Press RoomPhoenix Art Museum presents largest US museum exhibition of Brazilian artist Valeska Soares’ installations, sculptures, multisensory works

Phoenix Art Museum presents largest US museum exhibition of Brazilian artist Valeska Soares’ installations, sculptures, multisensory works

Mar, 02, 2018

Exhibitions and Special InstallationsModern and Contemporary ArtLatin American Art

Phoenix Art Museum presents largest US museum exhibition of Brazilian artist Valeska Soares’ installations, sculptures, multisensory works

Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now represents a collaboration between Phoenix Art Museum, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and the Getty-led initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA

 PHOENIX (March 2, 2018) – Phoenix Art Museum presents Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now, a collaboration with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art (SBMA) and the largest museum exhibition in the United States to date of the contemporary Brazilian artist’s work. From March 24 through July 15, visitors will have the opportunity to see 49 diverse artworks, from installations and sculptures to photography and video, ranging in date from the mid-1990s to the present. This major mid-career survey introduces viewers to distinctive works that deal with themes of love, longing, desire, memory, and time, often incorporating experiential qualities like scent, touch, and even taste. The exhibition also substantiates Soares’ important role in international innovations in installation art. Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now originated as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles.

“We are delighted to collaborate with the Santa Barbara Museum of Art to bring the works of Valeska Soares to our community,” said Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “The Museum is proud to extend the Getty’s initiative to share the best of Latin American art with our region. This is a significant partnership for our museum, and we look forward to sharing Soares’ unique, evocative installations and other works with our visitors.”

Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now features iconic works that have come to define Soares’ artistic approach, presenting the universal themes and experiential approaches that the artist has explored for nearly three decades. Often incorporating found objects and ephemeral materials, Soares’ works act as triggers for personal memories and individual interpretations. The titular installation, Any Moment Now…, is composed of 271 out of an original 365 vintage book jackets mounted on canvas, charting the passage of time over the course of the four seasons through evocative titles like The Winter of Our Discontent, Lost Springtime, and Now or Never.Soares’ artworks can also serve as metaphors for intimate, everyday experience, as in Duet I (from the After series), two pillows carved from white marble, complete with the imaginary imprints of the heads they once cradled. The presence of scent is also a crucial element of Soares’ work. Fainting Couch is a steel floor sculpture whose surface is perforated with small holes; the Stargazer lilies hidden inside perfume the surrounding space. In this way, Soares imbues the cool, neutral characteristics of 20th-century abstract sculpture, by artists such as Donald Judd, with a deeply human dimension, opening Museum visitors to the possibility of having a visceral, even emotional experience of conceptual art rather than a primarily intellectual one. Evoking universal subject matter with a polished style, Soares’ work insists on the primacy of the viewer’s experiences and memories in creating meaning, and functions as a trigger for experience and active engagement.

Museum visitors will also have an opportunity to experience one of Soares’ works that is made to be eaten. Push Pull features giant masses of saltwater taffy dangling from specially fabricated stainless steel hooks. Performers at various stations push and pull the taffy in a continuous movement to generate continually morphing sculptures. In collaboration with Kreëmart, the artist handpicks the various taffies, each with a different color and flavor. Visitors are invited to receive pieces of each sculpture, tasting the results of this collective labor—a literal way of “consuming” the work of art. These undulating sculptures may suggest the atmosphere of carnival; Soares here explores the connotations of sugar as a catalyst for desire and excess. (See the Related Programs section below for dates and times of Push Pull.)

“Soares is at once a generous and demanding artist. She rewards visitors who linger with radically new ways of engaging with art objects, not just visually, but also viscerally and intellectually,” said Vanessa Davidson, PhD, the Shawn and Joe Lampe Curator of Latin American Art. “This landmark exhibition celebrates Soares’ achievements and affords our visitors opportunities to become active participants, the artist’s own accomplices.”

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated, 190-page monograph. This catalog features 75 color plates and four texts written by exhibition co-curators Davidson and Julie Joyce (SBMA) with contributions by Jens Hoffmann (Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit), Rodrigo Moura (Instituto Inhotim), and Júlia Rebouças (Co-curator of 2016 São Paulo Biennial). In accordance with the aims of Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, the catalog serves to expand upon the goals of the exhibition by attesting to Soares’ radical innovations, connecting her work to the history of Latin American art as well as the broader international context of contemporary art, and expanding the understanding of art from Latin America in the 21st century. Any Moment Now is one of a suite of exhibitions within this initiative to be featured outside of California.

About the Exhibition

Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art through major grants from the Getty Foundation. The exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum is made possible by the generous support of Shawn and Joe Lampe and by grant funding awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, Art Works. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by an illustrated, 190-page monograph featuring 75 color plates and four illustrated scholarly texts, written by the exhibition curators and additional contributors. For more details about the exhibition, please visit phxart.org/exhibition/valeska-soares.

This special engagement exhibition is free for Museum Members and past and present members of the Military. During normal admission hours, this exhibition is included in the price of general admission. During voluntary-donation, free-access times, when general admission is free of charge, entrance to this exhibition is $5. Free-access times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, the first Fridays of every month from 6 – 10 pm, and the second weekend of each month (Saturday from 10am – 5pm and Sunday from Noon – 5pm). For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, please see bit.ly/VisitPhxArt.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact Phoenix Art Museum’s Marketing and Communications Office, at 602.257.2105 or email margaree.bigler@phxart.org. To download media images, please click here.

Related Programs

Push Pull Performance

March 22 | 5 – 7:30 pm (Circles Opening)

March 23 | Noon – 2 pm (Members’ Day), 6 – 7:30 pm (Upper Level Members’ Opening)

March 24 | Noon – 2 pm (Opening Day)

Push Pull features giant masses of saltwater taffy dangling from specially fabricated stainless steel hooks. Performers at various stations push and pull the taffy in a continuous movement to generate continually morphing sculptures. In collaboration with Kreëmart, the artist handpicks the various taffies, each with a different color and flavor. Visitors are invited to receive pieces of each sculpture, tasting the results of this collective labor—a literal way of “consuming” the work of art. These undulating sculptures may suggest the atmosphere of carnival; Soares here explores the connotations of sugar as a catalyst for desire and excess.


Logan Lecture Series: Valeska Soares

March 21 | 6:30 pm 

As part of the Logan Lecture Series, Valeska Soares will be in person at the Museum to speak about her work in the context of the exhibition, Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now.  Tickets are free for Museum Members and $5 for non-Members. Space is limited. For more details, please visit the Museum’s online calendar.

Members’ Preview Day

March 23 | 10 am – 5 pm

Phoenix Art Museum Members are invited to preview the exhibition before it opens to the public.

Opening Day

March 24 | 10 am – 5 pm

Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now opens to the public.

College Night

March 28 | 6 – 9 pm

Calling all students! Enjoy a night just for higher-ed students at Phoenix Art Museum. See Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now for free, and take advantage of a discounted $2 student ticket (please bring your ID) to see the special exhibition, Iris Van Herpen Transforming Fashion. There will also be music provided by local DJs, on-site food trucks, art-making workshops led by the Creative Fellows from ASU’s Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts, and art by ASU Barrett Honors College students on view in the Museum’s Wilde Plaza.

Artist’s Choice: Valeska Soares Film Series

April 8, May 20, June 24 | 2 pm

Join us for a series of films, chosen by the artist herself, that have influenced Soares’ approach and illustrate parallels to her artistic practice. Film selections will be announced soon.

Discount Tire Free Family Weekend May: Wonder

May 12 | 12:30, 1:30, 2:30

May 13 | 12:30, 1:30, 2:30

Movement artist Julie Akerly draws inspiration from Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now in an interactive performance for visitors of all ages and skill levels. Akerly has an MFA in Dance and Interdisciplinary Media and Performance from Arizona State University. She is co-founder of [nueBOX], a residency program that supports artists creating experimental, collaborative, and research-based work in Arizona.

About Valeska Soares

Valeska Soares received her BA in Architecture at the University Santa Ursula in Rio de Janeiro in 1987 and her MA in History of Art and Architecture at the Pontificia Universidade Católica, Rio de Janeiro in 1990. She began her career as a professional artist exhibiting in Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, and São Paulo. Soares’ unique vision has earned her inclusion in numerous international exhibitions, including two Venice Biennales (2011, 2005), several São Paulo Biennials (2009, 1998, 1994), the Sharjah Biennial (2009), the Taipei Biennal (2006), the Liverpool Biennial (2004), inSITE San Diego/Tijuana (2000-01), and the Havana Biennial (1991). Her pieces are included in museum collections belonging to the Tate Modern (London), the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, D.C.), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Daros Foundation (Zurich), and the Inhotim Centro de Arte Contemporânea (Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil), among many others. For more information about the artist, please visit valeskasoares.net.

About Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA

Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA was a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles that took place from September 2017 through January 2018. Led by the Getty, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA was a collaboration of arts institutions across Southern California. Through a series of thematically linked exhibitions and programs, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA highlighted different aspects of Latin American and Latino art from the ancient world to the present day. With topics such as luxury arts in the pre-Columbian Americas, 20th century Afro-Brazilian art, alternative spaces in Mexico City, and boundary-crossing practices of Latino artists, exhibitions ranged from monographic studies of individual artists to broad surveys that cut across numerous countries. Initiated through $16 million in grants from the Getty Foundation, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA involved more than 70 cultural institutions from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, and from San Diego to Santa Barbara. Pacific Standard Time is an initiative of the Getty. The presenting sponsor was Bank of America. For further information, please visit pacificstandardtime.org.

About the Santa Barbara Museum of Art

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is a privately funded, not-for-profit institution that presents internationally recognized collections and exhibitions and a broad array of cultural and educational activities as well as travel opportunities around the world.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for more than 50 years and is the largest art museum in the Southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visitphxart.org, or call the 24-hour recorded information line at 602.257.1222.

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