‘Art is History’ exhibit highlights the impact of erasing history

A Phoenix gallery is looking at the effect of erasing history in its newest exhibition. Lisa Sette, owner of the Lisa Sette Gallery, was concerned about the erasure of history in United States public institutions. Sette joined “Arizona Horizon” to discuss the exhibition.

“We plan our exhibits about a year to a year and a half in advanced, sometimes longer,” Sette said. She believes artists to be the conscience of society, and wanted their perspective and interpretation of art history. 

Sette added, “I felt what I was seeing in our world, specifically in the U.S. was a lot of erasure of history, a lot of censorship of history… that I was uncomfortable with.”

She listed the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and recently the Venice Biennale as being examples the erasure and censorship of history. These recent examples prompted Sette to question how she could improve her own gallery.

“I learn through art,” Sette said. “The artists hopefully these days aren’t censored as much these days as they were in the past. It became evident to me that I just needed to put together a show that works from the 18th, 19th and 20th century and have contemporary artists from the 21st century respond to those images.”

The Lisa Sette Gallery features works by Pedro Álvarez, Rachel Bess, Enrique Chagoya, Sonya Clark, Carrie Marill, Duane Michals, Sandro Miller, Yasumasa Morimura, Vik Muniz, Charlotte Potter, Omar Soto, and Joel-Peter Witkin.

The contemporary artists were inspired by works from artists and photographers such as Francesco Bertinatti, Gustave Courbet and Cindy Sherman. The show’s goal is to explore individual sources of human truth expressed by creativity when facing repeated adversaries from “corporate interests, political victors and institutions”, according to the Lisa Sette Gallery.

“All you can do is educate,” Sette said about the message of the exhibit coming through. “If we don’t know our history I don’t know how we move forward. People can learn through visual art. If you gave me a history book about any of these subjects without any pictures, I wouldn’t have retained it.”

The exhibition began on March 7 and runs until May 30, 2026.