The River and the Raft

라이자 루

Seoul

9월 26일–2019년 11월 9일

74-18 Yulgok-ro 3-gil

Seoul

Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce The River and the Raft, Los Angeles-based artist Liza Lou’s first exhibition in Seoul. Over her 30 years of working primarily with glass beads, Lou has pushed the boundaries of her chosen medium, exposing its potential as not only a material, but as a conceptual object. Spanning two locations, Lou presents the culmination of a new era in her practice, creating a series that can be classified as both painting and sculpture: a formal non-binary true to the nature of her materials and philosophical line of inquiry about the nature of an artistic practice. There will be an opening reception for the artist on September 26, 2019 from 5pm– 7pm at 74-18, Yulgok-ro 3-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul and at the Songwon Art Center, 75, Yunboseon-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul.

Within the Buddhist canon, the Parable of the Raft tells of a man who comes to a river he needs to cross. Having neither a boat nor a bridge, he builds a raft, spending a great deal of time and effort lashing together branches and ropes in the correct configuration, testing his design until it is able to safely transport him across the river. Once he reaches the opposite bank, he is dismayed over what to do with his creation, which was instrumental in his safe passage and the ultimate success of his journey. The question becomes, should he continue to carry it with him, even though it would be debilitating and slow his progress? This is a lesson in letting go, about valuing the investment and time we committed to past pursuits, while accepting their loss so we are able to move forward unencumbered.

라이자 루

Nightsong, 2019

Liza Lou (b. 1969 NYC lives and works in Joshua Tree, California) is widely known for her pioneering work as both an artist and for her groundbreaking social practice of the mid-2000s. Beginning with her conceptual use of glass beads, Lou’s room-size installations of the 1990s challenged stereotypes and gender roles within the art canon and broke down boundaries between art and craft.¹ In 2002, she received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, which she utilized to found a women’s advocacy program within her studio in Durban, South Africa which she operated from 2005-20, expanding the possibilities of social engagement within an art studio environment. During the 15 years she lived and worked in South Africa, Lou developed a poetic, handmade approach to Minimalism that utilizes the oils of the human hand as a form of paint in woven paintings, such as Soil | Solid (2012), which is in the permanent collection of the Des Moines Art Center, and room-scaled wall works, sculptures and installations, such as Security Fence (2005), now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Continuous Mile (2008), in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Current work has the artist in further dialogue with art history as she explores the possibility of her chosen material to act as a fluid paint body, bringing an original and Feminist vision to painting.² Through the slow accrual of a humble material, Lou recalibrates the action of a brushstroke into elaborate, cell-by-cell explorations that combines the exuberance of Pop and Abstract Expressionism with the materiality and sheen of her early work, while pushing the language of painting further forward.

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