Point of View Since 1993, the bodies of 266 murdered young Mexican women have been found in the desert surrounding Ciudad Juárez, an industrial city that sits directly across the border from El Paso. A multimedia exhibit that opened March 8 and runs through April 11 at the UTEP Union Exhibition Gallery in El Paso is making an atypical attempt to comment on the grim situation. In “Desierto al Descubierto: Desert Uncovered,” some twenty local and international artists display abstract and expressionist photographs, paintings, and installations that include symbols, unsettling images of female bodies, and cultural elements such as altars traditionally created for the Day of the Dead. Although Ciudad Juárez has held similar exhibits, this is one of the first of its kind in El Paso. “We alienate ourselves from the problem,” says the show’s curator, Rosio Gomez. “But Juárez is just a few miles away from El Paso—I look out my window and there it is.” (See El Paso: Museums/Galleries.)
