Weekly Shot of Art - Monument to Ciudad Juarez

The title of this show ("Monument to Ciudad Juarez") caught my eye because I have a bit of a latin obsession at the moment, but the subtitle kicked me in the gut: "Only women who die a violent death go directly to paradise". Whoa. Wow.
I've see the installation and been carrying the flyer around with me for 3 days and it hasn't lost any power.

The project is artist Claudia Bernal's response to over 300 women missing from Cuidad Juarez, a Mexican border town. "Monument to Ciudad Juarez is inspired by what at first were considered isolated events but now are clearly the expression of an historical sacrifice, a holocuast against women: the violent assassinations since 1993 of more than 300 women in the city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico" it says on the project literature.

And then, even more graphically, "In abandoned cars and run-down motels, in wastelands, the outlying desert and the suburbs of this cursed city, the bodies of these women and girls were discovered and murdered after having been kidnapped, tortured, mutilated, sexually brutalized and strangled according to some sort of fixed ritual. To these 300 must be added an unknown number of disappeared women whose bodies were never found or claimed.

These are marked on clay bowls with the name, "Desconocida", unknown.

The installation will be at Gallery Gachet (88 East Cordova St.) until April 2nd.