Artist Noel Anderson and Andrea Bowers open solo shows at the CAC

Noel Anderson: Blak Origin Moment – Andrea Bowers: Womxn Workers of the World Unite! Opening Celebration • Feb 10, 2017 Organized by the Contemporary Arts Center; Curated by Steven Matijcio.

CINCINNATI, OH — The Contemporary Arts Center proposes a provocative take on increasingly pressing political issues this exhibition season. Join the conversation on February 10th, 2017 to celebrate the opening of two solo exhibitions: Noel Anderson: Blak Origin Moment and Andrea Bowers: Womxn Workers of the World Unite!. Both artists will be in attendance to present artist talks, and will then join Curator Steven Matijcio in a conversation about art and activism. Following the talks, there will be live performances by the Yemi Oyediran Trio and Jennifer Simone in the CAC Lobby. The exhibitions bring a timely and necessary challenge to our traditional views of race and gender through a wide variety of images, materials and encounters.

“When did you know you were black?” Kentucky born, NY-based artist Noel W. Anderson’s first major Ohio exhibition asks pointed questions about the origins of racial identity in today’s turbulent “post-Ferguson” world. Blak Origin Moment features a collection of images on tapestries, objects, videos and sounds that Anderson says “evoke moments where racial recognition is heightened.” Anderson unravels his large scale tapestries to create images that are simultaneously familiar and obscured.

Andrea Bowers examines the trajectory of the feminist movement in her first solo exhibition in Ohio, Womxn Workers of the World Unite!. The Ohio-born, Los Angeles-based artist channels a range of contemporary causes including women’s rights, gay and transgender equality and environmental protection. Her exhibition features drawings, photography, video, and collage to, in her words, “create images that represent women through a feminist lens while allowing these women the freedom to reclaim and determine their sexuality and voice.”

Anderson and Bowers use their exhibitions to ask difficult, but necessary questions. They each create work at the intersection of art and politics, skillfully addressing issues of race and gender that are important and under duress in the United States. Their work is poignant and charged rather than preachy or didactic – combining compelling aesthetics and poetic meditations with urgent inquiries and challenging imagery.

For more information visit contemporaryartscenter.org