{"id":9440,"date":"2012-03-06T12:20:14","date_gmt":"2012-03-06T19:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=9440"},"modified":"2021-09-07T15:51:01","modified_gmt":"2021-09-07T21:51:01","slug":"andrea-bowers-meeting-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/andrea-bowers-meeting-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrea Bowers’ Meeting Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artist Andrea Bowers at the Ground Floor, SLC. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.<\/p><\/div>\n

Andrea Bowers lives at the intersection of art and activism. She may have been born there. As a young child she was drawn to art before she could walk, and by the time she was in kindergarten she was discussing politics with adults.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been interested in politics. My dad used to have coffee with all of his friends every morning before they\u2019d go to work and most of them were in unions. So I\u2019d listen to union politics, I\u2019d listen to them argue and I\u2019d get in the middle of it. I remember being 5, 6 and 7 years old arguing with them about gender and race. I wouldn\u2019t have called it that in those times. I wouldn\u2019t have been as specific. But it\u2019s always been a part of my personality,\u201d Bowers says.<\/p>\n

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Bowers attempts to save an old growth forest in Arcadia<\/p><\/div>\n

Her education nurtured both her artistic practice and her engagement in controversial issues. She received very traditional training at Bowling Green State University where her BFA studies focused on figure drawing and printmaking. From there she went to California Institute of the Arts, which is home to one of the country\u2019s first feminist art programs. Unlike her education at Bowling Green the program at CalArts was largely conceptual.<\/p>\n

As part of her MFA course work Bowers took classes in socialism and anarchy, learning in one class how to secede from the government. The training taught her how to question and analyze power structures. \u201cIt comes out of a kind of utopian philosophy where you try to analyze what you think is unfair and you try to improve it,\u201d Bowers said.<\/p>\n

Initially she rebelled against some of the concepts but then she taught in the arts program at University of California, Irvine, under Catherine Lord. Lord, a well-known artist, writer, and feminist, constructed a multi-cultural program and Bowers found herself immersed in a community that shared many of her interests.<\/p>\n

She has been exhibiting her work since the early 1990\u2019s and much of it revolves around themes she was drawn to as a child that became solidified through her academic experience. \u201cI tend to focus on three categories: immigration, feminism, and environmentalism. Not that I stick to that all the time, but I am always investigating the overlap between art and activism,\u201d Bowers says.<\/p>\n

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Courtesy of the UMFA: Bower\u2019s drawing, \u201cTim DeChristopher (I Am The Carbon Tax)\u201d (2010)<\/p><\/div>\n

Through her artistic exploration of activism Bowers came to participate in an attempt to save an old growth forest in Arcadia. She sat in one of the trees as the others were torn down around her. She documented the experience on film and described her efforts to save the tree as \u201cterrifying\u201d because the crew removing the trees tried to intimidate her by tearing down trees that were attached to the one she was in. For participating in the event, she was arrested and spent two days in jail.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s nothing compared to what Tim is doing, but it was very intense,\u201d Bowers is referring to Utah\u2019s own poster child for acts of civil disobedience, Tim DeChristopher. He is now serving a prison sentence for protesting an oil and gas lease auction in Utah. He placed false bids on parcels of land to halt the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always interested in investigating the tradition of the heroic male figure, which is something I love to critique. Being a woman I love to undermine that figure. In art the heroic male figure is always this guy who manipulates, like Michael Heizer, and the guys who do it out here. It\u2019s always manipulating the land, making big things. The tradition of this country is building big things and making big things that are very macho, heroic and powerful. What I loved about Tim is he is this very heroic, young male figure but his heroic move was to leave something untouched. I admire that greatly about him,\u201d Bowers says.<\/p>\n

Two pieces of artwork she created with DeChristopher as a subject were acquired by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA): a drawing, \u201cTim DeChristopher (I Am The Carbon Tax)\u201d (2010), graphite on paper, and a video, \u201cThe United States v. Tim DeChristopher\u201d (2010), a single channel HD video.<\/p>\n

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Still from Bower’s video “The United States v. Tim DeChristopher” (2010), courtesy UMFA<\/p><\/div>\n

For the video she interviewed DeChristopher for two hours. Bowers was looking to tell a side of the story that wasn\u2019t told through the media. \u201cI think one thing I can do is tell a really long, in-depth story that I think isn\u2019t done much in the media these days. The media uses a lot of sound bites.\u201d<\/p>\n

In part, her work with DeChristopher gave her an edge on her application to the University of Utah\u2019s 2012 Warnock Artist in Residence program. As part of the residency she is teaching an interdisciplinary special topics course during spring semester. Bowers has turned her studio space at ArtSpace Commons over to her students, which they have named Ground Floor. \u201cThey\u2019re turning that into an exhibition space and it\u2019s being offered up free to any social or political organization that needs a place to meet. And any artwork that is exhibited in it has to be socially or politically engaged.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bower’s video “The United States v. Tim DeChristopher,” (2010), courtesy UMFA<\/p><\/div>\n

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Bowers with students at Ground Floor, SLC. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Ground Floor, SLC UT. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.<\/p><\/div>\n

She also plans to bring in a number of guest speakers that her students can learn from, including Pat Shea, who served as DeChristopher\u2019s lawyer. At the end of the semester Bowers says she hopes her students will walk away with, \u201cindependent thinking, critical thought, and an interest in citizenry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students are also looking to use the studio space as a place where people with opposing ideas can meet to have discussions. \u201cI think one of the topics that keeps coming up with the students is they want to try to find a place to hold discussions between these groups where it\u2019s a discussion and not a battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Bowers with students at Ground Floor, SLC. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.<\/p><\/div>\n

In some ways this mirrors Bowers attempt to document politically charged issues without engaging in an argument with people who oppose her ideas. \u201cI really feel like my practice is about bearing witness, homage, and memorial,\u201d Bowers says. In addition, she says her work may provide a perspective that allows for understanding from people on either side of an issue. \u201cIn my work there is also empathy. Maybe through empathy we can find a meeting ground.\u201d
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\n<\/em>Andrea Bowers will be in Utah through May as the 2012 Warnock Artist in Residence at the University of Utah. While in residency Bowers will continue a recent series of works exploring contemporary issues associated with the genre of landscape as well as teach a master class at the University of Utah.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A profile of art activist Andrea Bowers, the 2012 Warnock Artist in Residence at the University of Utah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":9519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artist_profiles","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bowersslide.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-26 06:42:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1533"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9440"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59761,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9440\/revisions\/59761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}