Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Untitled Original Color Photograph. Printed in darkroom on Kodak Professionak Paper. Measures 15 inches wide x 19.5 inches. Slight discoloration from printing process and aging. No damage or creases to the print. Signed on verso. Dated 1995 anf Edition 1/10. Acquired directly from the artist in New York City in the 90's. Valued  at USD$5000. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Untitled Original Color Photograph. Printed in darkroom on Glossy Kodak Professionak Paper. Measures 19.5 inches wide x 24 inches height. No damage or creases to the print. Excellent condition. Signed on verso of print. Dated 1997. Edition 1/10. Acquired directly from the artist in New York City in the 90's. Valued  at USD$5500. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Untitled Original Black & White Photograph. Printed in darkroom on Professional Paper. Measures 15.75 inches wide x 20 inches. Mild creases to print, but on white border only. Unsigned. Date Unknown, Early 1990's. Acquired directly from the artist in New York City in the 90's. USD$4500. Eve Fowler at my apt. in NYC, 1990's. For archival reference only. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 16 x 20 inches, Edition 3 of 10, signed and dated 1996-1997 on verso. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print. USD$1500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print. USD$2500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, signed. USD$1500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, unsigned. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print. USD$2500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print. USD$2500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, signed. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 16 x 20 inches, AP print, signed and dated. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, Signed and dated 1996-1997, Edition 1/10. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles & New York, USA), Original Contact Sheet with image of 4x5 inches color negative, Unknown Series & Subject, 8 x 10 inches, unsigned. USD$450. Eve Fowler (L.A., USA), Untitled (Portrait of Guy as Hustler), Shot in New York, Silver Gelatin Photograph. 1995. 4 x 5 inches. Collection of LPM Projects. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Original Contact Sheet, Hustler Series, 8 x 10 inches, SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, USD$2500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, USD$2500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, Collection of LPM Projects. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, AP print, Collection of LPM Projects. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), Signed and dated. AP print. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles, USA), Hustler Series (New York, 1990's), C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), AP print. SOLD. Eve Fowler (Los Angeles & New York, USA), Portrait commissioned by the New York Times Magazine for featured article, , C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, Signed and dated 1997, Unsigned. USD$2500 Eve Fowler (Los Angeles & New York, USA), 'Toy Horse', C-print photograph (printed in a lab / not digital), 11 x 14 inches, Signed and dated 1997, AP. USD$2500 Photographer Eve Fowler, Los Angeles.

Eve Fowler, Los Angeles, USA

Eve Fowler was a clear influence on me, in becoming an art dealer. While I lived in New York from 1990 – 2000, I met Eve early on, & this particular series of photographs was what made me decide to become an independent art/photo dealer. I did grunt work in Soho & uptown galleries, which allowed me to have their clientele look at Eve’s work, at times, while I was even bartending their art openings. These moments resulted in a number of sales; my early beginnings as a dealer.

I consider this work the catalyst to my current career, and I thank Eve for setting me on this path.

– Guy Berube, 2014

  Eve Fowler is a photographer based in Los Angeles. Her pictures explore provocative subject matter — for instance male hustlers, lesbians, or transgendered individuals — but she deliberately supplies no explanatory titles or captions. In her early work, she photographed men who were loners — disconnected sex workers in New York and Los Angeles. She then began photographing androgynous men, which then moved into photographs of longhaired, shirtless androgynous men who resemble some of the transgender women she photographs today.
  When Fowler was first emerging on the scene in the mid ’90s, after getting her MFA in art and photography from Yale, the Philadelphia-born artist earned her stripes with a four-year portraiture project capturing gay male hustlers on the streets of New York and Los Angeles, some of which are now in the permanent collections at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and in newsprint books sold at Printed Matter.
GALLERY REPRESENTATION
PRESS
  • NEW BOOK BY EVE FOWLER: Hustling on the streets of New York and Los Angeles
Street photography collides with sexuality and identity in this ’90s series from Eve Fowler
“I didn’t want to make a book that explained everything”, says LA photographer Eve Fowler when asked about Hustlers, her ’90s photo series on the male prostitutes of West Village, NY and Santa Monica Boulevard in LA out now via Capricious. The book is captionless, only prefaced with a short bespoke tale, Prosper Street from acclaimed LGBT poet, author and playwright Kevin Killian. The story sucks you in and shakes you up from the off with the matter-of-fact narrative of rent boy, Jesse and his musings on the victim stereotype in sex work and his lover/client Frank who comes bearing ominous news from a hospital check-up. “I didn’t want to have essays about me or my work in the book. So I asked Kevin to write something fictional because I like his writing and i thought his work made sense in this context. It makes the book more like an artwork and less about me”, says Fowler.
The lack of verbal prompts as you flick through the nameless faces of these boys jars at first, you feel cheated out of their stories somehow, but by the end it’s that same lack of backstory that frees these hustlers from categorisation, in the same way that Jesse rails against it in Prosper Street. A lot of Fowler’s previous works have also dealt with the crossroads between sexuality and identity – the titillitatingly titled Gloria Hole springs to mind – and with Hustlers there’s a similar sense of other-ness going on, “I think it probably had something to do with coming out of the closet”. The starkly shot portraits offer up a unique take on photography’s enduring fascination with sex workers, stripping away at the lurid glamour and leaving us with a surprisingly intense portal back to those hustling streets.

EVE FOWLER

Eve Fowler, expanding from a foundation in photography, creates work that coalesces art and language. Her two-dimensional works take the form of billboards, posters, prints, and signs, using mediums such as neon, paint, and vinyl. In addition, she also creates installations, films, and sound pieces, often resulting from collaborations with other artists, filmmakers, and writers. Fowler’s practice is concerned with the power of words, language, and cultural biases as those topics relate to gender politics and queerness, in a contemporary and historical context.

Eve Fowler (b. 1964, Philadelphia, PA) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. A graduate of Temple University (BA, 1986), and Yale University (MFA, 1992), Fowler has had solo exhibitions at DCA Scotland; Participant Inc, NY; and in Sydney Australia at ArtSpace. Her work was included in Sites of Reason: A Selection of Recent Acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in The Manifest Destiny Billboard Project organized by LAND, in 2014. Her book Anyone Telling Anything Is Telling That Thing was published by Printed Matter in September of 2013. Her second book, Hustlers, was published in May of 2014, by Capricious Publishing. Fowler’s recent film with it which it as it if it is to be screened at LA MOCA; the Lumber Room, Portland, OR; and at The Tate St. Ives, in 2018. Her work is included in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; The New Museum, New York; and The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C. In addition to her studio practice, Fowler organizes Artist Curated Projects in Los Angeles. She is a recipient of a 2017 Art Matters grant, was a Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard University (2018-19), and received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts – Roy Lichtenstein Award in 2022.

EVE FOWLER

b. 1964, Philadelphia, PA
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

EDUCATION

1992 MFA, Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT 1986 BFA, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA

SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS

2023 Eve Fowler: New Work, Gordon Robichaux, New York, NY
2021 Just Seated Beside The Meaning, 12.26, Dallas, TX
2019 These Sounds Fall Into My Mind, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA
2018 what a slight. what a sound. what a universal shudder., Dundee Contemporary Arts,

Scotland, UK

with it which it as it if it is to be, Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2017 with it which it as it if it is to be, Participant, New York, NY

with it which it as it if it is to be, one-night screening at MOCA, Los Angeles, CA

Roof Project, Half Gallery, New York, NY
2016 as it if it is to be, Fourteen30 Contemporary, Portland, OR 2015 The Difference is Spreading, Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

The Difference is Spreading, ArtSpace, Sydney, Australia
A Spectacle and Nothing Strange, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA

2014 IT IS SO, IS IT SO, The Manifest Destiny Billboard Project, Houston, TX
2013 A Difference of Very Little Difference, University Art Gallery, Cal Poly State University,

San Luis Obispo, CA
Eve Fowler/Sam Gordon Feature, New York, NY
Eve Fowler/Sam Gordon, Printed Matter, New York, NY Eve Fowler/Caroline May, The Apartment, Athens, GA

2012 Fowler/Gordon, USC Roski School of Art, Los Angeles, CA 2011 Two Serious Ladies Passover, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2010 Eve Fowler & Anna Sew Hoy, Ditch Projects, Eugene, OR

One Thing I Forgot to Tell You, Horton Gallery (L.E.S. Sundays), New York, NY

Eve Fowler, Apartment 2 Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2007 Gold Star, Tom Solomon at Rental Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2006 Wimmin by Womyn who love Wymin, with A.L. Steiner, Harvey Levine Gallery, Los

Angeles, CA

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2022 No Time to Rest!, SFMOMA, Online
2021 The Skin I Live In, Lyles & King, New York, NY
2019 Happening Group Exhibition, Gordon Robichaux, New York, NY

Queer California: Untold Stories, Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA 2018 Objects to Identify, Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA

Moments of Being: an exhibition based on the writings of Virginia Woolf, Tate St.Ives,

Pallant House, and The Fitzwilliam Museum
2017 Extratextual, Contemporary Calgary, Calgary, Canada

Women to the Front, Lumber Room, Portland, OR
in the hopes of not being considered, Kate Werble Gallery, New York, NY
FOUND: Queer Archaeology; Queer Abstraction, Leslie Lohman Museum, New York, NY The Brightsiders, Verge Center of the Arts, Sacramento, CA

2016 Pride Goes Before a Fall / Beware of a Holy Whore / Mise en Abyme, Artists’ Space, New York, NY

Queering the Bibliobject, Center for Book Arts, New York, NY

Emotional Signs, Good Children Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2015 Books Fuel Ideas: Lizzi Bougatsos, Eve Fowler and Sam Gordon, Curated by Katerina

Llanes and Amanda Keeley, in collaboration with Exile Books, Bas Fisher Invitational,

Miami, FL
2014 Cherub, curated by Andrew Berardini and Brian Kennon, 2nd Cannons, Los Angeles, CA

Sites of Reason: A Selection of Recent Acquisitions, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY

LAND Manifest Destiny Billboard Project, Beaumont, CA and Houston, TX 2013 Dig the Dig, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA

Summer Show, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, TX
Letters to Los Angeles, Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles, CA In the Name of Good Company, ForYourArt, Los Angeles, CA
In Unison, Get This! Gallery, Atlanta, GA

2012 Venice Beach Biennial, part of Made in LA 2014 with the Hammer Museum and LAXART, Los Angeles, CA

B-Out, Andrew Edin Gallery, New York, NY
Fuel for the Fire, Curated by Dawn Kasper, Temporary Space, New York, NY
This is it with it as it is, Lora Reynolds Gallery, Austin, TX
Day Break, Emma Grey HQ, Los Angeles, CA
In the evening there is feeling, permanent public art installation, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2011 Whole Halves, a collaboration between Two Serious Ladies (Eve Fowler and Anna Sew Hoy) and Mariah Garnett, W/–, New York, NY
Greater Los Angeles, Curated by Joel Mesler, UNTITLED, New York, NY
Gloria Hole, Fireplace Projects, East Hampton, NY

Les Paris Sont Ouverts, Freud Museum, London, UK

Los Angeles Museum of Ceramic Art, ACME, Los Angeles, CA
2010 The California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, Orange County, CA

50 Artists Photograph the Future, Higher Pictures, New York, NY
A about Bauhaus..harm neu tues, Cardwell Jimmerson, Los Angeles, CA The Secret Knows, Los Angeles Nomadic Division, Austin, TX
Muse, Tulane University Art Gallery, New Orleans, LA
You Gave Me Brave, curated by Young Chung, S1F, Los Angeles, CA Ridyculus Hits Bottom, Leo Koenig Gallery, New York, NY Disorganized, curated by Jacob Robichaux, Museum 52, New York, NY

Inside of Me, Phil, Los Angeles, CA

Twenty Years Ago Today, Japanese American Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Hello Liberty, Dalton Gallery, Agnes Scott College, Decatur, GA
The Whole World is Watching, curated by Irene Tsatsos, Glendale College Art Gallery, Glendale, CA

2008 Small Things End, Great Things Endure, New Langton Art, San Francisco, CA The Way We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Les Autres: Araki, Christopherson, and Fowler, Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA Criteria, Gallery Perdida, Berlin, Germany

2007 Distinctive Messenger, Curated by Simon Watson & Craig Hensala, Los Angeles, CA Multiple Vantage Points: Southern California Women Artists, 1980-2006, Barnsdall Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Shared Women, Organized by A.L. Steiner, Eve Fowler & Emily Roysdon, LACE, Los Angeles, CA

Imposing Order: Contemporary Photography and the Archive, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA
Blow Both of Us, curated by Shannon Ebner & Adam Putnam, Participant, New York, NY

2006 Too Much Love, organized by Amy Adler, Angels Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
The Fantasy of Failed Utopias and a Girl’s Daydream, Kuenstlerhaus, Stuttgart and Videos IM Balhaus Ost, Berlin, Germany
Chaos or Control, curated by James Welling, UCLA School of Architecture Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Many, Many Guys and Girls All of them Real Beauties, organized by Julian Hoeber, Participant, New York, NY
Ridykeulous, curated by A.L Steiner and Nicole Eisenman Participant, New York, NY

2005 Into Thin Air, Curated by Daren Klein, The One Institute, Los Angeles, CA Editions Fawbush, Conner Contemporary, Washington, DC

2004 Sundown Salon, curated by Fritz Haeg, Los Angeles, CA
2003 Retreat, Peres Projects, Los Angeles, CA
2002 The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum, Works on Paper, Los Angeles, CA

A Work in Progress: Selections from the New Museum Collection, New Museum, New

York, NY
2001 Fresh: The Altoids Curiously Strong Collection, New Museum, New York, NY

Game Face, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
2000 Representing, The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York 1999 Female, curated by Vince Aletti, Wessel + O’Connor, New York, NY

Recent Editions From Editions Fawbush, Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, MA Changing Faces, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Summer Reading: Photographer’s Fascination: Books, Yancey Richardson, New York, NY

1998 Naked & Famous, New Photography, Jessica Fredricks Gallery, New York, NY White Room, White Columns, New York, NY
Portraits, Paul Morris Gallery, New York, NY

1997 Adolescents, Julie Saul Gallery, New York, NY

Coming of Age, White Columns, New York, NY
1996 Portraiture, Contemporary Photographs, White Columns, New York, NY
1992 MFA Thesis Show, Yale University, New Haven, CT
1988 Traveled to: City Gallery of Contemporary Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

HONORS AND AWARDS

2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts – Roy Lichtenstein Award
2021 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow in Fine Arts
2018-19 Radcliffe Institute For Advanced Study, David and Roberta Logie Fellow 2017 Art Matters Grant
2009 Printed Matter Awards for Artists
2007 California Community Foundation Award
2005 Art Center College of Design Faculty Enrichment Grant
1998 The Peter Reed Foundation Grant

RESIDENCIES

2015 Residential Studio Artist, Artist Space, Sydney, Australia 2013 BOFFO, Fire Island, New York, NY

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
The New Museum, New York, NY

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Liu, Jasmine. “New York’s Foundation for Contemporary Arts Awards $900,000 to 20 Artists.” Hyperallergic, February 3, 2022.
Solomon, Tessa. “Foundation for Contemporary Arts’s $45,000 Grants Go to Eve Fowler, Raven Chacon, and More.” ARTNews, January 27, 2022.

Wouk Almino, Elisa. “Meet LA’s Art Community: Eve Fowler Says, “I Learn More When I See Art With Friends,” Hyperallergic, January 29, 2020.
Simmons, William J. “Portfolio by Eve Fowler, More Than.” BOMB, October 1, 2019.
Horst, Aaron. “Eve Fowler at Morán Morán.” Contemporary Art Review LA, Septemebr 25, 2019. Wallace, Eliza. “Word Play and Women’s Work with Eve Fowler.” Garage, September 6, 2019. Quinn, Bridget. “Spotlighting Lesbian Artists as Central Players in California’s Queer History.”Hyperallergic, May 29, 2019.

Dambrot, Shana Nys. “Language that Rises.” Artillery, September 04, 2018.
Pollock, David. “Landmark European Show of Fowler’s is a Major Coup for DCA.” The List, July 18, 2018.
Spens, Christina. “Eve Fowler: ‘Gertrude Stein’s work really affected me.’” Studio International, June 15, 2018.

Slenske, Michael. “L.A. Women Artist Eve Fowler is a Los Angeles Legend.” Cultured Magazine, October 7, 2017.
Ho, Yin. “Critics Pick.” Artforum, 2016.
Valinsky, Rachel. “Review: Eve Fowler, Participant Inc.” Millenium Film Journal, 2016.
Slenske, Michael. “Eve Fowler.” Cultured Magazine, 2016.
Slenske, Michael. “Upmarket flea markt: Rob Pruitt’s high-art bazaar hits the West Coast.” Wallpaper, February 18, 2016.
Lowry, Rachel and Caroline Smith. “Discover the Unsung American Female Photographers of the Past Century.” TIME, March 22, 2016
Wu, Su. “A Two Year, 100-Billboard Celebration of Going West.” New York Times, T Magazine, June 23, 2015.
Rice, Randy. “Review: Eve Fowler.”, Contemporary Art Review Los Angeles (CARLA), June, 2015. Dillon, Stephen. “Eve Fowler Appropriates Gertrude Stein at Mier Gallery.” Artsy, June 12, 2015. Wagley, Catherine. “Eve Fowler: the difference is spreading.” LA Weekly, June 2, 2015.
Perta, Litia. “Eve Fowler.” Artillery Magazine, May, 2015.
Mizota, Sharon. “Review: Eve Fowler imagine Gertrude Stein’s words as a cisual cacophony.” The Los Angeles Times, March 27, 2015.
Wagley Catherine. “Art Picks.” LA Weekly, 2015.
Sites of Reason, Museum of Modern Art, New York, May 16, 2014.
Kiltson, Lyra. “Los Angeles Museum of Ceramic Art, Artforum Critics Picks.” Artforum, February, 2011.
Lehrer-Graiwer, Sarah. “2010 California Biennial.” Artforum, January, 2011.
Bollen, Christopher. “L.A. Art World, Artist Curated Projects.” Interview Magazine, December, 2011. A.L. Steiner. “Artist Picks Best of 2010.” Artforum, December, 2011.
Eve Fowler and A.L. Steiner. “NDP #5.” North Drive Press, 2011.
Momin, Shamim. “Studio Visits.” New York Times, T Magazine, August 26, 2009.
Fowler, Eve. “Hole of Desire.” NY Arts, March, 2009.
Summers, Robert. “The Way That We Rhyme.” ArtUS, September, 2008.
Holte, Michael Ned. “On The Ground, Los Angeles.” Artforum, December, 2007.
Molesworth, Helen. “Feminism.” Artforum, May, 2007.
Russell, Christopher. “Don’t Look Back.” Artillery, May, 2007.
Segade, Alex. “Eve Fowler & A.L. Steiner.” ArtUS, May-June, 2006.
Blank, Gil. “Influence.” September, 2005.
Wood, Eve. “Los Angeles.” Artnet, August, 2002.
Aletti, Vince. “Review: Snips, Snails and Puppy Dogs Tails.” Village Voice, 2001.
Arning, Bill. “Review: Eve Fowler Portraits.” Time Out New York, March 25, 1999.
Johnson, Ken. “Review: Eve Fowler Portraits.” The New York Times, March 26, 1999.
Aletti, Vince. “Review: Eve Fowler Portraits.” Village Voice, March 24, 1999.
Johnson, Ken. “Naked and Famous.” The New York Times, July 10, 1998.
Harris, Elise. “Naked and Famous.” Out Magazine, July, 1998
“Adolescents”, New York Magazine, August 4, 1997.

INTERVIEW:

  • SOURCE: BOMB
  • AUTHOR: WILLIAM J. SIMMON
  • DATE: OCTOBER 01, 2019

PORTFOLIO BY EVE FOWLER

MORE THAN.

Eve Fowler, Untitled, 2006. Photograph on newsprint. 11 × 14 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

A queer archive eats itself because at times it craves fixity, even when it is supposed to be constantly in motion. What would queerness be if it did not have in-between-ness, oppositionality, or fluidity? How could queerness not be those things? We sometimes seek lovers who can tell us that there is more to who we are than the various adjectives with which we can be described.

Eve Fowler, Untitled, 2006. C-print. 11 × 14 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Morán Morán.

Eve Fowler, with it which it as it if it is to be (neon), 2016. Neon. 14 × 150 inches. Courtesy the artist and Morán Morán.

Indeterminacy is not inherently radical, and neither is ephemerality, and neither is earnestness, and neither is appropriation, and neither are touching or not touching, and neither is doing away with radicality, and neither is writing a memoir. There is an unfathomable joy in allowing queerness to exist in and of itself and to sit among the East Side lesbians smoking cigarettes atop a scraggly hill. Were Eve Fowler to write a book, the chapters might be as follows:

  1.  One needing kissing then
  2.  Needing kissing
  3.  Needing anything just then
  4.  Needing some kissing then
  5.  Epilogue

The Epilogue reads: “This is a love story, and this is a fairy tale. I want you to find someone who reminds you of everyone, who reminds you of everyone and no one.” Each chapter would be illustrated with a primary color that has none of that avant-garde mysticism and instead inhales the mysticism of the Lesbian Hill.

Eve Fowler, Anyone she is kissing, 2018. Acrylic on canvas. 49 × 68 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Morán Morán.

In “Giotto’s Joy,” Julia Kristeva writes of his painting: “We must then find our way through what separates the place where ‘I’ speak, reason, and understand from the one where something functions in addition to my speech: something that is more-than-speech, a meaning to which space and color have been added.” Though Kristeva has dis-identified in some ways with feminism, her words nevertheless could contribute to a queer-feminist methodology of archiving.

Fowler’s “more-than-speech” is in fact a profusion of speech, an amassment of small choices and small attachments that are neither/both autobiography and history. Yet when the “I” wishes to remain intact, Fowler stays with it. Kristeva continues: “My choice, my desire to speak of Giotto (1267–1336)—if justification be needed …” Neither Kristeva nor Fowler need justification, so they speak in the subjunctive, in the tense of possibility. Their choices are unabashedly desires, and their desires are histories.

So on newsprint you find that lover whose touch you recall but not their face,
someone who moved you to write poetry
when you thought you could only produce
quixotic coming-of-age tales.
Their hair falls in a manner slightly different from what
you remember.
On your way home,
the midnight streets open up just enough so that
you can find yourself in them,
plucked into the present by a memory that you haven’t
experienced yet.

—William J. Simmons

Eve Fowler lives and works in Los Angeles. A graduate of Temple University (BA, 1986), and Yale University (MFA, 1992), Fowler has had solo exhibitions at DCA Scotland; Participant Inc, NY; and in Sydney Australia at ArtSpace. Her work was included in Sites of Reason: A Selection of Recent Acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and in The Manifest Destiny Billboard Project organized by LAND, in 2014. Her book Anyone Telling Anything Is Telling That Thing was published by Printed Matter in September of 2013. Her second book, Hustlers, was published in May of 2014 by Capricious Publishing. Fowler’s recent film with it which it as it if it is to be (2016) screened at MOCA, Los Angeles; the Lumber Room, Portland, OR; and at The Tate St. Ives, in 2018. In addition to her studio practice, Fowler organizes Artist Curated Projects in Los Angeles, and she just completed a Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute.

William J. Simmons is Provost’s Fellow in the Humanities in the art history PhD program of the University of Southern California.

*

Portrait of Eve Fowler smiling and looking towards the camera. She wears a medium blue cardigan and a black shirt. She has medium length blonde hair and stands in front of a white background.

Photo by Steven Perilloux.

more:

Artist Statement

My creative practice hinges on a form of collaboration that has bearing witness at its core. This is manifested through a decades-long art practice and through ongoing work with fellow artists, filmmakers, writers, and curators under the rubric of the exhibition project which I organize called Artist Curated Projects. Over the last ten years, I have sustained an engagement with the creative work of Gertrude Stein that has taken the form of billboards, posters, prints, paintings, film, and installations employing materials such as vinyl, neon, and collage. At the core of what I do is the intimacy of collaboration. Everything is with and for—bearing witness cannot happen alone. My works queer the archive and resist patriarchal notions of insular subjectivity, ushering in new and feminist forms of being and being with each other.

– December 2021

Biography

Eve Fowler is an interdisciplinary artist whose work investigates the problems, possibilities, and ethics of what it means to bear witness to the work, body, and life of another. Whether working through a camera’s lens or in paint, installation, sound, or public space, her practice moves in and with the margins, towards what has been unrepresented, ignored, or struck from the record.

These Sounds Fall Into My Mind, her solo exhibition at Morán Morán, Los Angeles, CA (2019), explored the nature of artistic lineage, lingering upon phrases drawn from texts by Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein in filmic collages and monochromatic paintings. In the voiceover to a video work—from which the title of the exhibition was taken—Fowler can be heard rejecting the influence of these authors, even as she quotes again from their writings, demonstrating that acts of refusal can be another mode of responding positively to a creative heritage.

Fowler has also had solo exhibitions at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom (2018) and PARTICIPANT INC, New York, NY (2016). Her work is in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

She has published two books that incorporate photography, text, and collage: Anyone Telling Anything Is Telling That Thing (Printed Matter, 2013) and Hustlers (Capricious Publishing, 2014).

Fowler is the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2021); the David and Roberta Logie Fellowship at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2018-2019); an Art Matters Foundation Award (2017); and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2016).

Fowler organizes exhibitions at Artist Curated Projects. She holds a B.F.A. from Temple University and an M.F.A. from Yale University School of Art.

Video excerpt from with it which it as it if it is to be (part II), 2019, video, color/sound, 34 minutes 9 seconds. Courtesy of the artist and Morán Morán.
A gallery hall with light grey floors and white walls. On one wall, a pink canvas is illustrated with the words:
Installation view of what a slight. what a sound. what a universal shudder. at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, 2018. Photo by Ruth Clark.
A white shelf in a gallery with two layered record sleeves and an active record player on it. One sleeve is printed in purple with the (partially obscured) words:
Installation view of what a slight. what a sound. what a universal shudder. at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, 2018. Photo by Ruth Clark.
A white gallery wall with 24 framed images arranged 8 by 3. Each image shows text written in red and blue marbled letters with a white background.
Installation view of what a slight. what a sound. what a universal shudder. at Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, 2018. Photo by Ruth Clark.
A sculpture of white neon tubes shaped into the words:
with it which it as it if it is to be, 2016, neon, 14″ x 150.” Photo by Ruth Clark.
Video excerpt from with it which it as it if it is to be (part I), 2016, 16mm film transferred to video, b/w, sound, 33 minutes 2 seconds. Courtesy of the artist and PARTICIPANT INC.
Two canvases are hung from a white wall. On the left, a purple canvas with black text reads:
Installation view of the difference is spreading, at Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, 2015. Photo by Lee Tyler Thompson.
A photograph of someone sitting on a chair, looking directly at the camera. They are wearing a black t-shirt that has
Untitled, 2005, chromogenic print, 60″ x 48.”

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