Andrea Bowers and Shizu Saldamando

Finding The Words; En Memoria De Un Leguaje Enterrado

Blackwell School (Marfa, TX)

December 10, 2011 – March 10, 2012

Back to Nothing Beside Remains

Blackwell School
501 South Abbott Street
Marfa, TX 79843

As part of Nothing Beside Remains, Bowers and Saldamando collaborated on a a mural for the facade of the Blackwell School – a segregation-era school for children of Latino descent. At the center of the mural was the Spanish translation of a quote by Gloria E. Anzaldúa (“Voyager, there are no bridges, one builds them as one walks.”) and a quote by Margaret Mead prominently featured onsite (“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”).

Andrea Bowers is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist and activist whose work makes poignant political statements by humanizing and contextualizing polarizing social issues. Andrea Bowers has had recent solo exhibitions at the National Museum of Contemporary Art , Athens (2011); Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York (2009, 2011); Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, Los Angeles (2010); Praz-Delavallade, Paris (2009); Van Horn, Dusseldorf (2008); among others. Recent selected group exhibitions include Drawn from Photography, The Drawing Center, New York (2011); The Artist’s Museum: Los Angeles Artists 1980 – 2010, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010); Collection: MOCA’s First Thirty Years (1980 – Now), The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art (2010); and The Last Newspaper, The New Museum, New York(2010).

Shizu Saldamando is a Los Angeles-based multimedia artist whose detailed work illustrates and examines the negotiation and reinterpretation of popular culture by subcultural and minority communities. Shizu Saldamando has had solo exhibitions at Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles (2010); Space 47, San Jose, CA (2009); Tropico de Nopal, Los Angeles, (2007); among others. Recent selected group exhibitions include, Portraits of the Encounter, The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery (2011); Sonido Pirata, Sonoma Vallery Museum of Art (2011); Audience as Subject, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2010); Seeing is Becoming, the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, (2010); 18 with a Bullet, Centro de Arte Moderno, Guadalajara (2010), Drawing the Line, Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2008) and Phantom Sightings, Los Angeles, County Museum of Art (2008).


Special thanks to the Blackwell School Alliance.