Phoenix is looking at photography in a whole new light. At Phoenix Art Museum, Ecstatic Time: The Alchemy of Photography brings together nearly 100 surprising works from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, and it is on view now through January 3, 2027.
Photographs are often trusted to simply record reality, but this joyful exhibition shows how the camera can also transform it. Visitors will find still lifes, time-lapse images and astronomical photographs — including an eclipse captured by Ansel Adams and an image recorded by NASA’s Mars Pathfinder rover — alongside playful experiments by masters such as Edward Weston, Harold Edgerton, Ilse Bing, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Garry Winogrand and Hiroshi Sugimoto.
The show unfolds in four sections with evocative names: Awake and Dreaming, The Thing Itself, Out of this World, and Incisions in History / Segments of Eternity. Together they feel like a cabinet of curiosities, spanning almost the entire history of the medium from the 19th century to today.
The exhibition also celebrates 20 years of the partnership between Phoenix Art Museum and the Center for Creative Photography, which brings treasures from Tucson’s world-class collection to Phoenix audiences. Admission is included with general admission, and pay-what-you-wish hours run Wednesdays from 3 to 8 p.m. at the museum, 1625 North Central Avenue. Slow down, look closely, and let these pictures delight and puzzle you.
Photo: Edward Weston, MGM Studios, 1939. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona: Edward Weston Archive. © Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents
