Lucia Hierro – Fuck Up The Algorithm

In developing her latest museum show, Hierro didn’t play it safe—she tried something risky and monumental.

- By Kristin Farr. Portrait by Laura June Kirsch

Alone plastic shopping bag, plucked by the breeze, floats gracefully down the street. It is the “muse” of Lucia Hierro, who, although foremost an academic, is also a conceptual artist—a driver of dialogue. Her work does not serve light snacks. It divulges the dark twists of labor and production; the juxtapositions and contradictions of late capitalism.

In developing her latest museum show, Hierro didn’t play it safe—she tried something risky and monumental. In the meantime, she also successfully fucked up the search-term algorithm for postmodern masters of installation art. Subtle references to other artists’ concepts are less revealing than her broader mission to educate by dominating space and leveling up with each of her singular, complex and curious creations.

Kristin Farr: What’s been going on this year?

Lucia Hierro: I did some work for David Klein Gallery in Detroit, and an install for Museo del Barrio’s Triennale, and they both opened the same day last spring.

I was at the Red Bull artist residency in Detroit for three months, and I had friends who introduced me to Detroit in this really beautiful way, and I have a really deep connection to the city. The show at David Klein was the first time some people had seen my kind of work in a gallery; this strange, digital mural-looking thing with sculptures. They had a lot of foot traffic, which was odd, given covid. A lot more people were stepping into the gallery who didn’t feel comfortable doing so before. My big green wall in the back of the gallery drew people in.