Liza Lou
Liza Lou (born 1969) is an American visual artist best known for producing large scale sculpture using glass beads.
Liza Lou | |
---|---|
Born | 1969 |
Notable work | Kitchen; Back Yard; Security Fence; Continuous Mile; Color Field |
Movement | sculpture |
Awards | MacArthur Fellows Program 2002 |
Website | lizalou |
Life
Liza Lou was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles.[1] Lou attended San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA, but dropped out in 1989 when it became evident her professors did not take her work with beads seriously.[2][3]
Lou came to prominence with the 168-square-foot (15.6 m2) work Kitchen (1991-1996), a to-scale and fully equipped replica of a kitchen covered in beads.[4] The work took five years to complete and was followed with Back Yard (1996-1999), for which Lou enlisted the help of volunteers to recreate grass in a 525-square-foot (48.8 m2) model of a backyard.[5] Kitchen is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York,[6] and Back Yard is in the permanent collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris.
In 2005, Lou moved from Los Angeles to Durban, South Africa. In Durban, she created many sculptures and paintings with the help of 50 South African beadworkers.
In 2006, Lou started creating one of her most notable works, Continuous Mile, with help of a team of Zulu women. Continuous Mile is composed of more than 4.5 million black beads, sewn into ropes which are then coiled into a cylindrical shape. The theme of this work is "work," or process. As Lou states, "The idea was to employ as many people as possible, using the slowest possible technique in order to engage a community, and to build homes in the process of making an art work."[2][7]
Lou won the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2002 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Artist Award in 2013. She currently lives and works in KwaZulu-Natal and Los Angeles.[8]
Solo exhibitions
- 1994: Kitchenette, California State University Art Gallery, Fullerton, CA
- 1995: Socks and Underwear, Franklin Furnace, New York
- 1996: Liza Lou, John Natsoulas Gallery, Davis, CA
- 1996: Liza Lou, Center for Creative Studies, Detroit, MI
- 1996: Liza Lou, Capp Street Projects, San Francisco, CA
- 1996: Forty-two American Presidents, Quint Gallery, San Diego, CA
- 1996: Kitchen, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, MN
- 1997: American Presidents 1-42, Quint Gallery, San Diego, CA
- 1997: American Presidents 1-42, California Center for the Arts Museum, Escondido, CA
- 1997: American Presidents 1-42, Hudson River Museum of Westchester, Yonkers, NY
- 1998: Most Admired Disorder, Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA
- 1998: Portrait Gallery, P.P.O.W., New York
- 1998: Backyard, Fundació Joan Miró, Espai 13, Barcelona, Spain
- 1998: Kitchen and Backyard, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA
- 1998: Liza Lou, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
- 1998: Portrait Gallery, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
- 1998: Liza Lou, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL
- 1999: Kitchen, University of Wyoming Art Museum, Laramie, WY
- 1999: American Presidents 1-42, Contemporary Arts Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA
- 1999: Kitchen, Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, OH
- 1999: American Glamorama, Grand Central Terminal, Vanderbilt Hall, New York
- 2000: Liza Lou, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH
- 2000: American Presidents 1-43, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution of American Art, Washington, D.C.
- 2001: Trailer, Southeastern Contemporary Art Center, Winston-Salem, NC
- 2001: Liza Lou II, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL
- 2002: Leaves of Glass, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway
- 2002: Liza Lou, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany
- 2002: Testimony, Deitch Projects, New York
- October 22-November 20, 2004: The Damned, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac. Paris[9]
- March 3-April 8, 2006: Liza Lou, White Cube, London
- September 24-November 29, 2008: Liza Lou: Maximum Security, Lever House, New York
- September 24-December 13, 2008: Liza Lou, L&M Arts, New York
- October 21-November 20, 2010: American Idol, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
- 2010: Liza Lou Drawings, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
- March 26-May 7, 2011: Liza Lou, L&M Arts, Los Angeles
- October 29, 2011 – January 22, 2012: Liza Lou: Let the Light In, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA
- 2012: Liza Lou, White Cube, London
- 2013: Liza Lou: Color Field, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, San Diego, CA
- 2014: Durban Diary, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
- 2014: Canvas, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 2014: ixube, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris, France
- 2014: Solid/Divide, White Cube, Bermondsey, London, England
- 2015: Liza Lou, Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS
- 2015: Liza Lou, ‘Color Field and Solid Grey’, Neuberger Museum of Art, Westchester, New York[1]
- 2016: Liza Lou, The Waves Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria
- 2017: Liza Lou, ingxube Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Hong Kong
- 2018: Liza Lou, Classification and Nomenclature of Clouds Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, NY
References
- Lehrer, Adam, ", Forbes, October 21, 2015. Retrieved 2015-11-08.
- "Continuous Mile". Glass App. Corning Museum of Glass. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
- Sheets, Hilarie M. (2020-03-26). "Weaving a Way Out of Isolation". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
- sabine7 (6 September 2005). "Kitchen". MOCO Art. MOCO LOCO. Archived from the original on 1 July 2014. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
- sabine7 (7 September 2005). "Backyard". MOCO Art. MOCO LOCO. Archived from the original on 16 March 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
- "Liza Lou: Kitchen, 1991-95". Whitney Museum of American Art. Whitney Museum of American Art. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
- Oldknow, Tina. "Liza Lou." Collecting Contemporary Glass: Art and Design after 1990 from the Corning Museum of Glass. Corning: Corning Museum of Glass, 2014. 126-27. Print.
- Christopher Bagley (Sep 2008). "Liza Lou". Archived from the original on 2 March 2015. Retrieved 24 September 2014.
- Liza Lou's catalogue on artnet Monographs