Background
Liza Lou was born in 1969 in New York City, New York, United States.
1999
Liza Lou working on one her breakout artwork 'Kitchen'.
2002
Liza Lou with one of her works in her California studio.
2018
Liza Lou in Los Angeles, California.
800 Chestnut St, San Francisco, CA 94133, United States
San Francisco Art Institute where Liza Lou studied art.
Liza Lou’s artwork ‘The Vessel’ purchased at Christie's in London for $462,399.
Liza Lou. Photo by Mick Haggerty.
Liza Lou with one of her works in her California studio.
Liza Lou was born in 1969 in New York City, New York, United States.
Liza Lou spent her childhood in Los Angeles. She studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute until she realized that her beads art was misunderstood by the professors' staff.
Liza Lou emerged to the art scene with her 15.6 m2 sculptural installation Kitchen, a full-scale copy of the room covered with glass beads as a symbol of intensive labor and materiality. Demonstrated at the 1996 exhibition at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, it was soon sold and allowed Lou to produce her next important piece of art, again with hundreds of beads, ‘Back Yard’.
Since then, the artist has created many other installations, sculptures and other visual works that are focused on such issues as psychological spaces, index of imprisonment, protection, work issues and discrimination of women. Since the debut exhibition, Lou’s works have been demonstrated both in solo and group shows in the major art spaces across the United States and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Fundacio Joan Miró, Barcelona, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Norway, and Israel Museum, Jerusalem among others.
In 2005, the artist traveled to South Africa where she founded a studio with Zulu beadworkers who helped her to produce her another important piece of art, Continuous Mile, made of 4.5 million black beads.
Nowadays, Liza Lou shares her time between the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa and Los Angeles.
Quotations: "You are drawn in by the sheer volume of material and form and care and love. My work almost argues that the pleasure of looking is part of what it is to be alive."
Liza Lou is married to a graphic designer Mick Haggerty.