Plot Thickens in Colorado Censorship Row as Artist—and Her Subjects—Speak Out
A Denver museum’s alleged act of censorship is stirring national debate, as stakeholders clash over who gets to tell the story—and who gets heard.
November 11, 2025
Lynn Trimble
Tongue Firmly in Cheek, Safwat Saleem’s Unrequited Love Institute Counters the “Otherness” at the Heart of Xenophobia
Safwat Saleem uses satire to share his experiences as an immigrant father living with cultural assimilation and loss in the 2024 Arizona Artist Awards exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum.
November 06, 2025
Places Planted in the Mind: Jorge Ruiz Brings Together Cross-Border Towns, in Miniature
Jorge Ruiz intertwines Tucson and Nogales in his exhibition at Arizona's Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures. His "imperfect" process is grueling.
October 28, 2025
Southwest Labyrinth: Your Underground Guide to the Region’s Mural Scene
Quest through this five-state guide to the most mercurial art field, featuring insider tips on essential Southwest murals, from alleyways to art districts.
October 21, 2025
Fall Road Trip: The Art Season is Just Starting in Arizona
Arizona's art scene heats up when the weather cools down. Chart a fall road trip through every must-see show, festival, and art experience.
September 23, 2025
Could Rejecting State Art Grants Be the New Anti-Trump Resistance?
As Trump “reviews” the Smithsonian and NEA rules shift, New Mexico arts groups are weighing whether to reject state grants tied to federal funding.
September 18, 2025
What’s Up With Phoenix’s Latest Gallery Scene Shuffle?
Change is afoot in the metro Phoenix gallery scene due to closures, mergers, and redevelopment plans.
September 11, 2025
Studio VisitArizonaVol. 12 Obsession
Gloria Martinez-Granados: Borderless Creative
Working in her Phoenix studio, artist Gloria Martinez-Granados creates works countering the nation’s anti-immigrant obsession.
September 05, 2025
ReviewArizonaVol. 12 Obsession
Rasquachismo and Resilience: Ya Hecho Transforms Found Objects into Borderland Narratives
Artists working along the U.S.-Mexico border bring the rasquachismo aesthetic to Ya Hecho: Readymade in the Borderlands as the U.S. government escalates its anti-immigrant stance.
September 05, 2025
Peek Inside Mysterious Southwest Land Artworks You May Never Visit
From James Turrell’s Roden Crater in Arizona to Charles Ross’s Star Axis in New Mexico, some Southwest land art is stubbornly elusive.
August 14, 2025
An Artist Who Braids Cultures, from the Porcelain Trade to Beyoncé
Jennifer Ling Datchuk's live-wire practice is rooted in ceramics but branches into performance, installation—and biting cultural critique.
July 24, 2025
Is There “Life on Mars?” This Exhibition Makes the Case for Focusing on Earth
In a David Bowie–inspired show in Scottsdale, Steven J. Yazzie and Erika Lynne Hanson confront earthly disillusionment through landscape-based abstraction.
July 17, 2025
Modern Nature: The Contemporary Art Guide to Southwest Botanical Gardens
Southwest botanical gardens have reshaped their grounds as living museums for stunning—and challenging—contemporary art. Discover seven culture-filled desert oases.
July 03, 2025
An Artist Who Unearths Layers of History, and Stacks Them Again
Informed by his family history, Dean Terasaki uses activist imagery and charged ephemera—including postcards from Japanese American internment camps—to send a present-day "warning."
May 27, 2025
Amid Breathtaking NEA Cuts, Southwest Arts Organizations are Reeling—and Rallying Support
The Trump administration's shadowy National Endowment for the Arts grant retractions have Southwest arts organizations banding together to track the cuts and gather supporters.
May 15, 2025
Shepard Fairey Unveils His First Arizona Mural in a City That Tried to Censor His Work
Shepard Fairey was nearly censored at the Mesa Arts Center. He's back with a monumental artwork—and thoughts on police power, fascism, and art as a "counterwind."
April 24, 2025
A New Art Fair Debuts in the Southwest—Is It a Hit or a Miss?
Local artists and gallerists weigh in on Scottsdale Ferrari Art Week’s debut—and its efforts to bust regional stereotypes and elevate the Southwest on a global stage.
April 03, 2025
An Artist Who Tends the Earth—and then Sculpts It
Arizona-based artist Farraday Newsome's studio extends into her high-desert garden, sprouting ideas for intricate ceramics about nature's self-perpetuating systems.
March 24, 2025
Are an Arizona Museum’s Changes to Transfeminisms Exhibition “Violent” or Pragmatic?
The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art made last-minute revisions to a traveling show of women, queer, and trans artists. Museum leadership and a co-curator differ on what happened.
March 13, 2025
Field ReportArizonaTravelVol. 11 The Hyperlocal
Field Report: Eclectic Metro Phoenix
Some of best art offerings in metro Phoenix happen off the beaten path. Here’s our eclectic Phoenix art guide.
March 07, 2025
Tempe Artists Seek Answers Amid Alternative Art Space Redevelopment
The City of Tempe says there are no plans to demolish DIY arts hub Danelle Plaza, but the mayor is sending different signals. Local artists are demanding clarity.
February 04, 2025
Keith Haring’s City-Spanning Phoenix Takeover Almost Didn’t Happen
Keith Haring was a Phoenix teacher's second choice for a 1986 art workshop, but the invite made a major mark on the city.
January 14, 2025
Ditch Amazon and Support Local Artists with Our Southwest Holiday Gift Guide
E-commerce has nothing on these holiday shopping experiences at galleries, museums, and community art spaces in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Utah.
November 26, 2024
Former Curator of Mesa Art Museum Files Federal Lawsuit Alleging Censorship and Discrimination
Tiffany Fairall, former chief curator of Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum in Arizona, sues the City of Mesa in the aftermath of censorship allegations.
November 05, 2024
“This is our power”: Afrofuturists Imagine Radical Futures in Reclaiming Hope: Afrofuturist Visions
Black artists imagine radical futures through hope, healing, and history in Reclaiming Hope: Afrofuturist Visions.
October 29, 2024
Scientists Are “Speaking to the Masses” with Help from Artists in Two Contrasting Phoenix Exhibitions
The traveling exhibition ARX3 pairs artists and scientists, while Brains and Beauty at SMoCA draws on neuroaesthetics, to visualize transformative research.
October 10, 2024
ArtistsTexasVol. 10 Radical Futures
Bonny Leibowitz: Radical Futures
Texas-based artist Bonny Leibowitz creates hybridized installations of natural and manufactured materials that reflect the impacts of isolation, environmental degradation, and human conflict.
September 06, 2024
ArtistsArizonaVol. 10 Radical Futures
Tra Bouscaren: Radical Futures
Tra Bouscaren blends critiques of waste culture with "dark beauty" in maximalist installations that speak to 21st-century paranoia.
September 06, 2024
ReviewArizonaVol. 10 Radical Futures
Feminist Theory and a Family Trucking Business Inform Fay Ray’s New Visions of the Borderlands in PORTALS
PORTALS at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson in Arizona features new works by California-based artist Fay Ray, who imagines radical futures in the Sonoran Desert and Southwest borderlands.
September 06, 2024
At SMoCA, Carolina Aranibar-Fernández Uses Soil, Sequins, and Blood to Explore the Impacts of Global Trade
California-based artist Carolina Aranibar-Fernández explores colonization, extraction, and exploitation in the Southwest in her exhibition Oleaje at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art in Arizona.
July 30, 2024
