The most comprehensive book on the work of Liza Lou, whose popular and
critically acclaimed installations made entirely of beads consider the
important themes of women, community, and the valorization of labor.
Liza Lou first gained attention in 1996 when her room-sized sculpture
Kitchen was shown at the New Museum in New York. Representing five years
of individual labor, this groundbreaking work subverted standards of art
by introducing glass beads as a fine art material. The project blurred
the rigid boundary between fine art and craft, and established Lou's
long-standing exploration of materiality, process, and beauty. Working
within a craft métier has led the artist to work in a variety of
socially engaged settings, from community groups in Los Angeles, to a
collective she founded in Durban, South Africa. Over the past fifteen
years, Lou has focused on a poetic approach to abstraction as a way to
highlight the process underlying her work.
In this comprehensive volume that considers the entirety of Lou's
singular vision, curators, art historians, and artists offer important
perspectives on the breadth of the work.