ЛИЗА ЛУ
לייזה לו
汪明荃楼

The Damned

source: scpt209
Liza Lou is an American artist who works in Africa and Los Angeles. She’s been part of exhibitions since 1994 and is also a writer. She is best known for working with small beads to complete her works. Liza Lou’s sculptures and environments thrive on the tension between the apparent impossibility of their construction, the seductive beauty of their surfaces and the often sinister implications of their subject matter. Over the past several years, while living and working in South Africa, Liza Lou has developed a body of work based upon further ideas of confinement and protection. Security Fence (2005) is a full-scale, silver beaded enclosure of chain-link and razor wire that can neither be entered nor exited.Her first major work was completed in 1995 and took four years to create. “Kitchen” is a 168-square foot to-scale and fully equipped replica of a kitchen covered in tiny beads. It’s bright, bold and colorful and takes an ordinary kitchen and turns it into an extraordinary art piece.
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source: whitecube

With an emphasis on repetition, formal perfection and materiality, Liza Lou’s sculptures and environments thrive on the tension between the apparent impossibility of their construction, the seductive beauty of their surfaces and the often sinister implications of their subject matter.

Lou first gained attention when her monumental work Kitchen was shown at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY, in 1996. This sculptural tableau introduced her trademark medium of glass beads, while simultaneously establishing many of the social themes – such as labour, confinement and human endurance – that continue to underpin her work today. Architectural in scale, Kitchen is a work of exacting labour and is a monument to uncelebrated women’s work. Lou worked alone over a five-year period to realise Kitchen.

Other works continue to explore psychological spaces and structures of confinement. Trailer (1999-2001) is a twelve-metre-long mobile home (caravan) whose contents have been transformed into a film-noir tableau. Every inch of the interior is layered with black, white and silver beads. Next to a beaded sofa, on a coffee table strewn with men’s magazines, lies a bottle of Jack Daniels. In a beaded typewriter there is what might be a beaded suicide note, and, visible in the glow of the TV, a shape that could be the body of a man. These elements combine to generate an unsettling atmosphere of male violence and menace.

Since 2007, Lou has been creating a series called ‘Reliefs’. Each one of these unique panels, created with glass beads standing on their tips, bring to mind patterned prayer rugs from the Caucasus region, while at the same time they are reminiscent of topographical maps, organisms or crumbling cities. Find, Fix, Finish (2007-08) is a large-scale panel covered in 200 kg of soot-black beads of various sizes, each one meticulously balancing on its tip to create ridges and valleys arranged in a precise geometric pattern. The dark magnificence of the work and the pleasure we might find in the rhythmic surface is offset by a mood of palpable threat. Offensive/Defensive (2008) has an even surface of mesmerising, vibrant colour overlaid by an organic black pattern, as if the object itself were stained by a creeping mould or corrosive liquid. The ‘Reliefs’ show an artist deeply engaged with her medium, creating work of quiet, confident beauty while simultaneously highlighting the spiritual and geo-political tensions that mark our present age.

Over the past several years, while living and working in South Africa, Liza Lou has developed a body of work based upon further ideas of confinement and protection. Security Fence (2005) is a full-scale, silver beaded enclosure of chain-link and razor wire that can neither be entered nor exited. Barricade (2007-08) is a gate-like structure that Lou has encased in 24-karat-gold beads, but provides neither protection nor safety. Continuous Mile is a coiled and stacked rope measuring a mile in length, woven entirely out of glossy black, or bone-white beads, made with a team of Zulu bead workers in the townships of KwaZulu Natal. Conceived as a work about work, Continuous Mile is exquisitely hand-wrought and manifests the social concerns that run throughout the artist’s work. Continuous Mile has led to the making of Endless Mile, a major five-year project launching the Endless Mile Foundation, to benefit artisans and their families by providing sustainable income, health services, scholarships and social services.

Liza Lou was born in 1969 in New York. She lives and works in Los Angeles and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Solo exhibitions include ‘Color Field’, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California (2013); ‘Let the Light In’, SCAD Museum of Art, Georgia (2011); Lever House, New York, 2008; Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf (2002); ‘Leaves of Glass’, Henie Oslo Kunstsenter, Oslo (2002); ‘Liza Lou II’, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, Florida (2001); Smithsonian Institution of American Art, Washington DC (2000); and ‘Back Yard’, Fundacio Joan Miró, Barcelona (1998). Among numerous group exhibitions, her work has recently been included in ‘The Artist’s Museum’, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2010); ‘Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection’, New Museum, New York (2010); ‘Monument to Now’, Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens (2004); ‘Splat, Boom, Pow: Cartoons in Contemporary Art’, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston (2004); ‘Give and Take’, Serpentine Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum, London (2001); Biennale de Lyon d’art Contemporain (2000); and Taipei Biennial (2000).

Among other honours, Lou received the Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2013 and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2002.
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source: forblabla
Лиза Лу (Liza Lou) родилась в 1969 году в Нью-Йорке.
Она стала известной, благодаря своей инсталляции «Кухня». Представленная в 1996 году в Нью-Йоркском музее современного искусства скульптура изображала интерьер современной типично американской кухни в натуральную величину, где все поверхности были покрыты миллионами стеклянных бусинок. Чтобы создать эту работу, Лиза потратила пять лет.
Заявив о своей творческой манере широкой публике, художница верна выбранной технике до сих пор. В галереях Америки, Европы, Японии регулярно выставляются скульптурные инсталляции из бисера и стекляруса, в которых Лиза Лу затрагивает актуальные социальные и политические темы, такие как права женщин или расовая справедливость.
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source: artransfer

Liza Lou est né en 1969 à New York City. L’œuvre de Lou est d’abord envoûtante et à couper le souffle, des millions de perles de verre placées à la main couvrant des surfaces telles que des appareils, des clôtures de sécurité, et des barbelés. Ce n’est que lorsque l’on commence à regarder de plus près les thèmes de l’œuvre de Lou que l’on comprend la gravité de son sujet, comme le plaisir, la douleur, la vulnérabilité, la captivité et l’injustice, à la fois personnelle et politique.

En 2002, Lou a reçu le John D. et Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. C’est aussi durant cette période que Lou a élargi son studio de Los Angeles et a déménagé à Durban, Afrique du Sud, non seulement pour créer sa plus récente série de sculptures et de reliefs, mais »trouver une autre façon de travailler, celui qui peut faire une différence substantielle à la vie d’autres personnes ».

A Durban Lou poursuit ses efforts pour développer un projet économiquement viable, tout en créant des œuvres belles et originales. Lou a exposé dans de nombreux musées et galeries à travers le monde, y compris, le New Musée d’art contemporain de New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Victoria and Albert Museum, Londres.