Hard Handshake is the first major exhibition in Los Angeles dedicated to Lee Lozano. The exhibition, showing at Hauser & Wirth in Downtown Los Angeles, brings together over one hundred drawings by the Lozano, spanning the years 1959 to 1968. These drawings were rarely exhibited during her lifetime and include a range of her works that incorporate text and drawings that reference facets of expressionism, surrealism and pop to her later minimalist and geometric works on paper. 

Lee Lozano (1930 – 1999) is one of the most innovative artists to have worked in America during the 1960s. Throughout her oeuvre, which spans a little more than a decade, she produced ground-breaking work in a progression of styles, from the figurative and cartoonish pop-expressionism of her early paintings and drawings, through serial minimalism, to her Language Pieces, which led to a conceptual practice that she continued for the rest of her life. The uncompromising and vigorous richness of Lozano’s creative output continues to have a profound impact on generations of contemporary artists, firmly placing her as a cult figure within the historical canon of American Art. 

Major exhibitions of Lozano’s work have been held at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford CT (1998); MoMA PS1, New York NY (2004); Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2006); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2006); Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria (2006); Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden (2010); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain (2017); The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Scotland (2018); Kunstforeningen Gl Strand, Copenhagen, Denmark (2022); Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris, France (2023); Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, Italy (2023). Lozano’s work was presented at documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany in 2007.