Not a mirage: the rapidly growing Phoenix metropolitan area, which includes the towns of Scottsdale and Tempe, has become a substantial venue for contemporary art - Report From Arizona

Art in America, Dec, 2002 by Raphael Rubinstein

Sited on the grounds of the Mayo Clinic, amid cacti, paloverdes and desert flowers, as well as on the terraces and paths where patients stroll, were sculptures by 19 well-known artists. If a number of the works fit into the most conventional parameters of public sculpture--painted metal sculptures by Calder and Nevelson, a bronze by Joel Shapiro, a stainless-steel piece by Frank Stella--there were also some surprises, including Dennis Oppenheim's hilarious Marriage Tree (2000), in which differently scaled fiberglass figures perform a surrealist balancing act and, at the other end of the emotional spectrum, Robert Longo's A Tale Told by an Idiot (1990), a somber, sentinel-like, 10-foot-high bronze of a furled black flag.

Bordering Scottsdale on the south is Tempe, a city of about 150,000 that has long been subsumed in the voraciously expanding Phoenix metropolitan area. While Tempe has no gallery scene like Scottsdale's, it does boast the single most impressive venue for contemporary art in the state, the Arizona State University Art Museum. The museum is housed, along with the university's departments of theater and dance, in the 50,000-square-foot Nelson Fine Arts Center, which is a 1989 low-lying, multi-terraced structure designed by architect Antoine Predock. The collection, now including some 10,000 objects, began in 1950, when a local lawyer named Oliver B. James donated 149 works of American and Mexican art, including paintings by Audubon, Ryder and Hassam. In the 1970s, recognizing that it couldn't afford to collect major examples of historic American art, the museum decided to concentrate its collecting in prints and American crafts. Since 1992, when Marilyn A. Zeitlin became director, the museum has expanded its acquisitions to include contemporary art, with a special focus on Latin America. Apart from her curatorial activities at ASU, where she has organized politically charged exhibitions such as "Contemporary Art from Cuba: Irony and Survival on the Utopian Island" (1998) and "Art Under Duress: El Salvador 1980-Present" (1994), Zeitlin is probably best known for selecting Bill Viola to represent the U.S. at the 1996 Venice Biennale [see A.i.A., Sept. '95]. (Following the Biennale, Viola's Venice installation traveled to ASU and other U.S. museums.) One reason for Zeitlin's success is her ability to involve collectors, through membership on the museum's advisory board and as lenders and donators of art works. Two recent exhibitions, one devoted to William Kentridge and another, titled "Rhapsody," of work by African-American artists, consisted solely of pieces from local private collections, thus attesting to the depth of Phoenix-area art buying.

With its ample space and curatorial strength, ASU usually has something worthwhile on view. During one visit earlier this year, I saw three compelling shows as well as a selection of interesting works from the permanent collection that ranged from an early Asger Jorn painting to a mixed-medium work by the Cuban team Los Carpinteros. The exhibition "Topsy Turvy: Sculpture by Alison Saar" presented 10 works made during the past decade by the well-known Los Angeles-based artist. Combining carved-wood forms with found objects, Saar creates subtly crafted, formally arresting sculptures that explore the African-American experience. Another aspect of Saar's work is the way it takes advantage of various modes of presentation. The ASU show, which was curated by Heather Lineberry, included works suspended from the ceiling, mounted on the wall, sitting on the floor and placed on pedestals.