Liza Lou (b. New York, NY) is widely known for introducing beads as a contemporary fine art medium. Lou’s persistent experimentation has challenged hierarchies and helped to redefine previously marginalized terms such as craft, labor, the feminine, and the decorative. Reviewing her groundbreaking Kitchen (1991–1996) at the New Museum in New York, Roberta Smith wrote, “...this radiant piece effortlessly annihilates any barriers between art and craft, [and] proves unequivocally… that quality is where you find it and will not be denied.”¹
In the two and a half decades since Kitchen, Lou’s oeuvre has expanded to include numerous room size sculptures, including Back Yard (1996–1998), a 500-square-foot work comprised of 250,000 pieces of beaded grass; Trailer (1998–2000), a forty-foot-long mobile home with a glittering film noir interior; and Security Fence (2005), a chain link and razor wire fence enclosure covered in silver-lined glass beads that both attracts and repels, transforming a symbol of confinement.
In 2002, Lou was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship and moved to KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, where she operated an art studio and women’s advocacy program from 2005–2020. Here, Lou explored the capacity of beads to stand in for the paint medium in a body of Minimalist woven works. For example, The Waves (2013–2017) comprises an installation of over one thousand woven white cloths which cover gallery walls from floor to ceiling. Through the process of weaving, each cloth is “painted” with the residue of natural oils from the artist and her assistant’s hands.
In 2020, Lou returned to her solo practice in Los Angeles and began a series of abstract, gestural oil paintings on woven, glass-beaded cloths. To create these works, Lou used a hammer to shatter the beads surrounding her brushstrokes, revealing the intricate threads beneath (The Clouds, 2016–2021). Lou’s most recent works are highly gestural, abstract paintings, created through the slow and meticulous application of glass beads on canvas. Impasto brushstrokes are transformed into bead-laden visual explosions, recalling the joy and freedom of Lou’s earlier work while expanding the traditional definition of painting.
Lou has had numerous solo gallery exhibitions around the world, including Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris and Salzburg (2023, 2016, 2014, 2010, 2004); Lehmann Maupin, London, New York, Seoul and Hong Kong, (2021, 2019, 2018, 2017); and White Cube, London (2015, 2012, 2006). Solo museum exhibitions include the Brooklyn Art Museum, Brooklyn, NY (2024); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2013); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2011); Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany (2002), the Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL (2001) and the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (1998). Group exhibitions include Color is the First Revelation of the World, Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, CA (2024); The Interior Life, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. (2023); SUPERPOSITION & Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Australia (2018) and 19th Century and Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2010). Lou’s work is held in a number of public collections, including the Brooklyn Art Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, NY; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, OH; Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris, France; François Pinault Foundation, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy; Hill Foundation, New York, NY; La Fundación Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaår, the Netherlands; and National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Liza Lou is the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2002) and an Anonymous Was a Woman Award (2011). Rizzoli Electa recently published their second comprehensive monograph on the artist’s work, including essays by Glenn Adamson, Cathleen Chaffee, Elisabeth Sherman, Carrie Mae Weems, and Julia Bryan-Wilson.
¹ Roberta Smith, Fine Art and Outsiders: Attacking the Barriers, New York Times, Feb. 9, 1996, New York Times
Artist portrait by Mick Haggerty