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.
Liza Lou has exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally including Savannah College of Art & Design, Savannah (2011), Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A. and New Museum, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2010), the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (2009), Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf (2002), Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2002), Smithsonian Institution of American Art, Washington, D.C. (2000) and Fondació Joan Miró, Barcelona (1998).
