This is the first museum retrospective surveying over two decades of Andrea Bowers’s practice. For over thirty years, Bowers has worked in a variety of mediums, from video to colored pencil to installation art, and speaks directly to pressing national issues. Her work combines an artistic practice with activism and advocacy, giving voice to stories rarely seen or heard. She built an international reputation as a chronicler of contemporary history, documenting activism as it unfolds and collecting research on the frontlines of protest. Her subject matter contends with issues like immigration, workers’ rights, environmentalism, and women’s rights, presented in a range of media. Her empathetic and labor-intensive practice draws attention to the humanity impacted by injustice—shifting the conversation from politics to people. The exhibition is co-organized the MCA Chicago and the Hammer Museum of Art.
Andrea Bowers
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”