ASU Art Museum
Bead Museum
Center for Creative Photography
Heard Museum
Mesa Arts Center
MOCA - Tucson
Phoenix Airport Museum
Phoenix Art Museum
SMoCA
Shemer
Tucson Museum of Art
West Valley Art Museum

Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting
September 20, 2008 - February 1, 2009

This provocative exhibition looks at the unorthodox ways contemporary artists from around the globe transform the age-old crafts of knitting and lace making. Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting features 27 artists from seven countries—and showcases this surprising field of creative practice. Works range from Althea Merback’s microknit garments to large-scale site-specific installations.

Radical reformers in the world of knitting and lacemaking have overthrown the status quo from the inside out. In the space of ten years, knitting has emerged from the "loving hands at home" hobbyist’s den into museums and galleries worldwide. Knitting clubs meet in cities from San Francisco to Stockholm, while interactive knitting "performances" have been held in as seemingly unlikely places as the London Underground. Artist Sabrina Gschwandtner turns the traditional knitting circle into a participatory event, in which museum visitors can use knitting to engage in a dialogue about war.

The artists in this exhibition experiment with forms and techniques in the most novel and surprising ways, as they explore new relationships between structure, design, color and pattern. Yoshiki Hishinuma uses industrial knitting machines to create three-dimensional sculptures, (see above artwork Casablanca) some of which are also wearable. Industrial designer Niels van Eijk used lace techniques to create a lamp of optical fibers. Many of the artists examine pressing contemporary issues of globalization and the environment, in addition to exploring personal questions of identity and sexuality. Cat Mazza’s Knitoscope is computer software that translates video images into "knitted" images to educate the public about sweatshop labor. Freddie Robins’s Craft Kills is a self-portrait that confounds our idea as craft as a passive activity.

This exhibition will be accompanied by a wide array of public programs designed to highlight the importance of domestic craft and the creative potential therein explored by today’s contemporary artists.

Organized by the Museum of Art and Design, New York

above, Yoshiki Hishinuma, Casablanca, 2005 (from Hishinuma’s autumn-winter 2005 collection), wool seamless knitwear, H. 27 ½ in., W. 29 ½ in. © Yoshiki Hishinuma.

 

 

Pedro Meyer's Heresies
October 5, 2008 - January 18, 2009

From his early days as a photo-journalist and documentarian, the esteemed Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer tested the boundaries of truth, fiction and reality. He was among the first photographers in the world to embrace digital photography and to begin manipulating digital imagery in the early 1990s. This retrospective exhibition of his groundbreaking artwork is equally experimental: Meyer coordinated this project to occur concurrently at 60 museums around the world, from Brazil to Croatia to China. SMoCA is the only venue in the Southwest.

Organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Guest-curated by Lara Taubman.
Related public programs guest-curated by April Bojorquez.
Sponsored by Kathy and Stephen Woodward; an anonymous donor; Alice and David Olsan and the SMoCA Salon

right, Pedro Meyer, Lay Sisters, 1991, from the series "Mixteca people," pigmented inkjet print, ca. 44 x 33 inches. © Pedro Meyer 2008 / from Pedro Meyer’s Heresies.

 

 

 

 

 

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Flip a Strip
October 5, 2008 - January 18, 2009

Strip malls define our streetscapes. Here, and in suburbs across the country, strip malls are a fact of life. They are the wallflowers of thousands of streetscapes that millions of people travel daily. To envision a new future for this lowly (yet overabundant) building stock, SMoCA initiated a national competition that resulted in this exhibition of innovative proposals by a total of 35 architectural teams from around the country, for flipping local strip malls in Scottsdale, Tempe and Phoenix. What potential might there be for live/work developments, urban farming, social spaces and signature architecture in the no-man’s land of the strip mall? Flip a Strip posits exciting opportunities to turn this suburban cliché inside out. The five top competition award winners will be announced at 7pm, in front of the Museum. For more information, visit the Flip a Strip website at www.flipastrip.org

Organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, with competition consultants Jones Kroloff.

Sponsored by the Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation and SmithGroup.

above, Marlene Imirzian & Associates Architects, Phoenix, diVert, (detail) Phoenix proposal site, Project Team: Marlene Imirzian, Helen Pierce, Sara Wheatcroft, Saori Yamane.

OCT 16 @ 6:30 p.m.: Free gallery talks in the Museum with several Flip a Strip architects moderated by Nan Ellin and Kimber Lanning.

NOV 5 @ 7:00 p.m.: Free lecture by author of Everyday Urbanism, John Kaliski, on the evolution of the mini-mall in Stage 2 Theater.

Free Lunchtime Brown Bag Lecture: "Lace: the History of a Single Thread" with Dennita Sewell
October 29, Noon Stage 2 Theater

Dennita Sewell, curator of fashion design, Phoenix Art Museum, will review the history of lace and fashion and its social implications in this noontime slide lecture. You’re invited to bring your antique lace to show other audience members following the talk. In conjunction with Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting. Free event. After the talk, be sure to visit the exhibition in the Museum next door and enjoy a lacemaking presentation with the Phoenix "Lacey Ladies" group from 1:00 - 3:00 p.m.