Rick Lowe


Rick Lowe is a Houston-based artist and community organizer, whose Project Row Houses is considered an important example of social-practice art.
In 2014, he was among the 21 people awarded a MacArthur "genius" fellowship.

Life

He was born in Alabama.
He was trained as a landscape painter, attending Columbus College in Georgia, before moving to Houston in 1985. There, he created politically charged installations and studied with muralist and painter John Biggers at Texas Southern University.
He developed Trans.lation: Vickery Meadow for the Nasher Sculpture Center's 10th anniversary exhibition "Nasher XChange" and Victoria Square Project in Athens, Greece as a part of Documenta 14. He served as a visiting artist at UC Berkeley Arts Research Center, a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University, Haas Center Distinguish Visitor at Stanford University, a Mel King Community Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Breeden Scholar at Auburn University, and a Neubauer Collegium Visiting Fellow at the University of Chicago. in 2016 He joined the faculty at the University of Houston's Kathrine G. McGovern College of the Arts. in 2014.
In 1999, Lowe served as a selection committee member for the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence. He received the 8th Annual Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities in 2002.

Project Row Houses

' mission is " to be the catalyst for transforming community through the celebration of art and African-American history and culture." Employing the terminology of the German artist Joseph Beuys, Lowe describes the project as "social sculpture." He also draws inspiration from the work of artist John T. Biggers, working from his Five Pillars: Art and Creativity; Education; Social Safety Nets; Architecture; and Sustainability.
PRH dates from 1993, when Lowe and fellow founding six artists James Bettison, Bert Long, Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith, alongside community organizers, arranged for the "purchase and restoration of a block and a half of derelict properties — 22 shotgun houses from the 1930s — in Houston's predominantly African American Third Ward." These houses were then converted to arts spaces, revitalizing the neighborhood and providing community development for the blighted neighborhood. More than 20 years later, according to an ArtNews article, the project has grown to 49 buildings spread out over 10 blocks and has a support program for young mothers.
This unusual amalgam of arts venue and community support center has served as a model for Lowe to expand into other neighborhoods in need of revitalization. The artist has initiated similar projects in the Watts Housing Project in Los Angeles, in post-Katrina New Orleans, and in a North Dallas neighborhood with a dense immigrant population.
In 1997 Project Row Houses won the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, a national design award that seeks to identify and honor projects that address social and economic concerns of urban design.