By Sydney Ritter | Happenings & Events
Opening Oct. 3, “A Pivotal Point in Time: Art in Scottsdale in the 1970s” will coincide with the 50th Anniversary Celebration of Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts.
The exhibition is organized by Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation, a department of the nonprofit Scottsdale Arts, which also operates the center. The exhibition pays homage to artists who were part of the Scottsdale arts scene around the time the center was built.
When it opened in 1975, what was then called Scottsdale Center for the Arts served as both a performing and visual arts venue. Additionally, several new contemporary art galleries emerged, and The School of Art at Arizona State University strategized new programs and experienced growth. All of this worked together to nurture contemporary art in Scottsdale.
“Scottsdale Center for the Arts helped to launch the careers of many Arizona-based artists by offering a continuous stream of exhibitions that included their work,” said Laura Ramson Hales, independent curator for Scottsdale Arts Learning & Innovation. “Many of these artists exhibited their work here in the ’70s, so this exhibition is something of a time capsule that gives viewers the experience of that point in time when the center’s doors first opened.”
The exhibition includes works by Dorothy Fratt, Billy Schenck, Fritz Scholder, Ed Mell, Genevieve Reckling, Rip Woods, Philip C. Curtis, Beth Ames Swartz and Mark McDowell, among others. These artists have become renowned locally and nationally, and have shown their work in museums, galleries, public art collections and private collections.
McDowell’s first museum exhibition was in 1980 at Scottsdale Center for the Arts, and it featured a couple of dozen pen-and-ink drawings, including “Pop-Up Toaster,” which is returning in “A Pivotal Point in Time.” When Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) opened in 1999, McDowell held his second solo exhibition, a circus-themed show where McDowell worked with Circus Flora to bring Alexander Calder’s mechanical circus to life, and that is now permanently housed at the Whitney Museum in New York City. McDowell notes that, by then, Scottsdale was a big city with numerous cultural offerings and vibrant with creative life.
“As the city grew, the arts sometimes flourished and sometimes faltered with people’s interests in the arts waxing and waning,” McDowell said. “It would be great if those cultural norms would lean back to holding importance as we go forward into the next 50 years. I hold value in the arts and the contribution they make to the quality of our lives in unsaid ways.”
A public reception for “A Pivotal Point in Time: Art in Scottsdale in the 1970s” will be held on Friday, Oct. 3, at 6 p.m. Visitors can also see the exhibition in the Center Space gallery from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and noon to 5 p.m. on Sundays from Oct. 3, 2025, through Jan. 18, 2026. The center is closed on Mondays. For more information, visit ScottsdaleArts.org.
