Lee Lozano facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lee Lozano
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Lozano in 1971
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Lenore Knaster
November 5, 1930 Newark, New Jersey, U.S.
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| Died | October 2, 1999 (aged 68) Dallas, Texas, U.S.
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Lee Lozano (born November 5, 1930 – died October 2, 1999) was an American artist. She was known for her paintings and for her unique conceptual art projects.
Contents
About Lee Lozano
Her Early Life
Lee Lozano was born Lenore Knaster in Newark, New Jersey. When she was 14, she started using the name "Lee." She sometimes even preferred to be called just "E."
From 1948 to 1951, she studied philosophy and science at the University of Chicago. She earned a bachelor's degree there. In 1956, she married Adrian Lozano, an architect from Mexico. They divorced four years later. During her marriage, she also earned a fine arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago.
After traveling in Europe for a year, Lozano moved to New York City. She wanted to become a professional artist. Her first art show was at the Bianchini Gallery in New York in 1966. Many of her early paintings and drawings had a strong, bold style. Her art from this time is often compared to works by artists like Claes Oldenburg. Later in the 1960s, she started trying out a simpler style called Minimalist art. She made "Wave" paintings that used only one color (monochromatic) and explored how light works.
Her Conceptual Art Projects
Like many artists of her time, Lee Lozano began creating conceptual art in the mid-1960s. Conceptual art focuses on the idea behind the artwork, rather than just how it looks.
In February 1969, she started a project called General Strike Piece. For this project, she decided to slowly stop attending art events and gatherings in New York City. Her goal was to explore ideas about personal and public change. She wanted to show her art only if it helped share these ideas.
In August 1971, she began another famous project called Decide to Boycott Women. This started as a one-month experiment to see if it would improve how she communicated with women. However, it turned into a 27-year decision to stop speaking or interacting with women. She cut ties with many female friends, artists, and art dealers who had supported her work. This included the feminist art writer Lucy Lippard. Art experts have noted that these two projects showed Lozano's artistic decision to challenge both the art market and traditional ways of thinking.
Famous Artworks
In 1963, Lee Lozano began painting objects that represented male power and work.
In 1967, she made a list of titles for her paintings called 'ALL VERBS'. This list included words like 'REAM, SPIN, VEER, SPAN, CROSS, RAM, PEEL, CHARGE, PITCH, VERGE, SWITCH, SHOOT, SLIDE, JUT, HACK, BREACH, STROKE, STOP'. These paintings often featured shapes like edges and spirals, mostly in shades of gray.
Her project Untitled (General Strike Piece) started in 1969. Through this, she separated herself from the commercial art world. The Boycott Piece began in 1971. It started as a month-long experiment to improve communication. But it became a lasting "boycott" of speaking or directly interacting with women. She once said that her "Dropout Piece" was the hardest work she ever did.
Her Later Life
After she had to leave her art studio in SoHo, Lozano moved to St. Nicholas Avenue. In 1982, she moved to her parents' house in Dallas, Texas. This move was part of another one of her art projects called Drop Out.
Before she passed away, several art shows of her work were held. Three were in SoHo galleries, and one was at the Wadsworth Atheneum. These shows helped bring attention back to her art just before she died in 1999 at age 68.
In 2001, Lucy Lippard, an art writer, said that Lee Lozano was very intense. She was one of the first artists to truly live her art. The things other people did as art, Lozano truly did as part of her life.
Selected Exhibitions
- 1964, 1965 Green Gallery, group shows, New York NY
- 1966–67 [Solo Exhibitions], Bianchini Gallery, New York NY
- 1969 "Language III", Dwan Gallery, New York NY; "Number 7", Paula Cooper Gallery, New York NY
- 1970 [Solo Exhibition], Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY
- 1971 InfoFiction: Mezzanine Gallery, Nova Scotia School of Art and Design (NSCAD), Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
- 1980 Works on View at Jack Shainman Gallery
- 1998 "Lee Lozano/Matrix:135", Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford CT; "Early 60s", Mitchell Algus Gallery, New York NY; "Tool Paintings", Rosen & van Liere, New York NY; "Minimalism", Margarete Roeder Gallery, New York NY
- 1999 "Afterimage: Drawing Through Process", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA
- 2003 "Transgressive Women: Yayoi Kusama, Lee Lozano, Ana Mendieta and Joan Semmel", Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas, Austin TX
- 2004 "Lee Lozano, Drawn from Life: 1961–1971", P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, MoMA, Queens NY
- 2007 "WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, 1965–1980", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles CA (traveling exhibition)
- 2008 "Solitaire: Lee Lozano, Sylvia Plimack Mangold and Joan Semmel", Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford CT (traveling exhibition)
See also
In Spanish: Lee Lozano para niños
