Rick Lowe has pioneered an art practice concerned with the social aspect of sculpture. With roots in the philosophy of Joseph Beuys, most notably the idea of “social sculpture,” Lowe has professed that a large part of his work includes “introducing poetic moments into mundane activities.”
Like Beuys, who proposed an enlarged definition of art that could include every conscious act, Lowe works toward a social system in which every person is a creator. Here, Lowe discusses a number of projects in which he has worked to bring communities together through art inside and outside the art world nationally and internationally. Notably, Project Row Houses a community-based arts and culture non-profit organization in Houston’s northern Third Ward, one of the city’s oldest African American neighborhoods.