Justin Lowe

Justin Lowe (b. 1976, Dayton, Ohio) lives and works in New York. His practice spans immersive installation, collage, and sculptural media, often driven by speculative histories and countercultural iconography. A graduate of Columbia University (MFA, 2004) and Hampshire College (BA, 2000), Lowe’s early solo work emerged from a fascination with the architecture of cultural debris—repurposed fiction, psychedelia, DIY publishing, and what he has described as “the aesthetics of collapse.” Lowe’s solo exhibitions have appeared at institutions and galleries internationally, including Werewolf Karaoke at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT (2010); Hair of the Dog at Pepin Moore Gallery, Los Angeles (2011); Freedom Time Is Here Little Kittens at Galerie Frédéric Giroux, Paris (2008); and The New War at Galleria Cesare Manzo, Rome (2010). His work has been included in group shows such as Greater New York at MoMA PS1 (2005), The Pantagruel Syndrome at Castello di Rivoli, Turin, and most recently in A Study in Form at James Fuentes Gallery, New York (2024), and R U STILL PAINTING??? with the FALCON Art Collective (2025). In parallel to his solo practice, Lowe began a long-term collaboration with Jonah Freeman in 2007. Their first project, Hello Meth Lab in the Sun, premiered at Ballroom Marfa in 2008 and set the tone for a series of ambitious, immersive installations blending architecture, science fiction, and imagined subcultures. Projects such as Black Acid Co-Op (Deitch Projects, 2009), Shadow Pool (MOCA Los Angeles, 2017), and Scenario in the Shade (MAAT Lisbon, 2018) offered labyrinthine environments populated by fictional institutions, shadow economies, and dystopian detritus. Their collaboration has produced permanent installations including Artichoke Underground (2013, Sammlung Philara, Düsseldorf), A Cell in the Smile (2018, in a decommissioned Ohio bunker), and Colony Howl (2022, AROS, Aarhus). In 2024, they debuted Sunset Corridor at The Modern in Fort Worth. While the collaborative work builds alternate realities at architectural scale, Lowe’s solo efforts continue to function at a more intimate but no less disorienting register—cutting across collage, publication, and material experimentation.