2010 FOCAFellowships

Everything is Political

’Everything is Political’, an exhibition conceived by Andrea Bowers and Daniel Joseph Martinez opens this Sunday, October 17th at the FOCA Space in Chinatown. At the exhibition a catalogue was distributed that was designed by Jessica Fleischmann’s still.room. The ingenious and radical catalogue contains an essay by Lucia Sanromán, Associate Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, entitled ’Between a Rock and a Hard Place: From Radical Art to Radical Optimism.’ About Bowers and Martinez, Ms. Sanromán explains: \”Their practices are fundamentally different, yet they share an insistent belief in art as a detonator of forms of agency, social engagement and political action.\” For her portion of the exhibition, Bowers, continues her investigation on homage and the archival impulse by transforming 15 utilitarian folding chairs into memorials to artists Bowers particularly admires. Martinez adds two elements: the first a ceiling hung sculpture involving a hare strapped within an IED and second, a large photograph printed on an elegant silk background of an anonymous massacre site. This is a show that must be seen, not explained.

Artists

	Andrea Bowers	Andrea Bowers has an MFA from CalArts and is represented by Suzanne Vielmetter Gallery where she will have a solo show this year. Andrea Bowers says her work "focuses primarily on direct action and non-violent civil disobedience enacted through the lives of women. I present the stories of activists to express my belief that dissent is essential to maintaining a democratic process, as well as to illustrate the importance of a political strategy that stands in opposition to violence and war. My work explores the intersections between art and archival processes, and between aesthetics and political protest." Her work takes the forms of video installation, drawing and bookmaking, yet also encompasses a wide variety of other materials and interventions.
	Daniel Joseph Martinez	Daniel Joseph Martinez has an MFA from CalArts and has exhibited in the United States and internationally since 1978. Since 1996, his work has been the subject of three solo museum exhibitions and catalogues: The Things You See When You Don’t Have a Grenade! (Smart Art Press, Santa Monica, CA 1996); Coyote, I Like Mexico and Mexico Likes Me, Or Simply Another Mexican Dead (Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil, Mexico, 2001); and The Fully Enlightened Earth Radiates Disaster Triumphant: Daniel Joseph Martinez: United States Pavilion, 10th International Cairo Biennale 2006 (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 2006) in addition to the 1993 and 2008 Whitney Museum of American Art biennial exhibitions. Daniel Joseph Martinez investigates in his practice social, political and cultural mores through his artworks, which have been characterized as "nonlinear multidimensional propositions." He uses a complex artistic vocabulary which includes text, sculpture, installation, painting, video and photography in ways that can be disturbing, poetic, humorous or revelatory.