SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA.- The Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art presents Looking at the World: Photography from the Permanent Collection, on view through August 21, 2005. A picture is worth a thousand words, as the saying goes. The photographers whose works are on view in this exhibition (drawn from SMoCA’s burgeoning permanent collection), record the ordinary—but often very telling moments—in our daily lives. The pictures they so carefully frame in the camera’s lens tell stories of urban growth, cultural exchange and the private worlds of the self. As we look at the ordinary world through the eyes of the artist, “reality” takes on new meanings that we might never imagine on our own. Be it through strange juxtapositions or unexpected details of great beauty, these images give us pause to look below the surface of the world around us with beginner’s eyes.

Organized by former SMoCA Assistant Curator Erin Kane, Looking at the World: Photography from the Permanent Collection features work by Michael Berman, Bob Carey, Renée Cox, Allen Dutton, Dana Fritz, Dick George, Barbara Gilson, Mark Klett, Richard Laugharn, Fritz Scholder, Craig Smith and Buzz Spector. Organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art.