In the Studio: Lee Lozano

Name: In the Studio: Lee Lozano
Author: Lee Lozano & Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti
ISBN: 3907493192

by Lee Lozano & Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti

Focusing on the artist’s daring and provocative paintings, drawings, and conceptual work, this new publication offers a fascinating introduction to Lee Lozano’s pioneering practice. She was very aware of what we assume the artist should be, of what the studio should be, and she rejected that. I’m personally connected to this series, I wanted something that was accessible to everybody but had respect for the artist and was built on archival material, and it had to be affordable. Through conversations with Michaela Unterdörfer and the team at Hauser & Wirth Publishers, we were able to build the concept of the series into something tangible, incorporating a ‘behind the scenes’ view of artists at work that would serve as a companion for art lovers and newcomers alike. In the Studio series is titled this way because the studio is the context for learning. None of the books in the series exclusively talks about the studio. We’re in the artist’s environment and we’re learning about them as an individual, their times, the society in which they work. Lee Lozano is a perfect example, and the publication on her is brilliant because it tells us about the extremity of her life and work, which is well outside of what we might normally understand. “Interestingly, the very idea of home is also the subject matter for so many artists.” It’s the stuff that’s on the periphery, that the artist has determined herself. She was extreme by rejecting convention consistently. I’m going to change my name. I’m going to change my name many times. I’m going to reject my personal identity, who I am as defined by the art world or society, and I am going to live on my own terms. I’m going to be an artist but reject the art world. I’m going to disassociate myself from people. And from the typical studio. Then even more, in a way, her studio became these handwritten notebooks, a record of her artistic life. Not even something that’s architectural at all but an intellectual space. She writes, “The ideal I have of a kind of art not for sale, which is democratic, which is not difficult to make, which is inexpensive to make and which can never be completely understood. Parts of which will always remain mysterious and unknown.” That’s contrary to the very idea of art that we’ve inherited from art history. Redesign yourself to suit yourself, she writes. It’s a very uncompromising view. Lozano’s saying that we’ve constantly got to re-evaluate, re-address, and not assume, and don’t take anything for granted. The artist’s job is to make us see the world through an artist’s eyes. That’s the magic of artists. And, in Lozano’s case, we shouldn’t have expectations that an artist must have a studio with four walls and a floor and an easel or a computer. Lee Lozano: In the Studio has just been released and we’ve already got a few more in the pipeline for early next year.

Recommended by

Debbie Hillyerd

"Focusing on the artist’s daring and provocative paintings, drawings, and conceptual work, this new publication offers a fascinating introduction to Lee Lozano’s pioneering practice. She was very aware of what we assume the artist should be, of what the studio should be, and she rejected that. I’m personally connected to this series, I wanted something that was accessible to everybody but had respect for the artist and was built on archival material, and it had to be affordable. Through conversations with Michaela Unterdörfer and the team at Hauser & Wirth Publishers, we were able to build the concept of the series into something tangible, incorporating a ‘behind the scenes’ view of artists at work that would serve as a companion for art lovers and newcomers alike. In the Studio series is titled this way because the studio is the context for learning. None of the books in the series exclusively talks about the studio. We’re in the artist’s environment and we’re learning about them as an individual, their times, the society in which they work. Lee Lozano is a perfect example, and the publication on her is brilliant because it tells us about the extremity of her life and work, which is well outside of what we might normally understand. “Interestingly, the very idea of home is also the subject matter for so many artists.” It’s the stuff that’s on the periphery, that the artist has determined herself. She was extreme by rejecting convention consistently. I’m going to change my name. I’m going to change my name many times. I’m going to reject my personal identity, who I am as defined by the art world or society, and I am going to live on my own terms. I’m going to be an artist but reject the art world. I’m going to disassociate myself from people. And from the typical studio. Then even more, in a way, her studio became these handwritten notebooks, a record of her artistic life. Not even something that’s architectural at all but an intellectual space. She writes, “The ideal I have of a kind of art not for sale, which is democratic, which is not difficult to make, which is inexpensive to make and which can never be completely understood. Parts of which will always remain mysterious and unknown.” That’s contrary to the very idea of art that we’ve inherited from art history. Redesign yourself to suit yourself, she writes. It’s a very uncompromising view. Lozano’s saying that we’ve constantly got to re-evaluate, re-address, and not assume, and don’t take anything for granted. The artist’s job is to make us see the world through an artist’s eyes. That’s the magic of artists. And, in Lozano’s case, we shouldn’t have expectations that an artist must have a studio with four walls and a floor and an easel or a computer. Lee Lozano: In the Studio has just been released and we’ve already got a few more in the pipeline for early next year."

Artist Studios · fivebooks.com