"Frontera 450+" speaks of death, hope / Artists address the uncaring attitude of officials in the brutal murders of women in Juárez By Patricia C. Johnson Paper: Houston Chronicle, Thu 11/16/2006, Section: Star, Page: 2, Edition: 2 STAR Sometimes, art is the most direct way to address an issue too hurtful, controversial or imprecise to deal with only in rational terms. Consider femicide, the murder of women. It is one of the most brutal international crimes of our time. It's happening everywhere - the Middle East, Asia, Africa - and in Juárez, Mexico across from El Paso. The murders in Juárez are the focus of Frontera ``450+,'' an exhibit at the Station where an international group of 17 artists gives form to and voices protests against the vicious killings. The exact number of women who have been murdered in the border city since 1993 is not known. In 1998, Mexican officials said there had been 95 deaths; feminist groups gave the number as 123, with many others listed as "disappeared." The rape, mutilation and murder of young women in the city a bridge away from the U.S. continue today. The number of victims, which includes several American citizens, is now estimated at more than 400. They worked in the maquiladoras, manufacturing plants on the south side of the Rio Grande. Their ages were 14 to 23. They were slender and had long, dark hair. Their tortured bodies are found discarded in the desert, in ditches, along roads. Many cannot be identified. Officials have been unable (unwilling, some say) to find, much less stop, the murderers, and seem to have made finger pointing almost a sport: The perpetrators are the women's boyfriends or husbands, drug dealers, organ thieves. Arrests are few. Print and electronic media have covered the killings regularly, but news reports may be insufficient. On the other hand, the exhibit at the Station gives immediacy and gritty, graphic presence to the violence. The video by Teresa Serrano from Mexico City is emblematic. In it, a piñata in the shape of dark-haired young woman in a short skirt is beaten by a young man - viciously, over and over, as he grunts with the effort of destroying her.