PHOENIX (April 22, 2026) – This summer, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) will present the acclaimed art installation The Instrument of Troubled Dreams by Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller to Arizona audiences for the first time. Internationally recognized Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller are known for their immersive multimedia sound installations and audio and video walking tours that invite visitor engagement and sensory engagement. Created in 2019, The Instrument of Troubled Dreams is an interactive, room-sized audio installation featuring a modified 1960s Mellotron MK II keyboard, 23 speakers, and chairs. Museum visitors are invited to sit and play the instrument, experiencing a range of music, vocal tracks, and background sounds. The Instrument of Troubled Dreams will be on view in the Marshall Gallery at PhxArt from June 13, 2026 through May 2028.

“The Instrument of Troubled Dreams reflects the Museum’s ongoing commitment to bringing more immersive, experiential art into our galleries,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This installation by the internationally recognized artists known for their immersive multimedia sound installations and audio/video walks is a rare opportunity for our community to experience how their work harnesses sound to forge connection, spark memory, and create powerful, story-driven moments grounded in both personal and collective experience.”

Born in small rural towns in Canada, Janet Cardiff (b. 1957) and George Bures Miller (b. 1960) have collaborated for more than 35 years. Working with sound and new media technologies—including film, robotics, and advanced audio-recording techniques—they create immersive, interactive installations that explore memory, narrative, space, and time. Their video installation The Berlin Files (2003) was featured in the Museum’s 2006 exhibition Constructing New Berlin, the first major survey of contemporary art produced in post-Wall Berlin. The Instrument of Troubled Dreams marks the second presentation of their work at Phoenix Art Museum and the Arizona premiere of this particular installation.

To engage with the work, Museum visitors are invited to sit at a modified 1960s Mellotron keyboard and become active participants in The Instrument of Troubled Dreams. Each of the instrument’s 72 keys has been programmed to trigger a distinct sound, musical phrase, or vocal track, ranging from a raven flying through the gallery to soldiers searching through an apartment to a carnival ensemble on a barge floating past onlookers. As visitors improvise on the keyboard, they will arrange a distinct audio odyssey, composing unexpected and vivid soundtracks that evoke narratives that are forever shifting.

“Cardiff & Miller transform sound into a storytelling medium,” said Christian Ramírez, the Museum’s Cohn Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art and Director of Engagement. “As visitors activate the installation, layers of music, voices, and environmental sounds unfold in real time, creating cinematic audio landscapes that shift with every choice. The work invites audiences to step inside a constantly evolving narrative shaped by listening, memory, and participation.”

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller’s The Instrument of Troubled Dreams is on loan to PhxArt from the collection of Diane and Bruce Halle, longtime supporters of contemporary art and lenders of Carlos Amorales’ Black Cloud, also on view in the Museum’s Greenbaum Lobby and John Morrell Promenade.

About the Installation

Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller’s The Instrument of Troubled Dreams is on loan from the Diane and Bruce Halle Collection.

Contemporary art exhibitions and projects are made possible in part by the Rob Walton, Jordan Rose, and Rose Law Group Fund for Contemporary Art. 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 and youth aged 5 and younger. 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 – 8 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix, with additional support by Arizona Community Foundation. 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 press@phxart.org or kaylee.weyrauch@phxart.org.

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, a monthly live-music series, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller

Canadian artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller live and work in British Columbia. They are internationally recognized for their immersive multimedia sound installations and their audio and video walks. Their work has been shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Monterrey, Mexico (2019); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2018); the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, Japan (2017); the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2017); ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark (2015); the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2015); the Menil Collection, Houston (2015); the 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); the Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013); and Documenta 13, Kassel, Germany (2012). In 2011, they received Germany’s Käthe Kollwitz Prize. In 2001, they represented Canada at the 49th Venice Biennale, where they received the Premio Speciale and the Benesse Prize.

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“We are pleased to welcome Caroline Kent this March as part of our ongoing Lenhardt Lecture series, made possible through the generosity of the Lenhardt family,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “Through her exploration of language and abstraction, Kent helps redefine what it means to communicate in a global society. Her practice challenges us to see beyond what’s familiar to us, inspiring dialogue and transformation. The spring Lenhardt Lecture is a rare opportunity to hear firsthand how art can challenge boundaries and allows visitors to gain insight into Kent’s process and vision.”

Kent, an associate professor in the Art, Theory, and Practice department at Northwestern University, was born in Sterling, Illinois in 1975, earning a Bachelor of Arts from Illinois State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota. From 2000 to 2002, she lived in Alba Iulia, Romania, as a Peace Corps volunteer. Kent’s work explores the limits of language and the process of translation through an expanded painting practice. Developed through an open-ended archive of improvisational works on paper, her paintings built from this context take multiple forms, including drawings, sculpture, and performance. She labors to expand the discourse of modernist abstraction by questioning how language operates in unknown and ever-evolving conditions. Her work moves from surface and frame to environment and architecture through acts of translation from one medium to the next. 

Over the past few years, Kent’s practice has evolved into a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, a total art form, articulating space, matter, and time through architecture, objects, and performance. Past exhibitions have included movement-based troupes and dancers who built choreography from the forms of specific artworks, becoming full-space installations. Wooden shapes extend beyond the paintings, cornices and walls bend to buttress portals, and the vocabulary of forms has begun to produce a choreography for bodies navigating these new worlds. The production of objects has shifted from a conflation of perception tied to a particular time and place to an unfolding universe of becoming. Bringing forms from within the painting to the outside is a simultaneous act of translation and transformation. Kent’s work suggests that an abstract language beckons a context that speaks to other material and immaterial forms in the world.

“Dawn and I are so pleased to welcome Caroline Kent as this spring’s Lenhardt Lecture speaker,” said David Lenhardt, vice chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “Kent’s work makes us consider ways to think differently and connect more deeply. We believe that her voice will inspire attendees to see the power of creativity in building bridges and broadening communication.  

In addition to her presentation at Phoenix Art Museum, Kent will visit with students, local artists and creatives to provide mentorship. This educational and community-based work is another component of the Lenhardt Lectures and enables lecture speakers to give back and engage with Arizona-based creatives in various capacities.

For more information about the Lenhardt Lecture series or for high-resolution images, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at press@phxart.org.

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, a monthly live-music series, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About the David and Dawn Lenhardt Lecture and the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative 

The David and Dawn Lenhardt Lecture engages Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world. In 2018, the inaugural lecture presented New-York based artist Jim Hodges, and subsequent lectures have featured artists Shara Hughes, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Arcmanoro Niles, Teresita Fernández in conversation with Amalia Mesa-Bains, Derek Fordjour, Rashid Johnson, Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe in conversation with Larry Ossei-Mensah, Leonardo Drew, Charles Gaines in conversation with Thelma Golden and Adam Pendelton in conversation with Dr. Adrienne Edwards.

The Lenhardt Lecture is a key component of the David and Dawn Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Made possible through the generosity of the Arizona-based Lenhardt family, the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative was established in 2017 to deepen the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art through various programs, namely the Lenhardt Lectures, which engage Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world; the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, which enables Phoenix Art Museum to collect works by contemporary artists; and the Dawn and David Lenhardt Gallery, designated for the presentation of contemporary art, including works acquired with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative, loans from national and local collectors, and a rotating series of artworks from the Lenhardts’ own collection. In 2021, the initiative was expanded to support the diversification of the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition of works by artists contributing to discourses on race, gender, and other socially relevant concerns, including those by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women artists, among others. Since 2017, the Museum has acquired artworks by Shara Hughes, Arcmanoro Niles, Derek Fordjour, Rashid Johnson, and Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. 

About Caroline Kent

Caroline Kent, an associate professor in the Art, Theory, and Practice department at Northwestern University, was born in Sterling, Illinois in 1975, earning a Bachelor of Arts from Illinois State University and a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota. From 2000 to 2002, she lived in Alba Iulia, Romania, as a Peace Corps volunteer. Kent’s work explores the limits of language and the process of translation through an expanded painting practice. Developed through an open-ended archive of improvisational works on paper, her paintings built from this context take multiple forms, including drawings, sculpture, and performance. She labors to expand the discourse of modernist abstraction by questioning how language operates in unknown and ever-evolving conditions. Her work moves from surface and frame to environment and architecture through acts of translation from one medium to the next. 

A 2025 USA Fellow and recipient of the Aspen Arts Prize for innovation in painting, Kent has received grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and Jerome Foundation. Additionally, she was a 2020 Artadia Chicago Awardee and a 2021 Joyce Alexander Wein Prize recipient from the Studio Museum in Harlem. Her recent exhibitions include La Trienal at El Museo del Barrio, New York City and Ancestral at the Museum of Brazilian Art (M.A.B.), São Paulo, Brazil. Kent has showcased her work at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, MoMA, MCA Chicago, the New Orleans Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, Hill Art Foundation, BAMPFA, the Queens Museum, and the Walker Art Center.

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Cara Romero, Alika No. 2, 2024, archival pigment print. © Cara Romero. Image courtesy of the artist.

PHOENIX, AZ (December 9, 2025) – In early 2026, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) will present the landmark exhibition Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light), the first major museum exhibition dedicated solely to the artist’s evocative work. Romero blends fine art and editorial styles to challenge dominant narratives of Indigenous decline and erasure while disrupting preconceived notions about what it means to be a Native American. Organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) features more than 60 iconic large-scale photographs spanning a decade of the artist’s career, including a new, never-before-exhibited work commissioned by PhxArt to be created by Cara Romero—a project based in regional, collaborative storytelling with Native peoples. Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) will be on view at PhxArt from February 28 through June 28, 2026.

“Phoenix Art Museum is profoundly honored to debut Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) during this historic moment for the institution, as we expand our commitment to presenting the most innovative voices shaping contemporary art today,” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “Romero stands at the forefront of contemporary photography, masterfully weaving materials, myths, and Indigenous practices with urgent contemporary realities. Though rooted in her personal story and Indigenous futurism, her work speaks universally to themes of women’s empowerment, environmental stewardship, and the role of landscape in shaping identity. This exhibition represents a milestone for our communities to experience the work of a groundbreaking artist with deep cultural and historical ties to the Desert Southwest.” 

Cara Romero (b. 1977; Chemehuevi/American) is a renowned photographer known for dramatic fine-art photography that examines Indigenous life in contemporary contexts. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero was raised between the contrasting settings of the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, California, and the urban sprawl of Houston, Texas. Informed by her identity, Romero’s visual storytelling represents Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, countering dominant narratives of Native American experiences and showcasing the diversity within Indigenous nations and communities. 

“Having a contemporary photography exhibit at Phoenix Art Museum marks a radical turn in my journey as a Native American female photographer,” said Cara Romeo. “I am excited for the work to be integrated into an American Art museum as an intercultural conversation– I’m especially excited that PhxArt is the closest major American Art institution to my homelands on the Chemehuevi Valley Indian Reservation. 

This is my first solo exhibition touring the United States, and Phoenix is the second of four venues. It feels like such an epic venue for this exhibition. My hope is that together, we open people’s minds to the many fascinating diversities of Native people and stories.”

The exhibition’s title, Panûpünüwügai, translates to “living light,” and has multiple meanings: the spirit of light, the way light interacts with human beings, and how both light and people are enlivened through these interactions. Featured works, including site-specific installations and large-scale photographs, are organized across five thematic sections: 

California Desert and Mythos draws inspiration from Romero’s experiences of growing up in the Chemehuevi Valley in Southeastern California along the Colorado River, which shaped her worldview and work. Throughout this section, visitors encounter four young boys who represent not only themselves, but also time-traveling spirit beings of the landscape, reminding audiences that neither time nor the rich ecological and social history of the Mojave Desert are linear. 

In (Re)Imagining Americana Drawing, Romero upends stereotypical images and stories from pop culture and mass media that often define Native-American experiences and opportunities. Working with various collaborators to produce the works featured in this section, Romero riffs on images of American Girl dolls and Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, among other mainstream imagery. 

Rematriation: Empowering Indigenous Women showcases images that position female subjects in spaces of power. Created from a maternal and biographical perspective, these works are informed by the women leaders Romero has encountered in her own life and community. 

Environmental Racism spotlights some of Romero’s most memorable images, speaking to historical and contemporary issues of resource extraction and its impacts on indigenous ecosystems. These photographic dreamscapes—many of which were created underwater—encourage reflection on the relationships among humanity, place, the landscape, and extractive economies.

Throughout Ancestral Futures, Romero’s otherworldly images speculate on playful contexts but assert the sacred role of ancestral knowledges and place-based intelligences in building healthy futures, not only for Indigenous peoples, but for everyone. These works are informed by the artist’s love of magical realism and center narratives such as the life-giving power of women, the intelligence of corn, and the importance of telling stories that are both complicated and hopeful. Within this section, viewers will encounter the introduction of a newly commissioned work that Romero will create by drawing on her relationships with Indigenous community members from the Phoenix region. They will be invited to collaborate on a monumental photographic work that interweaves elements and imagery of desert ecology with the notion of nonlinear time, yielding a piece that will honor ancestors and their deep knowledge of the land while asserting the vitality of Native-American communities now and into the future. Following its debut in the PhxArt presentation of Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light), the work will become a part of the Museum’s permanent collection numbering more than 21,000 objects, building upon the institution’s existing strength in contemporary photographic portraiture. 

“Cara Romero is one of the leading image-makers of our time,” said Emilia Mickevicius, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography at Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography, who coordinated the exhibition’s presentation at PhxArt. “I’m eager for our audiences to connect with her practice and unique storytelling through this immersive, captivating installation.” 

The exhibition curated by Jami Powell, PhD, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art at the Hood Museum of Art and is accompanied by a catalogue co-published by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and Radius Books. The publication features contributions by Jami Powell, notable scholars including Suzan Shown Harjo (Mvskoke), former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Mvskoke), and Jordan Poorman Cocker (Kiowa and Tongan), Curator of Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, among others. The catalogue will be available at the Phoenix Art Museum Store.

For high-resolution photography for Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) or to request interviews, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum kaylee.weyrauch@phxart.org or press@phxart.org.   

About the Exhibition

Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light) is organized by the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, and curated by Jami Powell, PhD, Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of Indigenous Art at the Hood Museum of Art. It is generously supported by leadership gifts from Claire Foerster and Daniel S. Bernstein, Thomas A. and Georgina T. Russo, and support from the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Charles Gilman Family Endowment, and a gift from Karen Miller Nearburg and Charles Nearburg. The exhibition’s presentation at Phoenix Art Museum is coordinated by Emilia Mickevicius, PhD, the Norton Family Assistant Curator of Photography. Its Phoenix premiere is made possible by the Carl and Marilynn Thoma Foundation, Every Page Foundation, and John and Lois Rogers. Additional support provided by Prime Steak Concepts. Contemporary art exhibitions and projects are made possible in part by the Rob Walton, Jordan Rose, and Rose Law Group Fund for Contemporary Art. 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 and youth aged five and younger. 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 – 8 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix and First Fridays from 5 – 8 pm, made possible by APS and Lexus, with additional support from Arizona Community Foundation.  For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

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, a monthly live-music series, and more for the community. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

About Cara Romero 

Cara Romero, b. 1977, Inglewood, Calif. (American / Chemehuevi), is an artist known for dramatic fine art photography that examines Indigenous life in contemporary contexts. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero was raised between contrasting settings: the rural Chemehuevi reservation in Mojave Desert, California, and the urban sprawl of Houston, Texas. Informed by her identity, Romero’s visceral approach to representing Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural memory, collective history, and lived experiences results in a blending of fine art and editorial styles. Maintaining a studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Romero regularly participates in Native American art fairs and panel discussions and was featured on PBS’s Craft in America in 2019. Her award-winning work is included in numerous public and private collections, domestically and internationally, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, Amon Carter Museum, Peabody Essex Museum, and Forge Project Collections, among others. Romero travels between Santa Fe and the Chemehuevi Valley Indian Reservation, where she maintains close ties to her tribal community and ancestral homelands.

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PHOENIX (September 15, 2021) – On October 27, 2021, Phoenix Art Museum will present internationally renowned artist Derek Fordjour as the speaker for the Museum’s fall Lenhardt Lecture, a key component of the Dawn and David Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Fordjour is renowned for his large-scale paintings, sculptures, and installations that examine the power, performance, vulnerabilities, and martyrdom inherent in the Black experience. The 2021 Lenhardt Lecture featuring the New York-based artist coincides with the recent acquisition of the artist’s large-scale painting The Futility of Achievement (2020), which will be on view this fall in the Museum’s Katz Wing for Modern Art and is the first artwork acquired with funds from the newly expanded Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. This year’s Lenhardt Lecture will be presented at 6:30 pm on October 27, 2021 both in-person at Phoenix Art Museum and virtually over Zoom. Tickets are complimentary and can be reserved here. In-person seating will be limited, and face masks are strongly encouraged. To view the Museum’s most up-to-date COVID-19 visitor policies, visit phxart.org/visit/. 

“We are very excited to welcome Derek Fordjour as the speaker for the Museum’s Lenhardt Lecture this fall,” said Mark Koenig, the Interim Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “We are deeply grateful to Dawn and David Lenhardt, whose ongoing generosity and landmark initiative has made it possible for the Museum to expose the Valley community to today’s most acclaimed artists including Derek Fordjour. We encourage our community to attend the lecture to learn more about Fordjour’s deeply important work and experience a poignant example that we are now thrilled to feature in the Phoenix Art Museum collection.”

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, to parents of Ghanaian heritage and now based in New York, Derek Fordjour creates multilayered and materially diverse works. His large-scale paintings, sculptures, and more often center Black athletes, performers, and others who play key roles in cultural rituals to highlight the futility of exceptionalism and underscore the ways in which competition, sporting, and other rules-based systems can lead to tokenism, gender inequality, and further systemic inequity for marginalized communities.

“For several years now, we have witnessed an incredible moment in which Black figurative art has dominated the cultural landscape,” said Gilbert Vicario, curator of modern and contemporary art at Phoenix Art Museum. “Derek Fordjour’s work both celebrates and interrogates the aesthetic, psychological, and political nuances of Black life in the United States through an inventive artistic practice that employs elements of collage and painting. Using materials such as cardboard and newspaper, Fordjour builds up layers of color and surface onto the canvas and then cuts into them to reveal colorful substrates that add a textural and emotional element to his compositions.”

A graduate of Morehouse College, Fordjour earned a Master’s degree in art education from Harvard University and an MFA in painting at Hunter College. His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Nasher Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Reviews and features on his work have appeared in The New York Times, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Hyperallergic, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and Forbes Magazine, among many others. His work is in several private and public collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Dallas Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and LACMA.

“Dawn and I are very pleased to welcome Derek Fordjour as the next speaker for the Lenhardt Lecture,” said David Lenhardt, vice chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. “Fordjour’s process and approach to art-making create layers of meaning, resulting in powerful works that encourage viewers to engage with the defining social issues of our time. We were honored to help Phoenix Art Museum acquire Fordjour’s work The Futility of Achievement, which further diversifies the Museum’s contemporary art collection and exposes our community to art that speaks to and challenges narratives surrounding social equity and equality. We can think of no better way to celebrate the recent expansion of the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative than by welcoming Fordjour to Phoenix this October.”

Fordjour’s large-scale painting The Futility of Achievement (2020) is the first work acquired into the Museum’s collection with funds from the newly reimagined Lenhardt Contemporary Art initiative, which seeks to diversify the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition of works by artists contributing to discourses on race, gender, and other socially relevant concerns, including those by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women artists, among others. The Futility of Achievement was previously featured in SELF MUST DIE at Petzel Gallery in New York City, a solo exhibition that explored anxieties surrounding hyper-visible racial violence and contrasted the inevitability of actual death—made more urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic—with the aspirational death of the artist’s ego. The work (pictured above) will be on view this fall in the Museum’s Marshall and Hendler Galleries in the lower level of the Katz Wing for Modern Art.

Fordjour is the upcoming speaker for the fall Lenhardt Lecture, which was inaugurated in 2018 as part of the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Previous speakers include internationally renowned artists Jim Hodges, Shara Hughes, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Arcmanoro Niles, and Teresita Fernández in conversation with Amalia Mesa-Bains. In addition to diversifying the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum, the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative increases access to major, international artists working today for the broader Phoenix community. For more information about the Lenhardt Lecture or the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2105 or samantha.andreacchi@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 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 the Dawn and David Lenhardt Lecture and the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative

The Dawn and David Lenhardt Lecture engages Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world. In 2018, the inaugural lecture presented New-York based artist Jim Hodges, and subsequent lectures have featured artists Shara Hughes, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Arcmanoro Niles, Teresita Fernández, and Amalia Mesa-Bains.

The Lenhardt Lecture is a key component of the Dawn and David Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative. Made possible through the generosity of the Arizona-based Lenhardt family, the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative was established in 2017 to deepen the Museum’s commitment to contemporary art through various programs, namely the Lenhardt Lectures, which engage Valley audiences with some of the most acclaimed contemporary artists in the world; the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Acquisition Fund, which enables Phoenix Art Museum to collect works by contemporary artists; and the Dawn and David Lenhardt Gallery, designated for the presentation of contemporary art, including works acquired with funds from the Lenhardt Contemporary Art Initiative, loans from national and local collectors, and a rotating series of artworks from the Lenhardts’ own collection. In 2021, the initiative was expanded to support the diversification of the contemporary art collection of Phoenix Art Museum through the acquisition of works by artists contributing to discourses on race, gender, and other socially relevant concerns, including those by Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and women artists, among others.

About Derek Fordjour

Derek Fordjour was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to parents of Ghanaian heritage. His work has been exhibited in numerous venues, including Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Nasher Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He has received commissions for public projects, including a permanent installation for Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York City at 145th Street Subway Station and The Whitney Museum Billboard Project. He was awarded the 2016 Sugarhill Museum Artist-in-Residence, the 2017 Sharpe Walentas Studio Program in New York City, and the 2018 Deutsche Bank NYFA Fellowship Award. Fordjour is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and earned a Master’s Degree in art education from Harvard University and an MFA in painting at Hunter College. His work has been reviewed in The New York Times, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and Hyperallergic. He has also been featured in several publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, and Forbes Magazine. He was recently appointed The Alex Katz Chair at Cooper Union and serves as a Core Critic at Yale University School of Art. His work also appears in several collections, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Brooklyn Museum, Pérez Art Museum Miami, Dallas Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, and LACMA.

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