I’ve looked at Clouds from both sides now/from up and down/and still somehow/it’s cloud illusions I recall/I really don’t know clouds at all. — Joni Mitchell
Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Both Sides, Now, a presentation of new and recent works by Los Angeles-based artist Liza Lou at the gallery’s newly opened Palm Beach space. Showcasing a wide range of Lou’s practice—including painting, sculpture, and drawing—this focused presentation highlights Lou’s decades-long utilization of labor intensive processes and glass beads as metaphor, painting surface, and sculptural form.
Prominently featured in this presentation is Both Sides, Now (2019-21), a continuation of her Clouds series, in which Lou paints and layers sheets of hand woven beaded cloths and then, in a subtractive process, hammers the beads off their threads, revealing lace-like tracery inside the meticulous beadwork, creating a sfumato-like effect between the multiple layers of beads, threads, and lushly painted surfaces.
The monochromatic and duo-colored canvases from the Solid|Divide (2012–16) series explore the emotive potential of pure color and the beauty created by the oils of the human hand. Subtle variations and streaks present in each work are the result of a collaborative process of the work's creation between the artist and her studio team in Durban, South Africa.
The exhibition also includes two large-scale examples of Lou’s drawing practice, Drawing Water and Chopping Wood (both from 2020), where Lou repeatedly marks a smooth, gessoed canvas with circular ink forms. Calling forth thematic and formal concerns that have stretched across Lou's career, the drawings employ repetitive mark-making which take on amorphous, biological associations.
Also on view in Palm Beach will be a new lens work by Light and Space pioneer Helen Pashgian, as well as a series of new paintings by Dominic Chambers.
About the Artist
Liza Lou has had over forty solo exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world including Lehmann Maupin Seoul, Korea (2019), New York, NY (2018), and Hong Kong (2017); Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art, Cape Town, South Africa (2017); Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria (2016); Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY (2015); Wichita Museum of Art, Wichita, KS (2015); White Cube, London, United Kingdom (2014); Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, CA (2013); SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA (2011). Recent group exhibitions include Heroines of Abstract Expressionism, Nassau County Museum of Art, Nassau County, New York (2021); Listen to Your Eyes, Museum Voorlinden, The Netherlands (2021); Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950-2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY (2021); Less Is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, MA (2019); Lexicon: The Language of Gesture in 25 Years at Kemper Museum, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO (2019); We the People: New Art from the Collection, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY (2018); Screens: Virtual Material, DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA (2017); No Place Like Home, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel (2017); Women’s Work, National Gallery, Iziko Museum, Cape Town, South Africa (2016); Home Land Security, FOR-SITE Foundation, San Francisco, CA (2016); Stories of Espai 10 and Espai 13, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, Spain (2014); The Artist’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2010); Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection, New Museum, New York (2010) and 19th Century and Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art (2010).
Lou’s work is in numerous international public and private collections, including the National Gallery, Washington, DC; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar, The Netherlands; Cleveland Museum of Art; Cleveland, OH; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; François Pinault Foundation, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy; La Fundación Jumex, Mexico City, Mexico; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MI; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Rizzoli published the first comprehensive monograph of the artist’s career in 2010 and a new monograph is forthcoming Fall 2021. Liza Lou is the recipient of the 2013 Anonymous Was A Woman Award and the 2002 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.