Lee Lozano, to June 2018
 
Lozano is enigmatic, to say the least. An active artist for only 10 years during the 1960s and 1970s she produced some big formal abstract pieces, some very small pieces barely four inches square, and drawings and writings. Just as she became established in the art market, she eschewed it. Her writings reveal what to me looked like a strained relationship with ‘weed’ and other naughty substances like mescaline. But there’s nothing  psychedelic about her work. Indeed, when entering the gallery and turning to the left one is confronted by some crude drawings, in both senses. A title provides a clue – if I remember rightly ‘He cocked his ear.’ There are various things you can do with a cock, and Lozano explores 20 variations in this rapid fire series of drawings. Then follows the tiny paintings, none of which I could enthuse about. In dull, murky expressionist colours and vague forms, they don’t seem to convey very much, least of all cocks. But in a way they are intriguing, since I’ve often wondered what it takes to make a truly post-modern work stand out when it’s only four inches square. Perhaps the answer is nothing at all. I don’t  know, it’s a challenge which has resolutely been rejected by all except Tracey Emin, who merely has to draw a dot to be made Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy.