Bowers’ Radical Hospitality (2015) is a sculptural contradiction: its red and blue neon letters proclaim the words of the title, signaling openness and generosity, while the barbed wires that encircle the words give another message entirely. Meant to hang from the ceiling, Bowers’ neon is further weighed down by long wind chimes made of aluminum pipes and wooden wind catchers that drip unsteadily from their anchors. Poetic but frantic in its juxtapositions, Bowers’ work captures a certain paradoxical energy that echoes the current political climate—it is hopeful but hindered, cacophonous but well intentioned, uncertain but ominous.
Socially engaged and politically outspoken, Los Angeles-based artist Andrea Bowers builds her work around issues of social justice and advocacy. Her artistic practice often uses political protests and movements as sources of inspiration and content, as she draws isolated figures holding picket signs with delicate attention, or replicates the archive of a cause in the space of the gallery. Labor movements, women’s rights rallies, anti-war protests, and immigration demonstrations, past and present, are among the myriad moments of political action that Bowers draws upon in her works.
In True Red Ruin (Elmina Castle) , Danielle Dean uses archival documents to re-imagine colonial history from the 1400s, while also referencing her own personal history...
Hexafluorosilicic acid is a type of sodium fluoride waste product that can be found in a large amount of widely available products such as cleaning fluids, toothpaste, rat poison, and drinking water...
No Lye by Danielle Dean documents a group of five women, including Dean herself, confined to a small, cramped bathroom, communicating only by using slogans culled from beauty advertisements (“beauty is skin deep”, “naturalise, it’s in our nature to be strong and balanced”) and quotes from political speeches (“we must protect our borders”, “we are fighting for our way of life and our ability to fight for freedom”)...
Untitled (Wheelchair Drawing) is a ten-foot photo transfer of the image of a wheelchair with burning embers in its seat...
Although best known as a provocateur and portraitist, Opie also photographs landscapes, cityscapes, and architecture...
In this work, a woman sits on a couch with her shirt pulled up to expose her pierced nipples, which are connected by a chain...
Catherine Opie’s candid photograph Cathy (bed Self-portrait) (1987) shows the artist atop a bed wearing a negligee and a dildo; the latter is attached to a whip that she holds in her teeth...
The small drawings that comprise Study from May Day March, Los Angeles 2010 (Immigration Reform Now) and We Are Immigrants Not Terrorists are based on photographs taken at a political rally in downtown Los Angeles in which thousands of individuals demonstrated for immigrants’ rights...
Although best known as a provocateur and portraitist, Opie also photographs landscapes, cityscapes, and architecture...
In this work, a woman sits on a couch with her shirt pulled up to expose her pierced nipples, which are connected by a chain...
Thomas’ lenticular text-based works require viewers to shift positions as they view them in order to fully absorb their content...
(English) The Bunker art space announced Thursday that its landlord, Renmin University Of China, has decided to convert the entire courtyard into a ‘patriotic education base’ and was resuming all premises in the adjacent courtyard, particularly those with historical significance, such as the former bunker....
MUM , the acronym used to title a series of Rogan’s small interventions on found magazines, stands for “Magic Unity Might,” the name of a vintage trade magic publication...
While his works can function as abstract, they are very much rooted in physicality and the possibilities that are inherent in the materials themselves...
Clarissa Tossin’s film Ch’u Mayaa responds to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House (constructed 1919–21) in Los Angeles, an example of Mayan Revival architecture...
In his evocative Landscape Paintings, McMillian uses second-hand bedsheets, sourced from thrift shops, as his starting point...
The small drawings that comprise Study from May Day March, Los Angeles 2010 (Immigration Reform Now) and We Are Immigrants Not Terrorists are based on photographs taken at a political rally in downtown Los Angeles in which thousands of individuals demonstrated for immigrants’ rights...
San Pedro is a seaside city, part of the Los Angeles Harbor, sitting on the edge of a channel...
Calle’s drawings all inhabit received forms but alter them to call attention to specific qualities...
Johanna Calle’s Abece “K” (2011) is part of a series of drawings (compiled into an artist book called Abece ) based on the alphabet...
The American War , which takes its title from the Vietnamese term for what Americans call the Vietnam War, has toured the United States extensively with the goal of presenting a Vietnamese perspective of that history...
Icaro Lira has been developing the project “Museum of the Foreigner” since 2015, in which he recounts the trajectories of populations inside Brazil, from the north to the big cities of the south...