Pun Value: 4 Works by Lee Lozano
Lee Lozano, Ream, 1964. Oil on canvas. 198 x 244 cm (78 x 96 in.). Gift of Mari and James A. Michener, 1968. Courtesy of the Blanton Museum of Art.
The Visual Arts Center and Center Space Project in the Department of Art and Art History, in partnership with The Blanton Museum of Art, present Pun Value: 4 Works by Lee Lozano, a case study of works by Lee Lozano from The Blanton collection. This tightly focused exhibition comprising four major works by Lozano examines the artist’s process and influence on the art world of the 1960s. Lozano had a brief period of success as a painter and conceptual artist in the 1960s and early 1970s, and during this period, exhibited re-transcribed pages from her notebooks alongside her paintings and drawings in New York, Berlin, and Halifax. She showed at the Bianchini Gallery in New York with other well-known artists such as Mel Ramos and Robert Ryman, and was friends with Robert Morris, Yvonne Rainer, and Carl Andre. In late 1972, Lozano willfully “dropped out” of the art world by enacting her conceptual project, Drop Out Piece, moving from New York to Dallas and ceasing to produce art. In the process of leaving the art world, she essentially began the 20-year project of erasing her legacy. Lozano had seemingly disappeared from the art world until five years ago when important retrospectives of her work were mounted in Basel and Stockholm.
Critics and scholars have sensationalized Lozano’s life and work. She is discussed as a dropout artist, a feminist, a woman-hater, and an insane woman buried in a pauper’s grave. Rarely have discussions of her work, process, and influence superseded discussions of her personal life. This exhibition aims to create a larger meditation on her practice through the close examination of these four works of art owned by The Blanton, which have not been exhibited together since the museum’s 2003 exhibition, Transgressive Women.
This exhibition is curated by Katie Geha.
Pun Value will be accompanied by a small publication containing an essay by Katie Geha and published by the Visual Arts Center and Center Space Project in the Department of Art and Art History.
Pun Value: 4 Works by Lee Lozano is presented in partnership with the Blanton Museum of Art. More information can be found on their website.
Center Space Project, the student organization of the Visual Arts Center in the Department of Art and Art History, works collaboratively with fellow students, faculty, alumni and visiting artists to create engaging shows and programs, promoting a strong student presence in the Visual Arts Center.
Generous support for Center Space Project comes from the University Co-Op along with Robin and Trey Hancock.
About the Curator
Katie Geha is a PhD candidate in Art History at The University of Texas at Austin. She is currently writing her dissertation on 1960s art and the ordinary. She completed a MA in Modern Art History Theory and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and acted as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, from 2005 to 2008. She has contributed art writing and criticism to Artforum, Art Lies, and The Poetry Foundation. She runs the apartment gallery, SOFA, in Austin.