Current Exhibits
Tumbleweed Tree
Oct. 29, 2024 - Jan. 19, 2025
Explore the 60+ year history of Chandler’s Tumbleweed Tree. In the late 1950s, Chandler resident Earle Barnum spearheaded the construction of a tree made from tumbleweeds to decorate downtown Chandler during the Christmas season. Since then, the Tumbleweed Tree has become a unique holiday season tradition.
Marvelocity: The Art of Alex Ross
Oct. 29, 2024 - Jan. 19, 2025
Considered one of the greatest artists in the field of comic books, Alex Ross has created some of the most iconic images known to comic fans today. For nearly 30 years, he has revitalized classic superheroes into works of fine art by illustrating characters including Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, Storm from the X-Men, the Avengers, Black Panther and many more.
In addition to highlighting original art from his book Marvelocity, visitors will also learn about how Alex Ross developed into a great illustrator through his childhood drawings, preliminary, sketches, paintings, and 3-dimensional head busts of characters in the Marvel Universe.
Marvelocity: The Art of Alex Ross was developed by the Bess Bower Dunn Museum.
- Related Event: Night at the Museum: Superhero Edition
Image: Captain America Marvelocity Cover, 2018, Alex Ross, Courtesy of the Bess Bower Dunn Museum
Select Treasures from The Organic Architecture + Design Archives: A Micro Exhibit
Nov. 5, 2024 - March 24, 2025
In 2013, the Organic Architecture and Design Archives, Inc. was founded as the only educational non-profit organization in the world dedicated to the mission of preserving materials associated with the American organic architecture and design movement.
OA+D has since saved hundreds of thousands of drawings, plans, correspondence, photographs, slides, publications, ephemera, furniture, decorative objects, architectural salvage, and many other forms of historical documentation.
This “micro exhibit” provides a glimpse of the treasures that continue to accumulate under OA+D’s stewardship.
I Can’t Help Myself: Jon Arvizu
Jan. 7 - June 8, 2025
As one of the most prolific graphic designers and printmakers in the Valley, Jon Arvizu has been at the service of others for much of his career. But what happens when your foundation is shaken? How does a creative person who is always helping others help themselves? What happens to a creative person who has an honest awakening and realizes they need to pour some loving attention into themselves?
For Arvizu’s first solo exhibition, I Can’t Help Myself, he began making deeply personal work. The result is an exhibition that delves into self-love and introspection—looking at his past, present and potential future.
Upcoming Exhibits
Gaman
Feb. 4, 2025 – Jan. 26, 2026
During World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were ordered out of their homes and incarcerated at various internment camps across the western US. Near Chandler, the Gila River Internment Camp held 16,655. Their crime? Looking like the enemy.
This poignant exhibit highlights how the Japanese value gaman—enduring the seemingly impossible with patience and dignity—guided these American citizens’ experience of loss and incarceration in the Arizona desert.
Through the Eyes of Youth: Life and Death in Będzin Ghetto
Feb. 7, 2025 – April 6, 2025
When Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939, German forces occupied the city of 50,000 people, half of which were Jewish. Forced into a cramped ghetto, the entire Jewish population was eventually deported to extermination camps.
The youth of Będzin struggled with growing up amid violence, hatred, and loss, while still trying to find small joys in life. All photos and artwork featured in the exhibit are from the town of Będzin.