Arts

Oddity abounded at Thursday evening’s space-themed SMoCA Nights, one of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art’s thrice-annual exhibit parties. Here, a man in a mirrored orb saunters the galleries.

Chris Page Get Out

Review: SMoCA gets spacey at 'Sputnik'

By Chris Page, Get Out

June 22, 2007

Comments

E-Mail

Save

License

Maybe it was the midriff-baring belly dancers slathered in various shades of alien green paint.

Or the fashion models that looked like peacocks fused with robots.

Or the guy in a tacky suit who spent the evening sauntering silently from room to room, a mirrored silver orb placed over his head like a cybernetic Jack in the Box mascot.

Whatever it was, one couldn’t help but think they’d left the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Thursday night and, instead, had been deposited at the freaky alien cantina in “Star Wars.”

Such was the weird wonderfulness of the museum’s latest SMoCA Nights event (photos), its thrice-annual evening theme parties coinciding with recent exhibits. For “Space is the Place,” a retro-futuristic examination of space exploration, the soiree’s theme was “Sputnik.”

Though what that meant was widely open to interpretation.

Outside the museum, it meant a performance by local laptop-rock outfit Alcoholiday, letting loose its Postal-Service-meets-The-Killers grooves, while 35-year-old Tempe artist and Drunken Immortals’ member Dumperfoo worked on a nearby canvas.

For Valley hair stylist and vintage store owner Ethan Murray, who put on his debut fashion show late that night, it meant designing frocks that combined 1950s and ’60s domestic kitsch with spacey splashes of silver, shimmer and — what’s that — Bubble wrap? (It was a successful collection, save for one forgettable men’s outfit that attempted to answer what the fifth member of rock band KISS would wear if given only a black cat suit and lengths of aluminum clothes dryer ducting.)

For most in attendance — several hundred Valley art buffs, social butterflies and dozens of photographers — it just meant an evening of hors d’oeuvres, booze and people-gazing in artsy environs.

“It’s original. I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Tempe’s Lori Dick, 33, who was making her first visit to SMoCA.

Like other contemporary art spaces, SMoCA throws parties in hopes of building new audiences and shaking up stodgy notions of what’s proper for a museum. SMoCA Nights, which began in 2002, regularly sells out the 500- to 600-capacity venue.

“I love these (events). I think they totally rock,” said Zsuzsi Horvath, a 27-year-old Tempe artist, massage therapist and crepe-maker who was attending her second SMoCA Nights. “It’s a lot of like-minded people. It’s very inspirational. A lot of artsy people come, and we inspire each other.”

The next SMoCA Nights will be in November.

For more information, visit smoca.org.

Contact Chris Page by email, or phone (480) 898-5656

Rate this article

Currently 1.44/5
1
2
3
4
5

Rating: 1.4/5.0 (9 votes cast)

Reader comments (0)

This site does not necessarily agree with comments posted below. Responsibility lies solely with the comment author.

Add your comment