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Review: Art meets activism in Andrea Bowers’ ‘Triumph of Labor’ at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects

Andrea Bowers' sign, "Education Should Be Free," is made from electric lights in cut-up cardboard shipping boxes.
(Christopher Knight / Los Angeles Times)
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A historical face-off is the congenial centerpiece of Andrea Bowers’ exhibition of recent work at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. On one side of the room is an adaptation of a late-19th century graphic, blown up to monumental scale. On the other is a wall mural made from 168 color snapshots.

The subject of both is May Day, a traditional springtime festival that, given associations with nature’s potential productivity, merged into a celebration of industrial age workers by international trade unions more than a century ago. Bowers has used labor images by British Arts and Crafts illustrator Walter Crane before; here it is his epic parade of allegorical figures and people who work with their hands, “The Triumph of Labor.”

She has transferred the image — by hand — in black paint onto a surface 22 feet wide and made from flattened shipping boxes. The shipment now delivers an artistic message.

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Across the way, inkjet photographic prints of mostly smiling marchers at social justice events are pinned to cover two walls. Virtually every person shown carries a sign in support of their cause, making the photo mural a big sign composed of smaller signs. The sly metaphor of a union is apt.

Nearby, five delicate pencil drawings isolate sign-wielding individuals on sheets of white paper, while a folding table is stacked with printouts of email correspondence concerning pay negotiations for adjunct teachers at a local art school. Handmade signs, after all, are the province of artists — including Bowers.

One compelling example is an electric wall-sign. The housing for its rainbow of shifting colored lights is likewise cobbled together from cardboard packing boxes for beer, home appliances, soda and other domestic supplies.

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“Education should be free,” the sign declares in dancing lights, reiterating a prominent political issue today.

In the show’s May Day context, this declaration resonates with current tensions around educational philosophy. Is education primarily a tool for enhancing a society of free people, or is it for training workers? In Bowers’ gifted hands, the answers would not seem to be mutually exclusive.

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Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, 6006 Washington Blvd., Culver City. Through July 9. Closed Sunday and Monday. (310) 837-2117, www.vielmetter.com

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christopher.knight@latimes.com

Twitter @KnightLAT

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