Rick Lowe

I realized that the patterns were simply mapping knowledge of the time I spent with people.
—Rick Lowe

Gagosian is pleased to present Meditations on Social Sculpture, an exhibition of new works by Rick Lowe, including paintings that emerged from his Project Row Houses (1993–2018) and Victoria Square Project (2016–), as well as new abstract works that forge links between the conceptual and communal aspects of his practice. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, and his first in New York. Lowe’s work is included in the 2022 Whitney Biennial and will be featured in Notes on the Great Migration, a solo exhibition at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society, University of Chicago, opening on October 25, 2022.

Lowe’s current paintings evolved from ongoing public community projects—works of “social sculpture” that saw him move beyond the conventions of visual practice by developing and exercising skills in civic organization, political agitation, real-estate development, and architectural criticism. Over the past three decades, Lowe has evolved a mutable practice centered on catalyzing change through the transformation of shared structures and sites. To this end, in 1993, he cofounded Project Row Houses in Houston’s Third Ward, a historically and culturally significant African American neighborhood. Conceived in collaboration with other artists and creative thinkers, Project Row Houses transformed a small area of derelict shotgun houses into a vibrant cultural district. Lowe has continued such community-based art programs with Greenwood Art Project in Tulsa, Oklahoma (2018–21) and Black Wall Street Journey (2021–) in Chicago, for which he worked with local artists and residents to raise awareness of issues of migration, wealth creation, and the destruction of community around the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.