With a wink and a nod to the legal concept of ‘attractive nuisance’ (a landowner may be held liable if a child is attracted to something on his property and becomes injured), Lou Beach’s exhibition of new collages is titled, "An Attractive New Sense", suggesting that art may be appealing, but should be approached with caution.
His witty and provocative work can be compared to the robust oddities of Hannah Höch, the incisive critiques of John Heartfield, and the curious fantasies of Joseph Cornell, though he sites Ernie Kovacs as his main inspiration. The son of Polish parents displaced by World War II, Beach (born Andrzej Lubicz) came to the US at the age of four, and grew up in Rochester, NY.
He travelled to California in 1968, began studying the Surrealists, and started making collages from LIFE Magazines. In the mid-‘70s, he lived in Boston, where he refined his technique, and had his first solo exhibition at the Boston Center for the Arts. He then returned to LA, where he built a long career as an illustrator creating record album covers and art for magazines and newspapers. For the last ten years Beach has focused on his collages, which art critic Peter Frank described as “sweetly uproarious orgasms of juxtaposition.”