Discussion between Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer and Bruce Hainley to commemorate the release of Lee Lozano: Dropout Piece on Afterall Books.
This discussion took place on March 30, 2014 at Ooga Booga / 356 S. Mission Road.
Lee Lozano's Dropout Piece (begun c.1970) is one of her most challenging and elusive works. First and foremost, it is the name Lozano gave to her self-imposed transformation from art world insider to outsider. It is also a large-scale action carried out with lifelong, indeed posthumous, consequences.
Sarah Lehrer-Graiwer presents Dropout Piece as a great experiment in art and endurance. Situating the work within the context of 'Life-Art' pieces such as Dialogue Piece, General Strike Piece, Grass Piece and Boycott Women, she demonstrates how Dropout Piece exhibits an extraordinary range of artistic intents. Drawing closely upon Lozano's private notebooks, Lehrer-Graiwer argues that Dropout Piece still haunts the art world today as oral history, ephemera and fantasy, and reveals how Lozano's practice advanced the relationship between language and performance and between private thought and urgent action
