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In episode two of the National Gallery of Art’s video series West to East, which launched in spring 2023, Rick Lowe guides the viewer through his home in the Third Ward neighborhood of Houston. West to East focuses on contemporary artists whose works actively explore connections to their distinct communities and the United States at large, looking in particular at those working outside well-known “art hubs.” Lowe has spent thirty years combining art and activism via his community platform, Project Row Houses, and more recently he has been creating paintings inspired by maps and dominoes, in a quest for aesthetic beauty. Lowe and his community partners work together to “map the unknown” future.

Rick Lowe has been named the Posey Leader-In-Residence and winner of the Posey Leadership Award. As the Posey Leader-In-Residence, Lowe will offer four sessions for students throughout the year touching on different aspects of his work. Formally launched in 2005 and made possible through the generosity of Sally and Lee Posey of Dallas, the Austin College award honors an outstanding individual who has shown great leadership with regard to a humanitarian or educational issue, worked to improve the quality of health, educational, or community services for young people, or created opportunities for the youth within education and social advancement.

Rick Lowe will be inducted into the National Academy of Design on October 25, 2022, in a ceremony that will be viewable online. Founded in 1825, the organization advocates for the arts as a tool for education, celebrates the role of artists and architects in public life, and serves as a catalyst for cultural conversations that propel society forward. National Academicians are a community of artists and architects who are elected by their peers in recognition of their extraordinary contributions to art and architecture in America. The number of living Academicians is limited to 450, and more than 2,400 artists and architects have been elected since the organization’s inception.

Gagosian is pleased to announce the representation of Rick Lowe. Lowe’s numerous collaborative projects, undertaken in the spirit and tradition of “social sculpture,” are paired with an extensive body of work in painting, drawing, and installation. Working closely with individuals and communities, he has identified myriad ways to exercise creativity in the context of everyday activities, harnessing it to explore concerns around equity and justice. Influenced by Joseph Beuys’s formulation of “social sculpture,” he has moved from figurative “anti-painting” to the making and maintenance of projects aimed at the transformation of social structures and sites, and to symbolic abstract painting.

Lowe will inaugurate the third season of Gagosian’s Artist Spotlight series on September 29. His first solo exhibition at the gallery is scheduled for fall 2022 at Gagosian New York.

In this video, artists Walter Hood, Rick Lowe, and Amanda Williams discuss how histories of Black invention and affluence can inspire new conditions for the present and future. The conversation is moderated by Tracie Hall, executive director of the American Library Association, and was presented in conjunction with the exhibition Reconstructions: Architecture and Blackness in America at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2021.

In this episode of Museum Confidential, hosted by Jeff Martin with Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Rick Lowe discusses the Greenwood Art Project (2018–21) and the centennial of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre with Martin and project manager Jerica Wortham. To listen to the episode, visit www.publicradiotulsa.org.

Rick Lowe discusses his G.A.P. Van (2021), a mobile, multidisciplinary art production and performance space that aims to foster a sense of community and healing among the residents of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Traveling through the neighborhood, the van serves as a mobile healing space where the community can—through a participatory process of making and exhibiting posters—archive and acknowledge the trauma of the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921 while celebrating the vibrant energy of “Black Wall Street.”

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This video documents a lecture by Rick Lowe at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. Lowe speaks about his social-sculpture practice and offers insight into his thinking and his working process.

Invited to present the 2015 Class Day Lecture for Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, Rick Lowe uses the theme of “value” to explore his social practice projects and encourages the graduating class to consider how they assign value to others.

Rick Lowe was selected as a 2014 MacArthur Fellow. Each year the MacArthur Foundation awards fellowships—better known as “genius” grants—to individuals from diverse fields who are solving long-standing scientific and mathematical problems, pushing art forms into new and emerging territories, and addressing the urgent needs of under-resourced communities. Lowe was recognized for reinventing community revitalization as an art form by transforming a long-neglected neighborhood in Houston into Project Row Houses (founded in 1993), a visionary amalgam of arts venue, community support center, and historic preservation initiative. In this video produced on the occasion, Lowe discusses his practice and his reaction to receiving the prestigious award.

In 2013 Rick Lowe was appointed to the National Council on the Arts by President Barack Obama. The appointment recognizes distinguished service or achieved eminence in the arts. Members advise the chairperson of the National Endowment for the Arts on agency policies and programs. Selected to equitably represent all geographical areas of the United States, they are appointed by the president and approved by the Senate for staggered six-year terms.