ASU, Phoenix Art Museum shed new light on influential Chicano arts organization

Arizona State University's Barrett, The Honors College is partnering with Phoenix Art Museum to host a one-day symposium titled "MARS: Revisited" on September 20, 2025, at the museum. The event revisits the legacy of El Movimiento Artístico del Río Salado (MARS), a Chicano arts collective founded in the late 1970s that provided a platform for Mexican American artists excluded from major Arizona museums and galleries. MARS operated for over two decades, helping launch the First Fridays on Roosevelt Row arts event and shaping Phoenix's cultural identity before closing in the early 2000s. The symposium, co-organized by professor Mathew Sandoval and curator Christian Ramírez, will feature archival research and oral histories conducted by Barrett students, with a major MARS exhibition and scholarly monograph planned for 2028.