SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ.- Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art presents two exhibitions for the autumn 2016 season including a collaboration with Arizona State University (ASU) Intermedia Professor Muriel Magenta showcasing works by artists who are rethinking and transforming the status quo of the place of women in today’s society, and the latest in the Museum’s Architecture + Art series presenting Santiago Borja’s response to an archaeologic landmark of the Southwest.

Push Comes to Shove: Women and Power
October 1, 2016 – January 8, 2017
A cross-disciplinary collaboration between SMoCA and ASU Intermedia Professor Muriel Magenta, Ph.D., Push Comes to Shove: Women and Power aims to use art as a critical catalyst in rethinking and transforming the advancement of women.

The exhibition features 19 artists whose works deal with the themes and issues of how women exercise and think about power. The exhibition is grounded by the experiences of five women who have held positions of great leadership: Kyrsten Sinema, U.S. congresswoman, 9th District, Ariz.; Rebecca White Berch, former chief justice of the Arizona Supreme Court; Barbara Barrett, international businesswoman, former U.S. ambassador to Finland and namesake of ASU’s Barrett Honors College; Diane Enos, former president of the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community; and Gloria Feldt, activist, former CEO of Planned Parenthood and faculty member of the ASU School of Social Transformation.

Push Comes to Shove: Women and Power explores this vital subject during the historical juncture in U.S history as a woman runs for president as the nominee of a major party. The artists’ works challenge women to think about power in their everyday lives and to find ways they can make a difference. Participating artists include: Julie Anand, Malena Barnhart, Patricia Clark, Anne Coe, Grisha Coleman, Meredith Drum, Angela Ellsworth, Brooke Grucella, Hilary Harp and Suzie Silver, Mary Hood, Adriene Jenik, Siri Khandavilli, Muriel Magenta, Gabriela Muñoz, Mary Neubauer and Todd Ingalls, M. Jenea Sanchez, and Forrest Solis. SMoCA will host a symposium to bring together the advocates and artists to deepen and further this conversation and welcome Guerrilla Girl founder Frida Kahlo for a public lecture and workshop.

Organized by Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Muriel Magenta, Ph.D., Professor of Intermedia, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University, and Sara Cochran, Ph.D., SMoCA Director and Chief Curator, with the assistance of Julie Ganas, SMoCA Curatorial Coordinator. Presenting Sponsors: SmithGroup JJR, Carrie Lynn Richardson and Paul Giancola.

Architecture + Art: Everything Falls into Place When It Collapses
October 15, 2016 – January 22, 2017
Mexico City-based artist Santiago Borja works internationally at the intersection of art, architecture and ethnography. He is known for creating large-scale installations and architectural interventions that cross cultural boundaries and contrast traditional crafts with contemporary theory and modernist design. Architecture + Art: Everything Falls into Place When It Collapses is Borja’s site-specific project in response to the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument – a Southwest icon of Native American culture – and its complex history within the national cultural politics of the U.S. over the past 125 years.

The Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, known in the O’odham language as “Siwañ Wa’a Ki” or “Sivan Vahki,” is one of the largest surviving ancient sites in North America. It bears witness to the skill and creativity of the large community of ancient Sonoran Desert people who inhabited it, developing wide-scale irrigation farming and extensive trade connections that lasted more than 1,000 years until approximately 1450 A.D. when the location was largely abandoned. The site consists of multiple adobe structures surrounded by a compound wall and houses the remains of the Great House, a monumental, four-story adobe structure whose purpose and function are unknown.

In 1892, the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument became the first cultural site in the U.S. to be given national protection, and in 1918, it was re-designated as a national monument by President Woodrow Wilson. In the early 20th century, a series of roofs were constructed over the Great House, culminating in the construction of a massive, modern steel roof that was completed in 1932 and still stands today. The roof was intended to conserve the remarkable structure, but was undertaken without the advice of Native American communities, namely the O’odham peoples who are recognized as the ancestors of those who built it.

The superposition of these two physical structures – one more than 700 years old and the other almost 100 years old – is emblematic of the complicated and difficult relationship between Native Americans and the U.S. Federal Government. It is a juxtaposition of culturally different concepts of time, questions of legacy and belonging, technologies, knowledge and ideas about the future. Borja is interested in this conversation that raises questions about different cultures – Native American, white, academic, artistic and administrative – related to archaeological remains, the rationalism of Modernism and its belief in its ability to solve problems through technological means, and the complexity of interpreting and preserving the material past – both ancient and Modernist.

This exhibition is part of SMoCA’s Architecture + Art series that investigates the junction between the practices of artists and architects, furthering the Museum’s mission to champion innovation in these fields and changing the ways in which architecture is presented in museum galleries.

Organized by Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Curated by Emily Stamey, Ph.D., Curator of Exhibitions, Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, and Sara Cochran Ph.D., SMoCA Director and Chief Curator. Title Sponsor: Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation.