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BEST Things To Do In Phoenix

The Event Oracle knows ALL the fun things to do in the land of the Phoenix sun. Select your date above then scroll down for all the Arts, Entertainment, and Events in my crystal ball...

  • Carnival of Illusion
    Arizona Biltmore Resort
    2400 E Missouri Ave
    Phoenix, AZ 85016
    Carnival of Illusion

    Carnival of Illusion is an evening of Old-World Magic in the style of classic entertainers such as Buster Keaton, Mae West, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Harry Houdini. The hosts have performed as house entertainers at the world's top resorts, Fortune 100 CEOs, to the 200 Most Powerful Women in America and operate the longest-running Arizona theater show. Carnival of Illusion is "Magic, Mystery, and OOOH La La."

  • Legacy of Landscapes: The Art and Archaeology of Perry Mesa
    3711 W Deer Valley Rd
    Phoenix, AZ 85308
    Legacy of Landscapes: The Art and Archaeology of Perry Mesa

    Featuring the artistry of ASU alumnus photographer Pat Gorraiz, this exhibit explores the landscapes of Perry Mesa and the legacies left behind by the Ancestral People who lived there over a period of several hundred years.

    Archaeologists from Arizona State University and federal agencies began researching the mesa in the early 2000s, and that work continues today with School of Human Evolution and Social Change archaeologist David Abbott, retired National Forest Services archaeologist Scott Wood, and many others. Learn more about past research and publications.

  • Still Life No. 3: Raven Chacon
    Heard Museum
    2301 North Central Avenue
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    Still Life No. 3: Raven Chacon

    In the summer of 2019 the Heard Museum will produce a solo exhibition of contemporary artist Raven Chacon.  Still Life No. 3: Raven Chacon presents a singular work of the same title comprised of sound installation, timed light, and text. Installed in the Museum’s Jacobson Gallery, the exhibition will open July 5th, 2019 and run through November 3rd, 2019.

    Still Life No. 3 retells the Diné Bahaneʼ, the Navajo story of creation and emergence into the current world. The piece is comprised of sound, speakers, text and timed colored light which scrolls through several hues over a 24-hour cycle – relating to colors referenced in the Diné origin story. By doing this, the artist creates ambiguity in the gallery space and narrative of the Diné emergence story. The voice of a Diné woman is amplified through speakers that are set on a delay causing parts of the story to overlap, creating a non-linear situation to the narrative while illuminating past, present, and future all in one singular moment. The exhibition will allow for an immersive and metaphysical space within the confines of the gallery to create room for pensive reflection, sense of place, and situationality.

  • A Land North: Works from the Heard Museum Collection
    Heard Museum
    2301 North Central Avenue
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    A Land North: Works from the Heard Museum Collection

    This exhibition is a presentation of pieces from the Heard Museum’s permanent holdings of Indigenous Alaskan and Canadian First Nations art. A Land North celebrates the complexities of these cultures and highlights the diverse representation of artworks in the Heard Collection. Featuring more than 100 years of objects, starting at 1900, the exhibition spotlights pieces in mediums including works on paper, textiles, basketry, scrimshaw engraving, jewelry, and sculpture. Many of the works, such as the ivory engravings created by Angokwazhuk (Happy Jack) and baleen basketry by Robert James and Carl Taalak, were produced specifically for tourist consumption, whereas the textiles of Victoria Mamnguqsualuk and the prints of Simon Tookoome were produced as narrative devices.

    Themes explored by the artists include notions of shamanism and the interconnectedness of the metaphysical and the land, illuminating transformation, and spiritual practices. Other works depict daily life and the flora and fauna of Alaska and Canada. Each of these works elucidates the cultural continuum of Indigenous peoples in these territories.

  • Around the World: The Heard Museum Collection
    Heard Museum
    2301 North Central Avenue
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    Around the World: The Heard Museum Collection

    Dwight and Maie Bartlett Heard were world travelers, and they collected art made in the countries they visited. In 1892, Maie Bartlett’s family and her fiancé Dwight Heard traveled to Egypt voyaging up the Nile as far as Aswan with one of Thomas Cook’s tours. The Heards moved to Phoenix from Chicago in 1895 and, while they collected from the Southwest, they continued to collect art from around the world.

    A trip to Hawai’i in 1924 was followed in the winter of 1925 with a second trip to Egypt and the Sudan. In the 1920s as the collections filled their home, named Casa Blanca, they decided to place the collection in a museum to be built on their property. Their vision of a public collection was realized with the opening of the Heard Museum on December 26, 1929. The museum’s upstairs galleries presented cultural arts from Around the World.

    In 2006, more than 75 years after its grand opening, the Heard Museum opened a new exhibition to honor that first exhibition and to share with the public how the collections have grown through the generosity of donors and individual artists who have given work to the museum.

    Around the World: The Heard Museum Collection includes items from the Heards’ world travels as well as important works from later donors like Byron Harvey III. Many of the pieces in this exhibition reveal the global-reach of the Heard as an important nexus for preserving indigenous art and culture. Visitors can view rarely displayed works by indigenous peoples of Canada and Mexico, as well as Guatemala, the Philippine Islands, New Zealand, Zaire and Sudan—From exquisite cradleboards from Plains Indian cultures to Guatemalan paintings and masks from Africa.

  • The Third Dimension: Sculptural Stories in Stone and Bronze
    Heard Museum
    2301 North Central Avenue
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    The Third Dimension: Sculptural Stories in Stone and Bronze

    Some of the most exciting and moving American Indian fine art of the 20th and 21st centuries has been created by sculptors. The Heard Museum is fortunate recently to have been given works by leading American Indian sculptors such as Allan Houser and John Hoover Gifts also include sculpture by the next generation of accomplished sculptors inspired by these pioneers, such as Doug Hyde and Bob Haozous, Houser’s son. These will be shown in The Third Dimension: Sculptural Stories in Stone and Bronze.

    The majority of the sculptures come from the estate of Ann B. Ritt, who collected sculpture by Houser (Chiricahua Apache) and Hoover, an Unangan (Aleut) artist. Both artists valued stories, honoring their telling and the inspiration that stories gave to their art.

    Doug Hyde (Nez Perce/Assiniboine/Chippewa) was a student of Houser’s at IAIA, and a major work by Hyde was donated to the Heard by Phoenix Gateway Center. “The Vigil: Mountains, Valleys, Mesas” is a three-part limestone sculpture created in 1988. Commenting on the work, the artist said that it “celebrates Southwest Native people, their hard work and culture that has survived many challenges.”

    Although some of the sculpture was donated in 2011, the Heard was not able to show some of the Hoover and Houser pieces because they needed conservation. The gift of funds from Bank of America’s Art Conservation Project has made it possible to perform this essential conservation work and now to display these three-dimensional stories in all their beauty.

  • The W.O.N.D.E.R. Center
    Arizona Science Center
    600 E. Washington St.
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    The W.O.N.D.E.R. Center

    An exploration of the original supercomputer – the human brain – The W.O.N.D.E.R. Center is one of our permanent galleries. If you've ever wondered about the brain, here's your chance to examine its anatomy, neuroscience, development, and thought.

    • Examine our touchable brain model. It simulates the size, weight and texture of a real brain!
    • Compare different types of animal brains and see a human brain in the Brain Museum.

  • Evans Family SkyCycle Page
    Arizona Science Center
    600 E. Washington St.
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    Evans Family SkyCycle Page

    Suspended nearly 15 feet in the air, the Evans Family SkyCycle teaches riders about the principles of counterbalance and center of gravity, while taking a ride on the 90-foot cable.

  • Philip Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona
    Phoenix Art Museum
    1625 N. Central Avenue
    Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
    Philip Curtis and the Landscapes of Arizona

    Landscape remains one of the most popular subjects for artists visiting and residing in Arizona. Philip C. Curtis, while not known as a landscape painter, draws extensively on that subject. Curtis came to the state in 1937 to establish the Phoenix Federal Art Center under the Federal Art Project, a New Deal program. He left two years later to head a similar facility in Des Moines, Iowa, but returned to Arizona in 1947. Settling in Scottsdale, he painted surreal compositions, with figures in Victorian costumes set in the desert. Arizona’s landscapes were a rich source of inspiration for him, and while his canvases do not portray any recognizable geological features, his work may be contextualized within the work of a broad spectrum of artists who came to the state. Curtis saw the desert through a lens of magic realism. This differed from Maxfield Parrish, Eugene Berman, and other artists who preferred more representational modes.

  • All About Me
    Arizona Science Center
    600 E. Washington St.
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    All About Me

    Get ready to:

    • Walk through an enormous "working" stomach, complete with the sights, sounds and smells of the digestive process
    • Watch surgeries being performed, featuring the techniques of Dr. Edward B. Diethrich, in the Heart Surgery Theater
    • Test your heart muscles in our Wheelchair Racers
    • Explore the systems of the human body–from defense and immunity to cardio and pulmonary, digestive and skeletal
    • Hear your actual heartbeat as it is translated into sound on a bass drum

    Plus, plan to attend exciting, live science demonstrations in the Daniel Cracchiolo Theater. This stage comes to life daily with scientific demonstrations. From eyeballs to explosions, each demonstration incorporates audience volunteers to roll up their sleeves as they question everything.

  • Sublime Landscapes
    Phoenix Art Museum
    1625 N. Central Avenue
    Phoenix, AZ 85004-1685
    Sublime Landscapes

    Spurred by the artists from the North East who comprised the Hudson River School, landscape painting was one of the most popular subjects in nineteenth-century America. Pushed ever westward by expansionist notions of Manifest Destiny, a belief that such territorial expansion was inevitable and pre-ordained. Painters were also part of government initiatives to survey the vast region, particularly in regards to potential railroad routes and to learn about the indigenous populations they encountered. 
     
    Adventurous artists sought landscape subjects beyond the continental United States, some traveling to the Arctic, where they found immense icebergs and the Aurora Borealis (these were dangerous journeys). Artists visited equatorial South America where they thrilled to the sublime vistas and smoldering volcanos they discovered. The Amazon and the Andes were rich sources for exotic paintings. Many regarded South America as “a land of scientific wonders, golden riches, and edenic innocence.” J.P. Reichardt’s Latin American Scene of 1866 captures the attraction of humid locales very different from North America.
     

  • Flight Zone
    Arizona Science Center
    600 E. Washington St.
    Phoenix, AZ 85004
    Flight Zone

    An extension of The Kemper and Ethel Marley Gallery, guests experience where the science of flight comes together with Arizona's flight history, providing a unique and engaging experience.

     
    Become an engineer as you imagine, plan, create and improve helicopter and airplane designs. Climb into the fuselage of an actual airplane and venture into the field of aeronautics as you explore the forces and principles of flight through several exciting hands-on exhibits.
     
    • Paper Airplane Launcher
    • Paper Helicopter Lift Activity
    • Pitch-Roll-Yaw Interactives
    • Apache Helicopter Model from Boeing and an Interactive Touch Screen
    • Arizona Flight Caps and Patches
    • Historic Flight Jacket and Flight Images
Have FUN with us! Carnival Of Illusion