Liza Lou (b. New York, NY; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is an artist who, for the past thirty years, has made sculpture, paintings, drawings and room-size environments that induce states of wonder, beginning with the groundbreaking Kitchen (1991-1996), a solid beaded room-sized environment now in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY). Other large-scale sculptures include Back Yard, (1996-1999), in the collection of Fondation Cartier pour l’Art Contemporain (Paris, France), which consists of over 250,000 handmade blades of grass made of beads, and Trailer (1998-2000), a film noir tableau made of glass beads contained inside a forty-foot-long trailer home. From 2005-2020 the artist lived and worked in Durban, South Africa, where she founded an art studio which included a women’s advocacy program—the first of its kind to combine social practice within an art studio setting, offering interest free loans, paid scholarships and other support systems for her studio team.
Examples of the wide range of the artist’s work include Offensive | Defensive (2008), a monumentally scaled prayer rug which breaks down into lush abstract pattern and was included in the group exhibition, Less is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (2019). Another sculpture includes Continuous Mile (2008), a mile-long rope comprised of meticulously woven glass beads, which was featured in the exhibition Less is More, Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, the Netherlands (2019) and previously on long-term view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2008). Written and performance work includes the solo film Born Again (2004); Durban Diaries (2011), and Drawing Instrument, (2018), a single channel video which records the harmonics of the artist’s drawing and meditation practice.
The artist has had numerous solo gallery exhibitions around the world, including Lehmann Maupin, London, United Kingdom (2021); Lehmann Maupin, Seoul, South Korea (2019); Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY (2018); and Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong (2017); Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria (2016), Paris, France (2014 and 2010); White Cube, London, United Kingdom (2014, 2012, 2006); L&M Arts, Los Angeles, CA (2011), New York, NY (2008). Solo museum exhibitions include Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa (2018); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY (2015); Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2013); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2011); Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, Germany, (2002), and Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL (2001). Group exhibitions include Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950-2019, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, (2019); We the People: New Art from the Collection, Albright-Knox Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2018); Pulling at Threads, Norval Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa (2018); SUPERPOSITION & Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2018).
Liza Lou is the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and an Anonymous Was a Woman Award. Skira Rizzoli will publish a comprehensive monograph on the artist’s career.
Artist portrait by Mick Haggerty