with the persistence of trade embargoes enacted by the United States since the early 1960s. As a result, thousands of Cuban refugees fled in 1993–1994, at the height of the crisis, on makeshift rafts across the treacherous straits between Cuba and the United States.  

Works in Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been comment on the struggles of daily subsistence and the human experience during the “Special Period,” themes that are at once specific and relevant to communities who have faced exile and political repression across the globe. Highlights include:

• Kcho’s 1996 makeshift kayak perched on a precarious sea of bottles in Para Olvidar (In Order to Forget), a reference to the tragedy of the balseros, or rafters, in 1994, many of whom perished at sea in their attempt to secure freedom
• Sandra Ramos’s painted suitcase from her 1994-series Migrations II Swimming Under the Stars, depicting two figures traversing dark, open waters
• Aimee García Marrero’s 2002 sculpture Bajo Presión/Under Pressure of a pressure cooker, referencing women’s use of pots and pans as percussive objects in protests against widespread food shortages.

The exhibition also features works by Belkis Ayón, Luis Cruz Azaceta, Abel Barroso, Jacqueline Brito, Yamilys Brito, Los Carpinteros, Carlos Estévez, René Francisco, Luis Gomez, Filiberto Mora, Kadir Lopez Nieves, Fernando Rodríguez, and Tonel.

Along with providing a glimpse into the past, Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been additionally explores the way Cuban artists today continue to grapple with issues of governmental control, economic failure, and censorship that likewise characterized the island’s Special Period. This is the subject of Reynier Leyva Novo’s monumental portrait of the Cuban national hero, José Marti, which is currently on view on the main floor of the Museum’s Katz Wing. The iconic portrait of Martí appears as a slumbering giant suspended in time. The work’s title, Lo que es, el lo que ha sido (What it is, is what has been), provides the inspiration for the title of the larger exhibition and links the recent past to the present moment. In conversation, Novo’s work, Por América, and the exhibition featuring work from the ASU Art Museum take on more universal significance, particularly when viewed through the lens of global tumult and social change in a rapidly changing world.

“In 2018, Cuba established Decree 349, which legislates creative expression and imposes controls on artistic content,” said Olga Viso, a dual appointee of both Phoenix Art Museum and Arizona State University. “Artists who have protested these measures in recent years have been met with harsh governmental response and even imprisonment. As The New York Times recently reported, another mass exodus of Cuban citizens fleeing the island is underway. The title of this exhibition— Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been—not only echoes a common sentiment among the Cuban populace of making due with what lies ahead (it is what it is) but also poignantly acknowledges that very little has changed in regard to scarcity and civil liberties in Cuba since the ‘Special Period’ commenced more than 30 years ago.”

Juan Francisco Elso: Por América and Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been are exhibitions led by Olga Viso, senior curatorial advisor and curator-at-large at PhxArt and senior advisor at ASU’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Viso was joined by co-curator Julio César Morales, executive director and co-chief curator of MoCA Tucson, on Lo que es, lo que ha sido/What It Is, Is What Has Been. High-resolution photography for Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/ What It Is, Is What Has Been can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org. For the full news release on Juan Francisco Elso: Por América, click here.

About the Exhibition
Lo que es, es lo que ha sido/ What It Is, Is What Has Been: Selections from the ASU Art Museum’s Cuban Art Collection is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and ASU Art Museum and curated by Olga Viso, curator-at-large at PhxArt and senior advisor at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and Julio César Morales, executive director and co-chief curator of MoCA Tucson. The exhibition is made possible through the generosity of the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans, active-duty military, and their immediate families; youth aged 5 and younger; and Maricopa County Community Colleges students. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and supported in part through the generosity of the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts. For a full breakdown of general-admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Arizona State University Art Museum and Cuban Art
The ASU Art Museum’s collection of contemporary Cuban art is distinguished by art produced on the island from the mid 1980s to the early 2000s and focuses on art made during a period in Cuban history known as the “Special Period.” The collection numbers over 250 objects in all media. The ASU Art Museum was one of the first art museums globally to collect Cuban art from this moment in depth and it continues to maintain one of the premier collections of art from this era.

The collection was assembled by the museum’s former chief curator and director Marilyn Zeitlin in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Zeitlin sought to build on the museum’s long-standing commitment to collecting Latin American art, especially from under-represented regions and communities. She also aimed to expand the museum’s holdings of Latin American prints and deepen the museum’s existing concentrations of political graphics documenting social movements. The Cuban Art Collection was both commissioned and acquired at ASU with the generous support of national foundations and local donors who sought to urgently respond to the hardship artists were experiencing. In the 1990s, the ASU Art Museum commissioned many of the artists presented here to produce a print portfolio. That series is on view concurrently in the Art in Focus gallery at the ASU Art Museum until September 2023. For more information, please visit asuartmuseum.asu.edu.

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PHOENIX (September 8, 2022) – This fall, Phoenix Art Museum will present Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town, the first U.S. solo exhibition in more than five years to exclusively showcase the work of Mr., one of today’s most popular Japanese artists. Spanning the late 1990s to 2022, the exhibition features nearly 50 paintings, drawings, sculptures, and video works, including a recent Museum acquisition and a new 30-foot-long canvas that will enjoy its world premiere at Phoenix Art Museum. These vivid and often chaotic works—a large selection of which were created in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic—draw influence from anime, manga, and virtual fantasy worlds to examine themes of desire, tragedy, and psychological anguish. Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town will be on view in Steele Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum from November 6, 2022 through March 12, 2023, following a First-Friday preview and community celebration on November 4, 2022 from 6 – 9 pm. The exhibition is made possible through the generosity of an anonymous donor, Ronald and Valery Harrar, Men’s Arts Council, Ms. Isabelle Georgeaux, Kevie Yang, The Japan Foundation–Los Angeles, and the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members.

“During this particular moment in history, marked by turbulent current events nationally and abroad that are reshaping the ways we interact with each other and how we reflect on our respective societies, Mr.: You Can Hear The Song of This Town provides insight into the mind of an artist who uses his practice to respond to global tragedies while exploring his own anxieties, frustrations, and angst,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “We are excited to present this compelling body of work—a reminder of art’s power to help us explore complex emotions that affect individuals across cultures—as we continue the Museum’s mission of creating points of connection and uniting people of different backgrounds through various forms of artistic expression.”

A self-described member of the otaku subculture—characterized by obsessive interests in anime, manga, video games, and other forms of Japanese popular culture—Mr. creates paintings, sculptures, videos, and installations that explore his personal fantasies and represent a wider reflection on solitude, fear, desire, and trauma. Informed by manga (a genre of Japanese art that includes comics and graphic novels) and anime (derived from the English term “animation” and used for cartoons in Japan), the artist’s works feature kawaii (or “cute”) style characters with wide eyes, colorful hair, and round, childlike faces that are meant to evoke feelings of moe (a profound adoration of or infatuation with fictional figures). These cartoonish subjects are often set against graffiti-like backdrops, which echo the traumatic loss of life in Japan during both World War II and the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

“Mr. is most closely associated with Superflat, the post-modern art movement founded by the artist Takashi Murakami, with whom Mr. worked for a number of years before pursuing his individual practice,” said Gilbert Vicario, curator of modern and contemporary art at Phoenix Art Museum. “Mr.’s neo-pop work, however, descends from an even larger art-historical framework, drawing influence from 19^th-century ukiyo-e prints, Pop Art, and abstract expressionism. He combines these influences with elements of Japanese popular culture and references he has gleaned from the internet, presenting them in fine art to examine the social mores of Japanese society and a global community obsessed with social media.”

Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town is the first U.S. exhibition dedicated solely to the artist’s work since the 2014 Seattle Art Museum exhibition Live On: Mr.’s Japanese Neo-pop. Organized by Phoenix Art Museum, You Can Hear the Song of This Town invites visitors to explore Mr.’s vivid, imagined universe. The exhibition showcases nearly 50 works created over the past two decades, illuminating the artist’s stylistic evolution. Older works from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s feature brightly colored characters with a doe-eyed innocence, while paintings and drawings from 2018 onward mark a dramatic shift in tone and composition. Various works dated 2021—created during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—depict solitary, kawaii-style characters in black and white. Devoid of the light, cheerful expressions characteristic of the artist’s larger oeuvre, these figures perhaps reflect the loneliness, isolation, anger, and confusion millions of people around the world felt as they sheltered in place over months in an attempt to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The exhibition’s sole video work, however, demonstrates that the motivations behind Mr.’s artwork have long remained the same although his visual aesthetic has shifted over time. Created in 1998, the self-produced video features the artist moving through various poses with a samurai sword and was created following a break-up, reminding viewers that Mr. has always channeled feelings of anguish and anxiety—personal and collective—into his artwork.

About the Exhibition
Mr.: You Can Hear The Song of This Town will be on view from November 6, 2022 through March 12, 2023 in Steele Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of an anonymous donor, Ronald and Valery Harrar, Men’s Arts Council, Ms. Isabelle Georgeaux, Kevie Yang, The Japan Foundation-Los Angeles, and the Museum’s Circles of Support and Museum Members. For more details about the exhibition, please click here. 

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans, active-duty military, and their immediate families; and youth aged 5 and younger. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is $5 for the general public. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and supported in part through the generosity of the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts, and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 9 pm. For a full breakdown of general-admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

High-resolution photography can be downloaded here. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

Related Programming

Mr. Community Celebration: First Friday
November 4, 2022 | 6 – 9 pm
Valley audiences are invited to attend the First Friday opening celebration of Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town on November 4, 2022 from 6 – 9 pm. The evening will feature free Museum admission—including access to You Can Hear the Song of This Town—food trucks, live music, and arts-engagement programming. Details are forthcoming and will be shared on phxart.org and the Museum’s social media channels. The First Friday opening celebration of Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town is sponsored by the Men’s Arts Council.

The Men’s Arts Council (MAC) of Phoenix Art Museum, founded in January 1967, is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that supports the Museum’s programs and activities through unique events such as the Copperstate Overland. The Men’s Arts Council’s efforts enable the organization to make annual contributions to Phoenix Art Museum’s operating budget and financially sponsor exhibitions. For more information, visit mensartscouncil.com.

Related Exhibitions

To provide historical context to Mr.: You Can Hear The Song of This Town, Phoenix Art Museum will present an outstanding selection of Japanese folk art, prints, and more beginning in December 2022.

Demonic, Divine, Human: Japan’s Noh Theater
Opening December 3, 2022
A form of classical Japanese theatre, Noh combines music, religious performance, dance, and drama. This exhibition showcases various Noh masks and the work of print artists who conveyed scenes of divine, demonic, and animal characters drawn from Noh plays. Presented at the same time as Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town, Demonic, Divine, Human allows visitors to draw connections between the contemporary artist and the creators of Noh masks and scenes. In his imagined universes, Mr.’s characters draw influence from anime, manga, and other elements of Japanese culture and represent a wider reflection on solitude, social anxiety, and fear. In Noh theatre, writers drew upon folklore, historical tales, and legends to create characters inspired by humans, spirit beings, and animals. These characters were then brought to life through masks, costume, and dance. For sponsorship information, visit phxart.org.

Beauty and Function: Japanese Folk Art from the Mayro-Stelitz Collection
Opening December 3, 2022
In 1920s Japan, philosophers and craftspeople created the concept of mingei, or folk art, to challenge the narrow definition of art and uplift the beauty of everyday objects created by average people. In this exhibition, various traditional everyday objects from Japan are on view to the public for the first time, including pictorial shop signs, firefighter coats, futon covers, samurai helmets, and ceramic and metal utensils that feature folk motifs and symbolic designs. Presented at the same time as Mr.: You Can Hear the Song of This Town, Beauty and Function allows visitors to discover how Mr.’s works and historical Japanese folk art each challenge traditional definitions of fine art and reflect popular imagery from the time in which they were created. For sponsorship information, visit phxart.org.

Exquisite Enamels: Gifts of Japanese Cloisonné from Waynor and Laurie Rogers
Opening December 3, 2022
Artists began creating cloisonné centuries ago in Europe, and from there, techniques spread throughout the Middle East to China and Japan. Utilizing fine wires and glass paste, cloisonné artists created richly colored surface patterns on a variety of objects. This exhibition showcases significant examples of Japanese cloisonné from the 19th century, when cloisonné enamel techniques peaked on the island and wares became a successful export. Along with Mr: You Can Hear the Song of This Town, Exquisite Enamels illuminate how Japanese artists have long combined outside cultural influences with traditional art forms to create new styles that are rooted in history but with a modern outlook. For sponsorship information, visit phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the leading art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Mr.
Mr. (b. 1969, Cupa, Japan, lives and works in Saitama, Japan) approaches the visual language of anime and manga as a means of examining Japanese culture, fusing high and low forms of contemporary expression. Like his fellow Superflat artists, such as Takashi Murakami, Mr. utilizes otaku, the “cute” Japanese subculture that is marked by an obsession with adolescence, manga, anime, and video games. Mr. graduated in 1996 from the Department of Fine Arts, Sokei Art School in Tokyo. Solo exhibitions of his work have been organized at HOW Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2021); Musée Guimet, Paris, France (2019); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (2014); and Musée d’Art Contemporain de Lyon, Lyon, France (2006), among others. Select group exhibitions featuring his work include MURAKAMI VS MURAKAMI, Tai Kwun Contemporary, Hong Kong (2019); Bishojo: Monsters, Manga and Murakami, Musée en Herbe, Paris, France (2019); and Islands, Constellations & Galapagos, Yokohama Triennale, Yokohama, Japan (2017). His work is in numerous international public and private collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, and Daegu Art Museum in South Korea.

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Alshaibi’s practice interrogates the social codes found in images, texts, and artifacts to question the construction of history and its impact on a speculative future. Shaped by photography’s historic and outsized role in generating the gendered and flattened representations of Middle Eastern and North African people and their spaces, Alshaibi reframes this legacy by presenting the Arab female figure as a complex site that embodies the physical and psychic realms of the individual and community when resources, land, mobility, and political agency are compromised. Alshaibi’s solo exhibition Sama Alshaibi: Generation After Generation will be on view at PhxArt from September 17 through May 14, 2023, alongside the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards exhibition, featuring works by Gloria Martinez-Granados, Chris Vena, and Merryn Omotayo Alaka and Sam Frésquez.

Seating for the Scult Award artist lecture on September 28 is limited, and advance registration is required. For more information on the lecture and to reserve tickets, please click here.

If you have any questions or would like to interview any of the Scult and Lehmann Award recipients, please don’t hesitate to reach out. If you need high-resolution images, please click here.

About the Exhibition
Sama Alshaibi: Generation After Generation and the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards exhibitions will be on view from September 17 through May 14, 2023 in Marshall and Hendler galleries. Sama Alshaibi: Generation After Generation is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of Arlene and Morton Scult Contemporary Artist Award Fund. The 2021 Lehmann Emerging Award Recipients exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum.  It is made possible through the generosity of Sally and Richard Lehmann, with additional support from Cattryn Somers and Michael Cafiso. The Arlene and Morton Scult Award Lecture and Lehmann Award Exhibition Opening is made possible through the generosity of Arlene and Morton Scult Contemporary Artist Award Fund, and Sally and Richard Lehmann, with additional support from Cattryn Somers and Michael Cafiso.

Admission is free for Museum Members, veterans, and active-duty military. Entrance to the exhibition is included in general admission for the general public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered to the general public with pay-what-you-wish admission. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 9 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the leading art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (August 22, 2022) – From September 17 through May 14, 2023, Phoenix Art Museum will present Sama Alshaibi: Generation After Generation and the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards exhibitions. The two exhibitions will respectively showcase works by the 2021 Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award recipient, Sama Alshaibi, and the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients: Gloria Martinez-Granados, Chris Vena, and Merryn Omotayo Alaka and Sam Frésquez. Featured installations, paintings, mixed-media works, and more will explore themes of cultural empowerment, multinational identity, and deep introspection.

“The Scult Artist Award and Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards exemplify one way Phoenix Art Museum is committed to supporting and amplifying contemporary artists in Arizona,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “We are elated to present this year’s exhibitions and feature works by engaged and impassioned artists representative of our state’s rich and diverse community.”

Each year, the Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award recognizes a mid-career Arizona artist. The recipient is chosen from a pool of candidates based on a number of criteria. Eligible candidates are artists who demonstrate artistic excellence through their work; are presently making and exhibiting new work; have demonstrated significant growth in their work over their careers; and have been residents of Arizona for a minimum of four consecutive years. The recipient is then selected based on the work they are currently producing, in addition to pieces they have created in the past. The award includes a monetary prize to support the creation of new work, as well as a solo exhibition at the Museum the following year.

This fall, the 2021 Scult Artist Award recipient, Sama Alshaibi, will exhibit Sama Alshaibi: Generation After Generation, presenting her latest projects of photographic imagery, video, and installation, which link themes of dispossession, mobility, peripheries, refuge, ecological entropy, and future and historical imaginings. As part of her award, the Tucson-based artist and 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient will also present a lecture on her work and practice on September 28, 2022 at Phoenix Art Museum. Tickets to the lecture will be available soon on phxart.org.  

Alshaibi’s practice interrogates the social codes found in images, texts, and artifacts to question the construction of history and its impact on a speculative future. Shaped by photography’s historic and outsized role in generating the gendered and flattened representations of Middle Eastern and North African people and their spaces, Alshaibi reframes this legacy by presenting the Arab female figure as a complex site that embodies the physical and psychic realms of the individual and community when resources, land, mobility, and political agency are compromised. Her sculptural objects and installations apply spatial voids to evoke the body’s absence, serving as counter-memorials to war, forced migrations, and diaspora.

Also on view this fall, the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards exhibition will feature works by emerging artists Gloria Martinez-Granados, Chris Vena, and Merryn Omotayo Alaka and Sam Frésquez. The Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards (Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards) are presented annually by Phoenix Art Museum to provide recognition and financial support for emerging, professional, Arizona-based artists. Eligible candidates apply through an open call and must be considered emerging artists who are currently working and have resided in Arizona for a minimum of one year, among other requirements. Each recipient receives a grant to support the creation of new work and is invited to participate in a group exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum the year following the award.

Originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, and now based in Phoenix, Gloria Martinez-Granados migrated at a young age with her family to the United States. Her prints and other works serve as a memoir, reflecting on her experience growing up and living as an undocumented immigrant through digitally manipulated personal documents and photos. Chris Vena’s recent work examines the loneliness and unease of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. His paintings explore themes of loss, isolation, financial insecurity, and mass death. Merryn Omotayo Alaka and Sam Frésquez, who are presenting work jointly, work across media to facilitate conversations around race, gender, and queerness. In their collaborative practice and craft-based processes, they work with pop-culture iconography, contemporary trends, and historical references, tracing the evolution of material culture, including hair, jewelry, and textiles. Their work also examines pre-existing societal hierarchies and racialized and gendered stereotypes to question why their communities have been either undervalued or tokenized in the United States.

“I am excited to be working with this year’s group of artists,” said Gilbert Vicario, the Museum’s curator of contemporary art. “They each, in their own way, possess an incredibly singular aesthetic capacity coupled with a social urgency that connects these Arizona-based artists with deep conversations that are happening on a global scale.”

About the Exhibition

Sama Alshaibi: Generation After Generation and the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards exhibitions will be on view from September 17 through May 14, 2023 in Marshall and Hendler galleries. Sama Alshaibi is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of Arlene and Morton Scult Contemporary Artist Award Fund. The 2021 Lehmann Emerging Award Recipients exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum. It is made possible through the generosity of Sally and Richard Lehmann, with additional support from Cattryn Somers and Michael Cafiso.

Admission is free for Museum Members, veterans, and active-duty military. Entrance to the exhibition is included in general admission for the general public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered to the general public with pay-what-you-wish admission. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 9 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum
Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the leading art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (March 11, 2022) –Phoenix Art Museum will premiere a new exhibition on April 24, 2022 that explores the relationships between transportation, landscape, and identity in our desert region. Desert Rider highlights a diverse display of large-scale installations, prints, sculptures, and more by Latinx and Indigenous artists including Cara Romero, Douglas Miles, Margarita Cabrera, Liz Cohen, and Justin Favela, each of whom draw inspiration from custom-car and lowrider culture of the Southwest. Organized by Phoenix Art Museum and curated by Gilbert Vicario, curator of contemporary art, Desert Rider will feature the world premiere of multiple works commissioned specifically for the exhibition.

“We are excited to share the premiere of Desert Rider with our community,” said Mark Koenig, the interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition amplifies voices that challenge preconceived notions around identify and the creative self. Desert Rider gives Arizona audiences the opportunity to see how Indigenous and Latinx perspectives and interpretations of automotive and skateboarding subcultures define the regional identity of the Southwest. We are thrilled to present diverse works, many by artists working here in Arizona.”

Desert Rider explores the genesis of custom-car and lowrider culture, rooted in the post-war culture of the 1950s, which mythologized our dependence on and fascination with the automobile. The exhibition connects contemporary art with the counter-culture developments of the 1960s epitomized in the lowrider phenomenon that occurred simultaneously with other forms of civil protest. Images of customized vehicles roaring through the wide-open landscapes of the American southwest captured notions of freedom, liberty, rebellion, and nonconformity. Cars became statements of defiance, cruising mere inches above the pavement. Mexican-American artisans adorned their cars with cultural and religious imagery, including Nahua and Mayan symbols painted on the hoods of their vibrantly colored vehicles, a rejection of the mainstream automotive aesthetic. Today, for many in the Latinx and Chicanx communities, the lowrider remains a symbol of individuality, cultural identity, resistance, and pride.

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. Visitors will 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. He will also install his work Seven Magic Tires, a satirized take 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. Another featured artist, Jose Villalobos, evokes memories of his family and personal history through the newly commissioned work he’s created for Desert Rider in which he will “flamboyantly embellish” saddles using techniques and accessories typically reserved for lowriders, including chain steering wheels, and brightly colored lacquers, deconstructing the masculinity inherent in such objects.

Beyond the design and craftsmanship inherent in lowrider culture, the exhibition also explores the influence of movement, motion, and the ubiquity of car culture and its appearance in contemporary art. Featured works use symbols of transportation and movement to interrogate concepts of masculinity and femininity by Liz Cohen, Sam Fresquez, and Carlotta Boettcher and notions of migration and mobility by Betsabeé Romero, as well as works by Cara Romero and Laurie Steelink that explore how self-described ‘Indian-ness’ negotiates traditional Indigenous values with contemporary life.

“Desert Rider explores the ways car culture in the southwest, has influenced the work of contemporary Latinx and Indigenous artists who are examining the intersection of movement and motion, migration, gender, sexuality, labor, and identity,” said Gilbert Vicario, who curated the exhibition. “It’s important to acknowledge all of the artists represented who are members of communities that were forced to the margins of our geographic space, experiences that parallel the history of the lowrider itself. I hope guests see the impact that local culture has had on artists working in the Southwest and appreciate this piece of history from the land in which they were born.”

As a complement to the exhibition, Museum librarian Jesse Alexander Lopez will curate a new installation drawn from the Museum’s library archives along with new acquisitions. Featuring books, magazines, and other ephemera, the satellite library installation will examine the links between Chicanx lowrider culture to its Mexican and ancient Latin American roots, and the philosophy of the mestizaje worldview. This complementary installation will be on view both in the south extension of Steele Gallery and the Museum’s Ballinger Interactive Gallery, colloquially known as the BIG Little Library, and will highlight iconic lowrider publications from the 1970s to today, books on the culture of the Aztecs and the aftermath of conquest, prison love letters and handmade cards, and a special look at the popularity of lowrider culture in Japan.

About the Exhibition

Desert Rider will be on view from April 24, 2022 through September 18, 2022 in Steele Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition 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. For details on the exhibition, visit phxart.org/exhibition/desert-rider/. To request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2117 or samantha.santos@phxart.org. For high-resolution photography, click here.

About the Exhibition

Desert Rider, a special-engagement exhibition, will be free for Museum Members and youth aged 5 and younger. The exhibition will also be free for veterans and active-duty military and their families through the Military Access Program at Phoenix Art Museum (MAP@PAM), made possible through the generosity of Dr. Hong and Doris Ong, Nancy Hanley Eriksson, and Shamrock Foods Foundation. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, made possible by SRP and supported in part through the generosity of the Angela and Leonard Singer Endowment for Performing Arts, and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 9 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 350,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (May 15, 2021) – Phoenix Art Museum has opened the annual call for submissions for the institution’s Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards artists’ grants program (Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards). The newly branded and juried grant program provides recognition and financial support for emerging, professional, Arizona-based artists. The Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards replace the former Contemporary Forum Artists’ Grants. For the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards open call, Phoenix Art Museum is partnering with Artlink, a Phoenix-based arts organization, who will host and help promote the call for artwork submissions. The call is open from May 15 through July 15, 2021 to artists who wish to present their work for consideration. There is a submission fee of $10, with proceeds supporting education programs and exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum. Up to three Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients will be announced on September 30, 2021, with each receiving a $1,500 grant and the opportunity to participate in a group exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum in spring 2022.

The Sally and Richard Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards are an annual artists’ grants program. The recognition program is a continuation of a program begun by former Museum support group Contemporary Forum, which awarded more than 180 artists’ grants over more than 30 years. The Contemporary Forum Artists’ Grants concluded in 2017, at which time Phoenix Art Museum continued to subsidize an annual artists’ grants program to support the efforts and recognition of Arizona-based artists. In April 2021, the annual artists’ grants program was rebranded to acknowledge the support of local donors Sally and Richard Lehmann, who have committed to funding the Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards annually for a minimum of 10 years.

The Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards foster the creation of contemporary art by encouraging emerging artists working in Arizona through grants and annual exhibitions as well as by providing additional programming opportunities for artist talks with the community and hosted at Phoenix Art Museum. Each year, up to three artists are selected as award recipients by a jury assembled by Gilbert Vicario, curator of contemporary art at Phoenix Art Museum, and featuring curators from inside and outside the state of Arizona. The jury may also include internationally established artists and other visual-art experts. Past jurors have included Tyler Cann, Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Columbus Museum of Art, and Kate Green, the Executive Director of MoCA Tucson. 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients will receive $1,500 each to support their work and will be invited to present new work in a group exhibition alongside the Museum’s 2021 Arlene and Morton Scult Artist Award (Scult Award) recipient, who is nominated by invitation and selected by a jury. The 2019 Phoenix Art Museum Artists’ Grants Recipientsexhibition, on view now through September 5, 2021, features works by emerging artists Christina Gednalske, Danielle Hacche, Lena Klett, Nazafarin Lotfi, and Kimberly Lyle, who comprise the Museum’s first all-women artists’ grants cohort. This exhibition is displayed in conjunction with Ann Morton: The Violet Protest, featuring the work of 2019 Scult Award recipient Ann Morton.

Call for 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards Submissions

Phoenix Art Museum will be accepting submissions for the 2021 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards from May 15 through July 15, 2021. Applications are accepted online only and are due on July 15, 2021. A panel of judges, who will be announced to the public on September 30, 2021, will select the recipients. The selection committee will award up to three grants of $1,500 each, and each recipient will be invited to present work in the 2022 Lehmann Emerging Artist Awards recipients’ exhibition. There is a $10 fee to submit to the open call, with proceeds supporting arts education and exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum.  

Eligibility Requirements:

• Artists must be considered emerging artists, meeting at least one of the following criteria:
• Individuals who have completed degree programs in the last 5 years
  • Artists who exhibit their work in Arizona but may not have shown nationally or internationally
  • Artists with a website and a few different bodies of work that show development over time
• Artists must currently be working.
• Artists working in all media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, installation, new media, performance, photography, and video, may apply.
• Artists must be Arizona residents for a minimum of one year.
• Submitted artwork must have been produced within the past two years.
• Artists may not be enrolled in a college-degree program.
• Previous recipients of the Artists’ Grants are ineligible.
• Artists must be registered as an Artlink Articipant. Register as an Articipant* with Artlink here:

*Note: While Articipation with Artlink does not require payment, there are additional benefits to paid levels. Visit artlinkphx.org for details. Questions about Artlink? Please email info@artlinkphx.org.  

Submission Requirements:

Applications must be submitted online USING THE FOLLOWING LINK: bit.ly/LehmannAwardsOpenCall

Submissions MUST include:

• Artist name, street address, email address, and telephone number
• Resume/CV
• Artist statement (optional; 150 words or less)
• Description of each submitted work (title, date, medium, dimensions)
• Three (3) JPEGS or three (3) videos of different examples of work
  • Videos exceeding three minutes will not be accepted.

Submission Deadline:

All materials must be submitted online by 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time on July 15, 2021. Submit applications to the following link: bit.ly/LehmannAwardsOpenCall. Please email curatorial@phxart.org with any questions.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 350,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Artlink Inc.

Artlink keeps the arts integral to our development by connecting artists, businesses, and the community. Founded as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization by artists in 1989, the Artlink name is a guiding principle for the organization, as it supports stakeholders of the arts and culture community, amplifying its collective strength. Visit artlinkphx.org to sign up for the Artlink newsletter, or connect socially on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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