Andrea Bowers
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Biography
Born 1965 in Wilmington, OH
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CAOver the last 20 years Andrea Bowers has gained an international reputation as an artist and social activist. For Bowers, political engagement and artistic expression are inseparable. Her practice, which includes drawings, videos and installations, addresses a wide range of relevant socio-political issues from women’s and worker’s rights and the arms industry, to immigration politics and the climate crisis. Storytelling is integral to the work, and part of her activism consists of highlighting the narratives of resistance and rebellion.
Bowers has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (2024); Galleria d’Arte Moderna Milano in collaboration with Fondazione Furla, Milan (2022); The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2022); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2021/2022); Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2020); Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen (2019/2020); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati (2017); Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris (2014); Wiener Secession, Vienna (2007); and The Power Plant, Toronto (2007). Bowers has exhibited internationally in biennials and major institutional group exhibitions, including Kunstmuseum Bonn (2023); Hayward Gallery, London (2023); Kunstmueum Ravensburg (2023); Kuntsmuseum Wolfsburg (2022); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2022); Berkeley Art Museum (2021); Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2021); Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf (2020); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2018); Documenta 14, Fridericianum, Kassel (2017); Triennale Milano, Milan (2017); Aspen Art Museum (2016); and Albertina, Vienna (2015). Bowers’ work is held in the collections of The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; MoMA, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum Of Contemporary Art, Chicago, among others.
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Works
Andrea Bowers
I Plan to Stay a Believer - The Arcadia 4 Tree Sit, 2013Single channel video with color and sound60:55 minEdition 5 + 2 APB-ABOWERS-.13-0014In 2011 Andrea Bowers was arrested, with three other activists, for climbing into the trees of a native oak woodland habitat in Arcadia, CA and trying to save a pristine...In 2011 Andrea Bowers was arrested, with three other activists, for climbing into the trees of a native oak woodland habitat in Arcadia, CA and trying to save a pristine forest of 250 trees from being clearcut by the county of Los Angeles. Ultimately, she was arrested and placed in jail for two days. Bowers videotaped the entire experience until the sheriffs took her camera into evidence. The result is a video, "I Plan to Stay a Believer" (2013) that includes her footage, news footage and the sheriff department’s recordings. Tree sitting is a form of environmentalist civil disobedience in which a protester sits in a tree, usually on a small platform built for the purpose, to protect it from being cut down.Exhibitions
2013 Andrea Bowers, Cultivating the Courage to Sin, Capitain Petzel, Berlin.
2020 ANDREA BOWERS - grief and hope, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach
Publications
Andrea Bowers, Exhibition catalogue of Pomona College Museum of Art and Pitzer College Art Galleries, 2014, p. 56 and 57.
Andrea Bowers, edited by Connie Butler and Michael Darling. Exhibition catalogue of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Hammer Museum Los Angeles, 2021, p. 32 and 33.NewsExhibitionsExternal ExhibitionsPressPublicationsVideo