“The Work of Lee Lozano”

The Bourse de Commerce presents an evening devoted to the work of American painter and visual and conceptual artist Lee Lozano (1930-1999) featured in the exhibition “Strike” in Gallery 2 of the Museum.

With: 

Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti (Chief Curator of the Pinacoteca Agnelli and Co-Curator of the Lee Lozano exhibition Strike), Emma Lavigne (Director in Charge of the Pinault Collection), Élisabeth Lebovici (art historian and critic), and Ser Serpas (artist). 

Program

6:00 p.m.: Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti presents Lee Lozano's work and the exhibition Strike

In English, with simultaneous translation (45minutes)

The exhibition Strike at the Bourse de Commerce features a vast selection of works made by Lee Lozano across all of her brief but extremely prolific career, spanning from 1960 to 1972.

6:45 p.m.: Loving Teeth, Bitter Teeth, by Élisabeth Lebovici

In French, with a simultaneous translation into English (45 minutes)

Mouths protrude alone, faceless, sarcastic, and toothless in Lee Lozano’s work. In her sketchbooks, Lee Lozano alluded to the terrible state of New York artists’ teeth. Many artists and writers, including Lozano, set out to turn teeth – with all their bites, colours, and decadence – into a locus of violently social and terribly intimate fantasies that reflect the many ways in which we relate to ourselves and others, and which we call the governing of our bodies. Who among us is not concerned by these stories of teeth and dental work, tongue and language, smiles, fears, and linguistic regimes?

7:30 p.m.: a reading of poems by Ser Serpas inspired by Lee Lozano’s work 

In English, with simultaneous translation (20 minutes)

Admission is free during this event.

From her “cartoonish” drawings of tools and bodies that mingle erotically to expressionist canvasses and abstract paintings with their threatening, metallic sheen, Lee Lozano’s work is as unpredictable as her artistic trajectory was dazzling. A key, pioneering figure of the New York art world of the 1960s and early 70s, with her 1972 gesture Dropout Piece, she decided to step out of this scene, refusing all contact with her peers for an entire decade.  She resurfaced in Texas in 1982, where she lived until her death. She did not produce any new work, thus continuing Dropout Piece throughout the rest of her life. 

Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti is a curator and art historian. She has been Chief Curator of the Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin since 2022. She co-curated the solo exhibitions "Lee Lozano. Strike" (at the Pinacoteca Agnelli and the Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection, Paris 2023-24) and Sylvie Fleury. Turn Me On (2022), as well as artist projects by Shirin Aliabadi, Nina Beier, Mark Leckey, Aljcia Kwade, Cally Spooner, and Julius Von Bismarck. She recently commissioned new works from Lucy McKenzie and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster. In 2018, she curated Abracadabra, the 6th Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, and she co-founded the collective platform The School of the End of Time. 

Calabrò Visconti’s other exhibitions include: Motherless Daughters, at VIN VIN for "curated by", Vienna (2023); Get Rid of Yourself (Ancora Ancora Ancora), Fondazione Baruchello, Rome (2019); Abstract Sex. We don't have any clothes, only equipment, Artissima, Turin (2019); Good Luck, See You After the Revolution, UvA, Amsterdam (2017); Why Is Everybody Being So Nice?, De Appel and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2017); and Dear Betty: Run Fast, Bite Hard, GAMeC, Bergamo (2016).  

Élisabeth Lebovici is an art historian and critic. She was editor-in-chief of the magazine Beaux-Arts (1987–1990) and a journalist at the culture desk of Libération (1991– 2006). Since the 1990s, she has collaborated on an extensive number of books, seminars, and conferences on contemporary artists, feminism, activism, and gender and queer issues. She is the director of L’Intime (Paris, ENSBA, 1998) and the co-author, with Catherine Gonnard, de Femmes artistes/Artistes femmes : Paris, de 1880 à nos jours (Paris: Hazan, 2007). Her book Ce que le sida m’a fait. Art et activisme à la fin du 20e siècle (Zurich: JRP Ringier, “Lectures maison rouge” series, 2017) won the Prix Pierre Daix in 2017. Since 2006, she has co-directed (together with Patricia Falguières and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez) a seminar at EHESS titled “Something You Should Know: Artists and Producers”. She is a founding member of the endowment fund LIG (Lesbians of General Interest).

The practice of Ser Serpas (born in 1995 in Los Angeles), forged during her studies at Columbia University, is largely invested in critiquing and celebrating the value (or lack thereof) of material objects. Whether working with discarded detritus found on the street or hoarded fabric gifted to her by friends, Serpas manipulates these materials to produce art in a manner that complicates perceptions of value, imbuing what would otherwise be garbage with meaning. Two years after the opening of the Bourse de Commerce and the presentation of a series of her small-format paintings that were like intimate fragments, Ser Serpas is taking over Gallery 3 to create a chaotic space brimming with tension  « I fear (J’ai peur) » , an unsettling scene for visitors who will find themselves immersed in a hybrid space that makes it seem as if they have stumbled into a space that is still being built, and which is inspired by the idea of the attic.