Join us for an artist panel in conjunction with the opening of
In Plain Sight. From the memorializing of obscured community spaces and the illumination of covert systems of labor, to the reimagining of historical artifacts and ephemera, the artists of
In Plain Sight share a commitment to drawing attention to narratives, communities, and histories hidden or obfuscated by prevailing discourse. The scope of the artists’ conceptual choices, materials, and media—including architectural installation, sonic and synesthetic activation, photography, and video—matches the range of experiences addressed in their work and is a testimony to the extensive potential of arts activism. Associate Professor and filmmaker Minda Martin will facilitate a conversation between four
In Plain Sight artists—Andrea Bowers, Tom Burr, Beatriz Cortez, and Nicole Miller—exploring the varying intentions and outcomes of their innovations in activist, documentary, and speculative art.
Artist Bios:
Andrea Bowers
Born 1965 in Wilmington, Ohio; lives in Los Angeles, California
Andrea Bowers received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in 1992. Internationally known for her drawings, videos, and installations, Bowers addresses social issues ranging from women’s and workers’ rights to climate change and immigration. She has presented solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati; Bronx Museum, New York; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Bowers’ work is held in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and Museum Abteiberg, Moenchengladbach, Germany.
Tom Burr
Born 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut; lives in New York, New York
Tom Burr’s sculptures and installations examine memory, time, architecture, and persona. Since his debut in the early 1990s, Burr has made art that explores the intersection of sexuality with public and private spaces. He attended residencies at Yale University and Randolph Cliff, Edinburgh. In recent years, Burr has showed prominently in New York at the Sculpture Center, Swiss Institute, and Whitney Museum of American Art, and he continues to exhibit widely across Europe. His work is included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Hammer Museum, Los Angele; and Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany.
Beatriz Cortez
Born 1970 in San Salvador, El Salvador; lives in Los Angeles, California
Beatriz Cortez earned an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and a Ph.D. in Literature and Cultural Studies from Arizona State University. Her work explores simultaneity, life in different temporalities, and different versions of modernity, particularly in relation to memory and loss in the aftermath of war and the experience of migration, and in relation to imagining possible futures. She has exhibited her work nationally in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, and internationally in El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. She has received the 2018 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists and the 2016 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists. Cortez teaches in the Department of Central American Studies at California State University, Northridge.
Nicole Miller
Born 1982 in Tucson, Arizona; lives in Los Angeles, California
Nicole Miller earned a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts and MFA from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Miller works mainly with video to examine notions of subjectivity and self-representation, especially in relation to the African American male body. She has had solo exhibitions at Ballroom Marfa, San Antonio; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Her work is represented in the collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, among others. Miller has been the recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Award (2018), Rome Prize (2016), and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant (2013), among others. She is Assistant Professor in the department of visual arts at the University of California, San Diego.
Moderator:
Minda Martin is an artist, filmmaker and teacher based in Seattle. Martin’s experimental film/video practices inspire the viewer to look beyond dominant histories, calling for multi-vocal approaches to history. Her work has been exhibited internationally, including MoMA NY, RedCat Theater, MoPA LA, CPH/DOX, BAFICI, Locarno, Toronto Int’l, RIDM, Northwest Film Forum, and Viennale and has received favorable reviews in Variety, Senses of Cinema, Cinemascope, L.A.Weekly, The New York Times, Cinemascope, Film Comment and more. She is an Associate Professor in Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences at University of Washington Bothell.