In 1968, artist William Copley launched a utopian project that he titled slyly, but emphatically, SMS—an acronym for “Shit Must Stop.” Intended to sidestep the hierarchical system of museums and galleries, SMS offered collectors a bi-monthly portfolio of artwork by subscription. Every two months, for the annual price of $125, subscribers to this experimental publication received a small custom-designed case filled with artworks by such iconic 20th-century artists as Christo, Marcel Duchamp, Roy Lichtenstein, and Yoko Ono.
Artists: No. 1: Su Braden, James Lee Byars, Christo, Walter De Maria, Richard Hamilton, Kasper König, Julien Levy, Sol Mednick, Irving Petlin, Nancy Reitkopf, and La Monte Young; No. 2: Nicolas Calas, Bruce Conner, Marcel Duchamp, Marcia Herscovitz, Alain Jacquet, Ray Johnson, Lee Lozano, Meret Oppenheim, Bernard Pfriem, George Reavey, and Clovis Trouille; No. 3: Aftograf, John Battan, William Bryant, Enrico Baj, Dick Higgins, Joseph Kosuth, Ronnie Landfield, Roland Penrose, Man Ray, Terry Riley, Hannah Weiner, and H.C. Westermann; No. 4: Arman, Paul Bertgold, John Cage, Hollis Frampton, On Kawara, Roy Lichtenstein, Lil Picard, Domenico Rotella, Robert Stanley, Robert Watts, Princess Winifred, and La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela; No. 5: William Anthony, Wall Batterton, William Copley, Edward Fitzgerald, Neil Jenney, Angus MacLise, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Mel Ramos, Robert Rohm, William Schwedler, Diane Wakoski, and Lawrence Weiner; No. 6: Richard Artschwager, Ed Bereal, Betty Dodson, Ronaldo Ferri, John Giorno, Toby Mussman, Adrian Nutbeam, Claes Oldenburg, Mischa Petrow, Jean Reavey, Dieter Roth, Paul Steiner, and Bernar Venet.
Organized by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Sponsored by Morrell & Associates
Mar 21, 2026 – Jan 31, 2027
Featuring drawings, paintings, prints, and sculpture from SMoCA’s collection, Mark + Making explores the use of marks, gestures, and line to build form and shape ideas in contemporary artistic practic...
Sep 19, 2026 – Jan 31, 2027
What the Earth Keeps is a site-specific installation, performance, and cyanotype-mapping project by the collective Desert ArtLAB that explores relationships between land, ecology, and cultural memory....
Sep 19, 2026 – Sep 5, 2027
Desert Perspectives is a yearlong exhibition that explores the deserts of the Southwest through more than a century of artistic responses from the museum’s collection, alongside loans and new commissi...
Sep 25, 2026 – Jan 17, 2027
ArtSpark #1 features work created by the artists in the first cohort of Scottsdale Arts’ new ArtSpark program. These artists were provided funding to engage the local community and participate in care...
