Andrea Bowers: Ni Una Muerte Más

The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens will be hosting from February 3rd until March 13th, 2011 the new project by Andrea Bowers titled Ni Una Muerte Más (Not one more death) in the framework of the series EMST Commissions 2011 for the Project Room of the museum which is kindly supported by Bombay Sapphire gin.

This new project by the American artist is composed of a large scale drawing that she will realize on the walls of the Project Room, as well as a video.

The works constitute a continuation of the series of drawings on paper titled No Olvidado (Not forgotten), 2010, which are currently on view in the exhibition Politics of Art. As the Director of EMST and curator of the exhibition Anna Kafetsi writes in the catalogue: “A journey that ended before it began for the excluded who, longing to live on the other side, in a mythical Land of Promise, met a violent death, is memorialized by Andrea Bowers in her large-scale drawings-landscapes of names titled No Olvidado (2010). By drawing up the list of the victims who tried to cross the Mexican/American border, this austere Memorial traces and corporealizes absence and loss, claiming in its fragility the right to memory”.

According to the artist “My recent work is an exploration of the contemporary issues associated with the genre of landscape. I focus on contentious locations where countries and corporations are willing to cause environmental degradation or human rights violations for the purpose of attaining or maintaining power. One of the earliest functions of the landscape picture has been to provide evidence of ownership; my work aims to reveal the abuse of ownership. By focusing on the Mexican/American border as her subject, I am responding to the long history of documenting the American West”.

Ni Una Muerte Más (Not one more death), 2011 is a new single-channel video featuring Enrique Morones, the long time internationally acclaimed Human Rights activist, and founder of the organization Border Angels. Originally founded in 1986 to help immigrants living in the canyons surrounding San Diego, Border Angeles is a non-profit organization that now also works to stop unnecessary deaths of individuals travelling in the deserts near the United States and Mexico border. With the triple fences that separate San Diego County from Mexico looming in the background Enrique Morones discusses the work that Border Angels has done since it was founded.

Andrea Bowers was born in 1965 inWilmington, Ohio. In 1987 she received her Bachelor’s degree from Bowling Green State University, Ohio and in 1992 she completed her Master’s Degree in California Institute of the Arts, in Valencia, California. She has realized many solo exhibitions among which are: “The Political Landscape”, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, California (2010), “Mercy Mercy Me”, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2009), “The Weight of Relevance”, Wiener Secession, Vienna (2007), “Nothing is Neutral: Andrea Bowers”, REDCAT, Los Angeles (2006), as well as many group shows such as: “Drawn from Photography”, The Drawing Center, New York (2011), “Politics of Art”, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, “The Artist’s Museum: Los Angeles Artists 1980-2010”, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010), “The Last Newspaper” The New Museum, Νew York (2010), “In the Balance: Art for a Changing World”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2010), “Multitud Singular: El arte de resistir”, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2009) and elsewhere. She is represented by Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.

Andrea Bowers
Ni Una Muerte Más (Not one more death)
Kurator: Anna Kafetsi