Artist: Molly Lowe
Exhibition title: Hammer Projects: Molly Lowe
Curated by: MacKenzie Stevens
Venue: Hammer Museum, Hammer Projects, Los Angeles, US
Date: January 20 – May 20, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
In her newest body of work, Molly Lowe considers the ways in which our image saturated culture is changing our sense of reality and ourselves.
New York–based artist Molly Lowe addresses the ways in which technology has changed how we experience “reality,” relate to other people, and understand our own bodies and identities. In this new body of work, comprised of a series of painted portraits and a large sculptural installation, Lowe considers how the proliferation of images of people we’ve all grown accustomed to seeing on a daily basis on television, social media, and the internet makes us feel simultaneously more connected and more isolated than ever before. Her cast of characters are familiar and yet completely unknowable—trapped in a kind of existential limbo, divorced from reality but still stuck within its inescapable confines. Lowe is skeptical of our hyper-voyeuristic culture, and her work implores us to pause and consider what we really gain from the intimate and often anonymous exchanges technology affords.
Hammer Projects: Molly Lowe is organized by MacKenzie Stevens, curatorial associate.
Molly Lowe (b. 1983, Palo Alto, California) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Lowe received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005 and her MFA from Columbia University in 2012. She has had exhibitions and performances at Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2016); Suzanne Geiss Company, New York (2014); SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York (2013); and Performa 13, New York (2013). Her films have screened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2017) and JOAN, Los Angeles (2016). Lowe has participated in residencies at the Shandaken Project, Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York (2015); Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2015); Recess Art, New York (2013); and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine (2008). In 2015, she received the New York Foundation for the Arts interdisciplinary artist fellowship award, and she was recently nominated for a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation award.
Molly Lowe, 2018, exhibition view, Hammer Museum, Hammer Projects, Los Angeles
Molly Lowe, 2018, exhibition view, Hammer Museum, Hammer Projects, Los Angeles
Molly Lowe, 2018, exhibition view, Hammer Museum, Hammer Projects, Los Angeles
Molly Lowe, 2018, exhibition view, Hammer Museum, Hammer Projects, Los Angeles
Molly Lowe, 2018, exhibition view, Hammer Museum, Hammer Projects, Los Angeles
Molly Lowe, performance documentation of Hands Off, {Temp} Art Space, New York, 2013. Courtesy of the artist
Molly Lowe, Still from Redwood, 2016. HD video, color, sound. 60 min. Courtesy of the artist.
Molly Lowe, Still from Formed, 2013. HD video, color, sound. 6 min. Courtesy of the artist
Molly Lowe, Sorry, Excuse Me, Thank You, installation view, Suzanne Geiss Company, New York, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and the Suzanne Geiss Company. Photo: Adam Reich
Molly Lowe, Still from Formed, 2013. HD video, color, sound. 6 min. Courtesy of the artist
Molly Lowe, Still from Redwood, 2016. HD video, color, sound. 60 min. Courtesy of the artist