Politics sewn to art, panel by quilt-like panel

The Los Angeles-based artist became interested in the quilt a year ago after reading an article in The Times about how the once powerful political symbol has faded from public consciousness. "I'm interested in the relationship between art and activism and archival process," Bowers says. "So I thought, 'Wow, this is the perfect project for me to investigate.' "

The quilt began in 1987 with a single 3-foot-by-6-foot panel (roughly the size of a grave) and now comprises more than 46,000 pieces commemorating loved ones who died of AIDS. Weighing 54 tons and including more than 91,000 names, it has not been displayed in its entirety since 1996, when it blanketed the National Mall in Washington.

For her current exhibition at Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects, on view through next Saturday, Bowers contacted the Names Project Foundation, the Atlanta-based nonprofit that administers and maintains the quilt. She struck up an e-mail correspondence with staff members and eventually persuaded them to let her spend five days videotaping the storage facility and conducting interviews. She also created a scrapbook of related articles and images, which appears in the show. But the exhibit's centerpiece is a three-channel video projection that juxtaposes footage of the folded panels with shots of staff members talking about the quilt and issues such as the disease's changing demographic.

"Over 51% of the people getting AIDS today are women," says Bowers, "and in the United States, it's mainly black and brown people -- and particularly African American women." Bowers sees a direct link between shifts in the disease's demographic and dwindling media attention, and for her, the warehousing of the quilt is both metaphor and evidence of this indifference. "It's like a re-silencing of the disease," she says.

Bowers is also interested in the tension between the quilt's role as an activist statement and its status as a historical document. "It's been designated a National Treasure," she says, but the people on the Names Project staff "don't want to institutionalize it, because then they're afraid it will never show." The foundation keeps sections of the quilt circulating for exhibition while supporting a constant cycle of preservation and repair.