Liza Lou was born in New York City and raised in Los Angeles. Lou attended San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA, but dropped out when it became evident her professors did not take her work with beads seriously.
Lou came to prominence with the 168-square-foot (15.6 m2) work Kitchen (1991-1996), a to-scale and fully equipped replica of a kitchen covered in beads. The work took five years to complete and was followed with Back Yard (1996-1999), for which Lou enlisted the help of volunteers to recreate grass in a 525-square-foot (48.8 m2) model of a backyard. Kitchen is in the permanent collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Back Yard is in the permanent collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Paris.
In 2005, Lou moved from Los Angeles to Durban, South Africa. In Durban, she created many sculptures and paintings with the help of 50 South African beadworkers.
In 2006, Lou started creating one of her most notable works, Continuous Mile, with the help of a team of Zulu women. Continuous Mile is composed of more than 4.5 million black beads, sewn into ropes which are then coiled into a cylindrical shape. The theme of this work is "work," or process. As Lou states, "The idea was to employ as many people as possible, using the slowest possible technique in order to engage a community, and to build homes in the process of making an art work."
Lou won the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2002 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Artist Award in 2013. She currently lives and works in KwaZulu-Natal and Los Angeles.
Solo exhibitions
2017: Liza Lou, ingxube Lehmann Maupin Gallery, Hong Kong
2016: Liza Lou, The Waves Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria
2015: Liza Lou, ‘Color Field and Solid Grey’, Neuberger Museum of Art, Westchester, New York
2013: La Belle est la Bête, L'Institut Culturel Bernard Magrez, Bordeaux, France
2012: Lightness?, Maison Particuliére, Brussels, Belgium
2012: Advance Notice, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
2011: Memories of the Future, The Olbricht's Collection, Curated by Wolfgand Schoppmann, La Maison Rouge, Paris
2011: Strange Beauty: Baroque Sensibilities in Contemporary Art, I.D.E.A Space, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado
2011: Invitational Exhibition of Visual Arts, Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
2011: January White Sale, Loretta Howard Gallery, New York
2010: Now What?, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
2010: The Artist's Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
2010: Make Craft, Ben Maltz Gallery, Otis College of College of Art and Design, Los Angeles
2010: Skin Fruit: Selections from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Curated by Jeff Koons, New Museum, New York
2010: Kuperferstichkabinett: Between Thought and Action, White Cube Gallery, London
2010: 19th Century and Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2010: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
2010: Lust for Life, Dance of Death, Olbricht Collection, Kunsthalle, Krems, Austria
2009: Diana und Actaeon: Der Verbotene Blick Auf Die Nacktheit, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany
2008: Bizarre Perfection, Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
2008: In the Land of Retinal Delights, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna, CA
2008: Innovations in the Third Dimension: Sculpture of Our Time, Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut
2007: The Contemporary Self Portrait, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria
2007: The Complexity of the Simple, L&M Arts, New York
2007: Rockers Island-Olbricht Collection, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany
2007: The Death Instinct, The Haifa Museum of Art, Haifa, Israel
2006: Transitional Objects: Contemporary Still Life, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York, New York
2006: Collection of the Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Metropolitan Kiba Park, Tokyo, Japan
2005: Translation, Works from the Dakis Joannou Collection, Palais de Tokyo, Paris
2005: Over+Over: Passion for Process, Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah; Addison Gallery of American Art, Philips Academy in Andover
2004: Monument to Now, Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
2004: Splat, Boom, Pow: Cartoons in Contemporary Art, Contemporary Art Museum, Houston; ICA, Boston and Wexner Center for the Arts, OH
2003: Undomesticated Interiors, Smith College Art Museum at the Brown Fine Arts Center, North Hampton
2003: Perpetual Bliss: Form, Symbol, and Material in Contemporary Art, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
2003: Skulptur03, Max Gandolph-Bibliothek, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria
2003: Shine, Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
2002: Melodrama, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporàneo, Basque; Palacio de los Condes de Gabia/Centro Jose Guerro, Granada, and Museo de Arte Contemporànea de Vigo, Spain
2002: Bingo, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
2002: Fusion Cuisine, Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece
2001: Un Art Populaire, Fondation Cartier, Paris
2001: Give and Take, organized by Serpentine Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum, London
2001: ARS 01, KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland
2001: Art Through the Eye of the Needle, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo, Norway
2000: Color and Fire: Defining Moments in Studio Ceramics, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; The Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson; Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, NY
2000: Sharing Exoticism, Biennale de Lyon d'art Contemporain, Lyon, France; Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan
2000: Made in California: Art, Image, and Identity 1900-2000, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles
1999: First Annual Post-Impeachment Show, Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, CA
1998: Site Specific, The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
1996: A Labor of Love, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
1996: Art for the New Millenium, The Fabric Workshop/Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1996: Subversive Domesticity, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, KS
1996: An Embarrassment of Riches, Huntington Beach Arts Center, Huntington, CA