Rick Lowe

    Biography / Solo Exhibitions / Group Exhibitions / Awards / Press / Interviews and talks / Images / Contacts
    Projects: Project Row Houses / Greenwood Art Project

    Rick Lowe is an artist, educator and community activist.

    Born
    Eufaula (Alabama), 1961
    Education
    Columbus College, GA (79-82) and Texas Southern University, Houston (90-92)
    Resides
    Lives and works in Houston, TX
    Biography

    Born in rural Alabama, Lowe is a distinguished artist whose remarkable achievements in the art world are mirrored by his championship of people and communities through social and community engaged art projects, as evidenced, in particular, through Houston’s noteworthy Project Row Houses. Founded in 1993 by Lowe, Project Row Houses is an arts and cultural community located in Houston’s significant, historical Third Ward – one of the city’s oldest African American neighbourhoods. Much of Lowe’s interest and adept skill with collaboration comes from his family upbringing, where he was surrounded by a large family of four brothers and seven sisters. This sense of familial community is closely mirrored in many of his projects that focuses on building and nurturing relationships.

    Lowe is represented by Louise Alexander Gallery/AF Projects in Los Angeles , California and Porto Cervo, Italy, Hiram Butler Gallery in Houston, Texas, as well as Storage, in New York. He has exhibited in numerous institutions worldwide, including exhibitions at the following the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona; Contemporary arts Museum, Houston, Texas; Museum of Contemporary Arts, Los Angeles, California; Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York; Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju, South Korea; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, Texas; Glassell School of Art, Houston, Texas; the Kumamoto State Museum, Kumamoto, Japan; and the Zora Neale Hurston Museum, Eatonville, Florida, among others.
    Solo Exhibitions

    2020
    Rick Lowe, New Paintings and Drawings (2017-2020), Art League Houston
    2019
    Rick Lowe, At the humility table, Louise Alexander Gallery/AF Projects, Los Angeles
    2018
    Rick Lowe, Drawings, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston
    Group Exhibitions

    2021
    Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, Smart Museum, Chicago, IL
    2021
    Greenwood Art Project, 1921 Tulsa Massacre Centennial, Tulsa, OK
    2020
    “Storage_”, Storage, New York, NY
    2020
    The Souls of Black Folk, Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC), Houston, TX
    2019
    To construct the Gender, a.antonopoulou.art, Athens, Greece
    2019
    Place, Hiram Butler Gallery, Houston, TX
    2017
    documenta 14, Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, Athens, Greece
    2014
    The People's Biennial, MOCAD, Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI
    2013
    Nasher XChange, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas, TX
    2013
    Arte Útil Lab, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NYn
    2013
    Social Documents. Stills, Edinburgh, UK
    2013
    Economy, The Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow, Scotland
    2009
    In The Brown Foundation Gallery, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
    2009
    No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
    Awards

    1997
    Silver Medal by the Rudy Bruner Awards in Urban Excellence (jointly with PRH)
    2000
    American Institute of Architecture Keystone Award
    2001-2002
    Loeb Fellow at Harvard University (September 2001-June 2002)
    2002
    Theresa Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities
    2005
    Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Governors Award
    2005-2006
    Osher Fellow at the Exploratorium in San Francisco
    2006
    Brandywine Lifetime Achievement Award
    2007
    Innovator Fellow with the Japan Society
    2009
    Skandalaris Award for Art and Architecture
    2009
    US. Artists Booth Fellowship
    2010
    Creative Time Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change
    2011
    Visual arts “master artist” at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Syrmna Beach, FL
    2013
    President Barack Obama appointed Rick to the National Council on the Arts
    2014
    MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship
    2014
    Mel Kind Fellow at MIT
    2015
    Auburn University Breedan Scholar
    2015
    University of Houston’s President’s Medallion Award
    2015
    Hon. Doctorate degrees from the Maryland Institute College of Art & Otis College of Art
    2016
    Served as the Stanford University Haas Center Distinguish Visitor
    2016
    University of Houston, associate professor of art
    Bibliography
    2020
    Collective Creative Actions: Project Row Houses at 25, Duke University
    2020
    Rick Lowe, Paintings and Drawings 2017-2020, Art League Houston
    2015
    Place and Revolution: In Conversation, Rick Lowe, Lisa Lee, Open Engagement In Print
    2014
    Future Imperfect: A Blade of Grass, Elizabeth M. Grady, A Blade of Grass Books
    2005
    Rick Lowe: toward social sculpture, Valerie Loupe, Olsen Glassell School of Art of the MFAH
    2000
    Outbound - Passages from the 90s, Lynn Herbert, Contemporary Arts Museum
    Press

    2021
    ArtForum “Storage_”
    https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/202101/storage-84682
    2020
    The New York Times, “The 25 Most Influential Works of American Protest Art Since World War II”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/t-magazine/most-influential-protest-art.html
    2018
    Houston Chronicles, “Rick Lowe's latest project - reclaiming his own art”
    https://www.houstonchronicle.com/culture/arts/article/Rick-Lowe-s-latest-project-reclaiming-his-13448282.php
    2015
    The New York Times Style Mag “Three Artists Who Think Outside the Box: Theaster Gates, Mark Bradford and Rick Lowe”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/t-magazine/art/theaster-gates-mark-bradford-rick-lowe-profile.html
    2006
    The New York Times, “In Houston, Art Is Where the Home Is”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/arts/design/17kimm.html
    Interviews

  • Creative Time Summit
    In Conversation: Rick Lowe & Nato Thompson (2013)
  • Art League Houston
    In Conversation: Rick Lowe & Alex Jen (2020)
  • Nasher Sculpture Center
    The Poetry and Function of a House: Artist Rick Lowe on Social Sculpture (2016)
  • Harvard GSD 2015 Class
    Day Lecture (2015)
  • MacArthur Foundation
    "Genius" Grant (2014)
    Images

  • Untitled, 2020
    Acrylic on canvas
    182.88 x 152.4 cm
    (72 x 60 in)
  • Black Wall Street Journey, 2020
    Acrylic and paper collage on paper
    122.6 x 132.7 cm
    (48 1/4 x 52 1/4 in)
  • Untitled, 2020
    Acrylic paint and paper on canvas
    182.88 x 152.4 cm
    (72 x 60 in)
  • Untitled, 2020
    Acrylic paint and paper on canvas
    121.92 x 91.44 cm
    (48 x 36 in)
  • Art League Houston, 2020
  • Art League Houston, 2020
  • Art League Houston, 2020
  • Art League Houston, 2020


    Contacts

    Email: info@ricklowe.com
    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ricklowe2222/

    Galleries:
    Los Angeles and Europe
    Email: info@louise-alexander.com
    Web: Louise Alexander Gallery/AF Projects

    Houston, Texas
    Hiram Butler Gallery
    About Project Row Houses (1993-ongoing)



    History
    Project Row Houses’ work with the Third Ward community began in 1993 when seven visionary African-American artists—James Bettison (1958-1997), Bert Long, Jr. (1940-2013), Jesse Lott, Rick Lowe, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith—recognized real potential in a block and a half of derelict shotgun houses at the corner of Holman and Live Oak. Where others saw poverty, these artists saw a future site for positive, creative, and transformative experiences in the Third Ward. Together they began to explore how they could be a resource to the community and how art could be an engine for social transformation. This is how the PRH story began.

    As the founders engaged with a community of creative thinkers and the neighbors around them, Project Row Houses quickly began to shift the understanding of art from traditional studio practice to a more conceptual base of transforming the social environment. While they were artists, they were also advocates.

    Over the next twenty-seven years the organization brought together groups and pooled resources to materialize sustainable opportunities for artists, young mothers, small businesses, and Third Ward Residents helping to cultivate independent change agents by supporting people and their ideas so that they have tools and capacity to do the same for others.

    PRH is, and has always been, a unique experiment in activating the intersections between art, enrichment, and preservation.

    The Influence of Dr. John Biggers PRH was inspired in part by Joseph Beuys, a German artist who coined the term Social Sculpture to represent the way in which people shape the world around them, and Dr. John Biggers, a Houston-based artist and educator whose work challenged African American stereotypes and often highlighted architecture and its significance to community.

    Early conversations between Dr. Biggers and PRH founder Rick Lowe about the rich history and symbolism of the shotgun houses that dot the physical landscape of Third Ward informed and shaped the ideals of Project Row Houses. It was a style that originated in West Africa and was brought to the US via the slave trade – first through the Caribbean up to New Orleans and then across the country.

    Mindful of the history and depth of symbolism in these houses, the founders began to brainstorm what a project would look like if it encompassed 22 houses.
    About Greenwood Art Project (2020-ongoing)

    Starting on June 1, 1921, in the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma, nearly 300 African Americans lost their lives. Forty square blocks of homes, hospitals, schools, and churches were looted and burned to the ground, leaving nearly 9,000 homeless. The area, which was once the home of hundreds of bustling African American businesses and popularly known as Black Wall Street, had been wiped out in a matter of days.

    Unfortunately, this racially motivated destruction of a once-flourishing community has been largely forgotten in our national consciousness. However, as we approach the centennial anniversary of the massacre, the City of Tulsa has launched a new project that seeks to raise awareness of the historic massacre and celebrate its historically significant Greenwood neighborhood.

    Through “The Greenwood Art Project,” MacArthur Fellow Rick Lowe will work alongside local artists to bring the story of the Black Wall Street to light. In creating a series of art installations located at significant sites throughout the historic district, Lowe and his team hope to tell a story of vulnerability and resilience.

    Lead Artists: William Cordova, Rick Lowe
    Program Director: Jerica Wortham
    Social Media Archivist + Anthropologist: Marlon Hall
    Project Coordinator: Jeff Van Hanken
    Deputy Chief of Community Development & Policy/City of Tulsa: Ashley Philippsen

    This project is supported by Bloomberg Philantropies.

    Discover more about Greenwood Art Project
    What is Black Wall Street ?