Highlights

Two nights at Phoenix Art Museum next month will put one of contemporary art's most polarizing figures at the center of the city's cultural calendar. On April 7 and 8, PhxArt and Phoenix College co-host the 2026 Eric Fischl Series, now in its 21st year, with New York-based artist Marilyn Minter as the featured guest.

The two-evening program opens Tuesday, April 7 at 6 p.m. with an exclusive screening of PRETTY DIRTY: The Life and Times of Marilyn Minter, directed by Jennifer Ash Rudick and Amanda Benchley. The film traces Minter's path from a Southern childhood through New York's underground art scene to the contemporary market, and features testimony from figures including Glenn Ligon and Padma Lakshmi. A 20-minute Q&A with Minter follows at 7:30 p.m., moderated by producer Debi Wisch, whose prior credits include The Art of Making It and The Price of Everything. Tickets for the screening are $8 for the public and free for Museum Members.

The main event on Wednesday, April 8 runs 5 to 7:30 p.m. and opens with a student exhibition in the Museum's Cummings Great Hall South, where Fischl will present the Vanguard Awards — $2,500 each — to Phoenix College students whose works are selected as Best in Show. Fischl created the award in 2005; to date it has been presented to 69 students. The evening closes in Whiteman Hall with a conversation between Fischl and Minter covering her studio practice, her evolution as an artist, and what the museum's director called work that is "fearless, visually electric and deeply attuned to how images shape power, desire and identity." Tickets are $5 for the public, free for Museum Members, and free for Phoenix College students with an active ID.

Minter, born in 1948, has shown at the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and the Brooklyn Museum. Her 2016 retrospective, Pretty/Dirty, is cited in the museum's announcement as cementing her standing as a figure who amplifies subjects others avoid. Fischl, also born in 1948, began his art education in Phoenix and attended Phoenix College before earning his B.F.A. from the California Institute for the Arts in 1972; he is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Science.

The Eric Fischl Series runs concurrently with Eric Fischl: Stories Told, an exhibition at PhxArt on view through June 14, 2026. Tickets for both April events are available through the museum's website at phxart.org.

Sources

Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.

  1. phxart.org retrieved 2026-05-06T08:11:29.283979+00:00

Authored by lily_ortega. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 2026-05-06T08:11:29.283979+00:00. Every claim traces to a source.