June 14, 2022

Artists Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, and Jenny Holzer | Bring Provoking Art to Los Angeles

by Sheila Pippin

Jenny Holzer. “*HURT EARTH* ” (2022). Digital animation. Photo by Steven Calcote.

This month, internationally-renowned artists Andrea Bowers, Mark Bradford, and Jenny Holzer will present three thought-provoking and powerful art installations in Los Angeles communities. The series of artworks come in collaboration with Emerson Collective, which strives to elevate artists focusing on the impact of climate change. At locations throughout the city, these three artists will share their distinct interpretations of climate change’s increasing threat in order to provoke reflection, conversation, and change.

Following its inaugural presentation in the United Kingdom for COP26 in 2021, Jenny Holzer presented HURT EARTH at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery on June 4, including a series of billboards, LED signs, and light projections demanding urgent action regarding the climate crisis. The work features testimony from more than 40 climate activists.

From June 6 to June 10 in Downtown Los Angeles, Andrea Bowers presented Protest Ribbons featuring silk-screened messages on social justice and the current climate emergency. This art installation is a variation of her Political Ribbons series.

Mark Bradford’s 70-foot long sculpture, made from cyclone fencing and shipping containers, was open to the public June 7 through June 11 at the Los Angeles State Historic Park. Bradford’s work symbolizes a safe harbor from rising sea levels and a changing climate. The sculpture represents a call to action to reduce and reverse our human impact on the earth. As Bradford said, “One of the powers of art is to bring issues like this and put them right in front of us. You can look away, but you can’t say you didn’t know.”