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.
This symposium matters because it addresses a historical gap in Arizona's art world, where Chicano artists were systematically excluded from mainstream institutions. By recovering and celebrating MARS's contributions, the partnership between a university and a major museum signals a broader institutional reckoning with overlooked communities. The student-led research component also demonstrates how academic and museum collaborations can produce meaningful public scholarship, while the planned 2028 exhibition ensures this legacy reaches a wider audience. The event underscores ongoing efforts to diversify art historical narratives and recognize grassroots organizations that shaped regional culture.