One artist they "discovered" is Avondale resident Andrea Sweet, who had her display on view at the Bruder-designed Burton Barr Library in downtown, where she works. Her "Negro-bilia" is an assemblage of Black collectibles in an attempt to confront the ideology and "artistry" of racism.
She purchased her first mammy doll in 1980. "I wasn't ashamed or angry. Instead, I felt empowered, even slightly amused. Those ugly caricatures of coal-black faces, bulbous eyes, and protruding ruby lips filled me with a sense of the strength and resiliency of my ancestors," she says.
All the pieces are prominently displayed in her home. "I have no problem displaying them alongside the traditional artwork that fills my house," she explains. "If that offends people, good! I'm more than happy to have my collection be the catalyst for provoking thought, creating dialogue and stirring emotions. Isn't that what art is all about?"
For Phoenix muralist and artist, Paul Wilson, art is about obsessions — from '50s family photo albums, the 1972 movie Poseidon Adventure, and even a Lee Harvey Oswald doll.
"I get obsessed with a concept — and find a need for a cathartic, artistic 'release' to satisfy and indulge that obsession," he explains, noting that his chosen media include video, photographs and 3-D art pieces.
For example, focusing on the 1950s, he photographed himself as all the members of a fictional "nuclear family" and assembled these into montages. And, since 8 or 9, The Poseidon Adventure has been an obsession: "I did a feature-length video satire/remake of it in my garage in the late '90s, again playing every character."
Oswald is perhaps his most provocative obsession: Wilson creates 'dollcumentaries,' that is, dioramas and videos, all done with home-made 12-inch figures of himself and Oswald. "I don't eschew what happened then; I simply choose to go in my own direction with him [Oswald]," he says.
West Phoenix native Joseph Perez, aka "Sentrock," breakdances with paint on his hands and shoe bottoms to create canvases, which he calls "Sound in Color." He started painting in first grade and break dancing and graffiti art in high school.
"I combined my breaking art form with my painting art form, and the music inspires my dancing, which then inspires the paint strokes," says Perez, who has an art studio in downtown Phoenix.
For him, the People's Biennial has helped validate his art form. "I have had so many inquiries about my art, and once they hear that I am working with SMoCA, it's like they feel more confident in my art and who I am as in artist," he says.
Buckeye's Jim Grosbach creates complex, intricate miniature cities out of modeling clay and adds narratives.
He began working in clay at 6 and built his first city in 1955, constructing a "fantasy" around it, with a mayor, council and corporate leaders. He built two more major cities in the 1960s, and in 1977 began building the ones that stand today in his home and in People's Biennial.
"While I generally eschew publicity about the cities, I felt it important to demonstrate what can be done with a seemingly simple hobby from childhood through adulthood," says Grosbach, who compares his art to the computer game Sim-City and the narratives he creates to those in other contemporary games such as Halo, Myst, Zork Nemesis and World of Warcraft.
