Andrea Bowers and Marcos Ramirez ERRE
Artists
Co-sponsored with the Visiting Artist Program, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
* Lecture held at the SAIC Auditorium, 280 S. Columbus Drive, 6pm
Thursday, November 15, 2007

Andrea Bowers' work explores recent histories of art and politics, amplifying questions of democracy and social engagement. For some fifteen years, Bowers has investigated individual expression within society at large, including sports and rock fans as well as political activists. By focusing on the pleas of everyday people, the work questions the notion of activism itself, and offers an elegant meditation on democracy. Her exhibitions usually include new works on paper, sculpture, and video installations that explore historical events and, by extension, our current political environment.

Andrea Bowers received her B.F.A. from Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH and her M.F.A. from California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA. Her work has been exhibited internationally and in early 2007, will be featured in two solo exhibitions at Secession, Vienna, Austria, and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects.

Marcos Ramirez Erre has been called, "one of the most trenchant observers of border culture for several years." Notable among his works that address the US/Mexico border have been 1997's Toy Horse, a wooden Trojan-looking horse installed at the Border Control station between San Diego and Tijuana, as well as Stripes and Fence Forever - Homage to Jasper Johns, 2000, a metal structure in which the two countries flags are built as if they were the fence that divides Tijuana and San Diego.