Scottsdale, AZ - Space Is the Place surveys a recent, widespread interest in space exploration in visual art. This international selection of paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and video and sound works considers the past, present, and future of extraterrestrial travel as well as its powerful grip on the human imagination. From the time the idea of leaving earth could be imagined, it has fascinated spiritual, scientific, and aesthetic thinkers, and its imaginative roots can be found in a wide range of literary works, from the Old Testament to fiction by Jules Verne. After the space age began in the latter half of the twentieth century, artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Nam June Paik and the architectural collective Archigram created exciting imagery reflecting the intoxicating aspirations that fueled dreams of satellites, moon rockets, and space colonies.

Today, in a particularly earthbound geopolitical moment, the artists featured in Space Is the Place reflect significant new attitudes. Like others before them, they regard outer space as a realm of wonder and possibility, but they also consider the many dramatic shifts in space consciousness in the nearly fifty years since the launching of the first Sputnik satellite. The Kennedy era’s exciting promise of technological utopia has not been realized, either in space or on Earth. After two shuttle crashes, dramatic cutbacks in governmental funding for space research, and a global preoccupation with terrestrial conflicts, the subject of space travel still provides a compelling arena for artists to explore ideas about space, but it also bears a new connection to life on Earth.

Space Is the Place draws its title and inspirational spark from a 1972 album by innovative jazz-fusion musician Sun Ra, leader of the “Intergalactic Myth-Science Arkestra” and self-proclaimed alien from Saturn. “I’m looking for answers in the entire universe because I want to know the real potential of man,” Sun Ra said. In his otherworldly music and persona, he exploited the metaphoric power of outer space as a means of investigating the saga of the African diaspora as well as the root of consciousness. This same quest to investigate the mysteries of outer and inner space inspires this exhibition’s wide-ranging investigations.

Artists include: Laurie Anderson, Colette Gaiter, Lia Halloran, Ronald Jones, Nina Katchadourian, Oleg Kulik, Julian LaVerdiere, Aleksandra Mir, Damián Ortega, Marko Peljhan, Steve Roden, Jason Rogenes, Adam Ross, Katy Schimert, and Jane & Louise Wilson.

Organized and circulated by iCI (Independent Curators International), New York, guest curated by Alex Baker and Toby Kamps. The exhibition, tour and catalogue are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, with additional support from the iCI Exhibition Partners.

Founded in 1999, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art [SMoCA] is the only museum in Arizona devoted to the art, architecture and design of our time. Global in its focus, the Museum is a unique and vital cultural resource for the Southwest, serving local audiences as well as visitors from throughout the United States and abroad.  Designed by award-winning architect Will Bruder, SMoCA’s minimalist building has five galleries for showcasing changing exhibitions and works from the Museum’s growing permanent collection.  SMoCA also features an outdoor sculpture garden housing James Turrell’s “Knight Rise,” one of the renowned artist’s few public skyspaces, and “Scrim Wall,” a monumental curtain of translucent glass panels by James Carpenter Design Associates.  The Museum presents a wide variety of educational programs and special events for adults and families, including lectures.  Web: www.smoca.org