Start with the traditional, and make your way toward the obscure. This weekend, DevilPass wholeheartedly recommends it. Start with the family-friendly Best Fest in celebration of Arizona’s centennial and a reinterpretation of Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps before moving into some fresh photographic looks at the Arizona present at monOrchid gallery. If you’re ready for more, take a peek at the newest monumental work by local artist Matthew Moore at the Phoenix Art Museum, and the latest, most innovative orchestral indie from Parenthetical Girls at the Trunk Space. Finally, for the truly adventurous, race to the Alwun House for equal parts shock and sensuality, for the downtown arts institution’s Exotic Phantasmagorical Spectacular. Fun, we’d say!
And the Land Grew Quiet: New Work by Matthew Moore
- Wednesday, Feb. 15
- 7:00 p.m.
- Phoenix Art Museum: 1625 N. Central Ave.
- Getting there: Rail—Central Avenue and McDowell Street stop
- Price: Free lecture with $10 student museum admission
Recommended if you like: grand-scale land art, art as an idea, reinterpreting sprawl
For the past decade, Phoenix artist Matthew Moore has been redefining the way we view development in the contemporary world. Combining photography, land art, technology and rural-life experience, Moore has given people valuable insight into our changing relationship with the land through his work. He is best known for his Rotations: Moore Estates (2005-2006), for which he featured his family’s just-sold farm, and by the strategic planting of crops, replicated the housing development that was about to infringe on the generations-old plot of land. Through complex computer programming and photography from high above, Moore modeled the transformation about to occur on his family’s land in one-third scale with the land’s remaining sorghum. Then, in 2010, Moore received a Creative Capital grant and created the Digital Farm Collective, a series of time-lapse videos documenting the planting, growth and harvest of various crops, which was installed at the Sundance Film Festival. For his latest installation, Moore has evolved, this time examining development and nature in a more conceptual sense. At the Museum, the artist maps Arizona’s growth as a whole, and views the complex ways the state has dealt with nature. To kick off the exhibition, Moore will give a lecture on his artistic process and this latest body of work in the Museum’s Whiteman Hall.
The Forty Eighth: Contemporary Photography at Arizona’s Centennial
- Tuesday, Feb. 14
- 7:00 p.m.
- monOrchid: 214 E. Roosevelt St.
- Getting there: Walk—Third and Roosevelt streets
- Price: FREE
Recommended if you like: new views of Arizona, cutting-edge photography, an unconventional centennial
This week, Arizona will be full of centennial-related activity. You can attend any number of festivals or visit any number of businesses to experience their “centennial” deals. But at DevilPass, we encourage you to try something a little different. Curated by Phoenix photographers William LeGoullon and Jason Roehner, famed downtown gallery monOrchid will present Arizona as seen through a contemporary photographer’s lens. Rather than rehash the state’s traditional images of cowboys, suburbs and mountains, the curators sought to examine the state in a new, often metaphorical way. LeGoullon and Roehner purposefully chose a mix of Arizona natives, transplants and visitors for the exhibition, each bringing their own, unique view of the state. This showcase is all about the present, and with a roster of such favorites as Matthew Moore, Thomas Schultz and Tiffney Yazzie, the curators have not disappointed.
- Saturday & Sunday, Feb. 11 & 12
- 12:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. & 12:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
- Arizona State Capitol Building: 1700 W. Washington St.
- Getting there: Bike—17th Avenue and Washington Street
- Price: FREE
Recommended if you like: celebrating Phoenix, local legends, the best of the Valley
On Valentine’s Day, Arizona celebrates 100 years of statehood, and you can bet the state is putting on one heck of a party to celebrate. Taking over Wesley Bolin Plaza near the State Capitol, AZ 100 Years presents Best Fest, the final in a series of statewide events to showcase the past, present and future of the state. For the final Fest, the top public figures, businesses, musicians and artisans from across the state will come together to showcase the enormous breadth of culture, industry and history that Arizona has to offer. Both days will include Storytelling Theater from The Arizona Republic’s Storytellers Project, a Sports Pavilion sponsored by the Cardinals, Diamondbacks and Suns, AZ 100 Arts, a Family Fun Zone, live entertainment spread among eight stages and much more. Saturday, the main stage will be headlined by Sedona native Michelle Branch and local legends such as the Gin Blossoms. Then Sunday, world-famous bluesman George Benson will provide the premier entertainment, providing a more leisurely backdrop for the day’s events.
Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps
- Through Feb. 26
- Various times
- Herberger Theater Center: 222 E. Monroe St.
- Getting there: Walk—Second and Monroe streets
- Price: $32-$69
Recommended if you like: spy thrillers, classic shtick, Alfred Hitchcock
Based on Alfred Hitchcock’s movie classic and the novel by John Buchan, this play keeps the audience on its toes. Brought to Arizona by the Arizona Theatre Company, the show features just four actors portraying more than 150 characters, making for a madcap performance actively communicating the madness experienced by the play’s characters. Rather than a traditional spy story as told in the book and movie, the play works as a farce, with the cast working manically to tell the tale of British secret agent Richard Hannay. The agent begins the play in a theater, where he meets a girl who informs him that she is a spy being tracked by assassins. However, when Hannay awakes, the girl has been stabbed to death, thus forcing him into a daring journey to discover the truth. Praised by The New York Times as “Absurdly enjoyable,” the play takes pride in its “absurd”-ity, pushing both the cast and audience to thrilling and often laughable extremes.
Exotic Phantasmagorical Spectacular
- Friday, Feb. 10
- 7:00 p.m. Doors, 8:00 p.m. Show
- Alwun House: 1204 E. Roosevelt St.
- Getting there: Bike—12th and Roosevelt streets
- Price: $20 in advance at alwunhouse.org, $25 at the door
Recommended if you like: sensory overload, boundary-pushing spectacle, tradition meets innovation
For the past 28 years, the Alwun House has been pushing the fringes of taste and social taboos with its annual Exotic Art Show. Encompassing photography, sculpture, mixed-media, painting and much more, the show features at turns titillating and disturbing looks at sexuality and eroticism. Each year, the show is kicked off with the Phantasmagorical Spectacular, which pairs the eye-popping art with flashy performance, installations, and certainly people-watching. This latest edition of the Spectacular will be headlined by the ever-popular Valley burlesque troupe Provocatease, which is promising its most risqué performance yet. Throughout the night, entertainment will be spread through two floors of art and two stages of performance, including belly-dancing, live body painting, tribal dancing, DJs and live jazz from the Austen Mack Quartet, featuring members of long-running Valley progressive rockers Captain Squeegee. At the Alwun House this weekend, there will truly be no rest for the wicked, and that’s something for which all of the Spectacular’s attendees can be grateful.
- Monday, Feb. 13
- 7:30 p.m. Doors
- The Trunk Space: 1506 NW Grand Ave.
- Getting there: Bike—15th and Grand avenues
- Price: $6 in advance here, or $8 at the door
Recommended if you like: strange pop, children’s orchestra, early Architecture In Helsinki
A perennial favorite of Trunk Space co-owner JRC, Parenthetical Girls returns to the venue that perfectly embodies the band’s experimental spirit. Combining pop, folk, orchestral and experimental squeals and skronks, this now-Portland-based collective has examined all sides of the pop fringe. The group’s four current multi-instrumentalists each contribute a unique touch to the group’s sound, moving from an upbeat bounce to a melancholy cry in an instant. For its most recent recordings, the group decided to spread recording and distribution across five EPs, all self-released, rather than in a traditional album format. The first four have been distributed quarterly, available either digitally or as a mail-order-exclusive 12-inch record and hand-numbered in a group member’s blood. Then, the fifth will come in deluxe packaging, providing room for all five EPs to be put together in a box set. To see what this collective is all about, get to the Trunk Space this Monday and get ready to be enthralled.
Events compiled by Connor Descheemaker.
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