Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler, whose work raises questions about the production, circulation, and presentation of art, emerged in the 1970s as part of the Pictures Generation—a loosely knit group of artists named for an influential exhibition, Pictures, organized in 1977 by art historian Douglas Crimp at Artists Space in New York. These artists, among them Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, and Jack Goldstein, used photography and image appropriation to examine the functions and codes of representation in movies, television, magazines, and other forms of mass media. One of Lawler’s early black-and-white photographs, Why Pictures Now (1981), shows a matchbook propped up in an ashtray. The matchbook’s shadowy presence and the cool sensibility of the image are reminiscent of an advertising photograph or a film noir still. It asks the viewer to consider why the work takes the form of a picture, and why the artist is making pictures at this moment.
Lawler established her signature style in the early 1980s, when she began taking pictures of other artists’ works displayed in museums, storage spaces, auction houses, and collectors’ homes. With these photographs, she sought to question the value, meaning, and use of art. Does Andy Warhol Make You Cry? (1988) presents an image of Andy Warhol’s 1962 painting Round Marilyn photographed at a Christie’s preview before it was sold in the November 1988 auction of the Burton and Emily Tremaine Collection. The painting appears at full scale (17 inches in diameter), and the auction house label is clearly legible. Lawler also includes her own label, which directly asks the viewer why Warhol’s tondo of the iconic actress is so affecting decades after her death.
An integral aspect of Lawler’s approach is her process of continuously re-presenting, reframing, or restaging her work. Through this strategy she revisits her own pictures by transferring them to different formats, making her photographs into paperweights, tracings, and work she calls “adjusted to fit.” The tracings, such as Pollock and Tureen (traced) (1984/2013), are large-format, black-and-white line versions of her photographs that eliminate color and detail, functioning instead as “ghosts” of the originals.
Lawler’s “adjusted to fit” images are stretched or expanded to fit the site of their display. Big (adjusted to fit) (2002/2003/2016) is based on a color photograph taken at the booth of the Marian Goodman Gallery during the 2002 Art Basel fair in Miami. It shows the installation of an outsized mask of Pablo Picasso made by Maurizio Cattelan. Cattelan originally conceived the mask in 1998 as part of a MoMA Projects exhibition, for which he hired an actor to greet visitors while wearing the mask and a striped boatneck shirt similar to the ones Picasso wore. In Lawler’s image, the mask is unpacked but not yet assembled. Behind it hangs a monumental photograph by Thomas Struth, Pergamon Museum 4 (2001), which shows people looking at friezes and headless sculptural figures from ancient Greece.
In addition to her photographs and installations—such as the sound piece Birdcalls (1972/1981), in which she voices the names of well-known male artists in the style of birdcalls—Lawler has consistently produced ephemera ranging from gallery announcements and posters to magazine covers and matchbooks. These items reflect her interest in how art reaches viewers beyond the museum and gallery system. Across the entire spectrum of her work, Lawler evokes critical theories of reception, acknowledging that the meaning of an artwork shifts and morphs depending on who looks at it and the context of its display.
Introduction by Kelly Sidley, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography, 2017
- Introduction
- Louise Lawler (born 1947) is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. From the late 1970s onwards, Lawler’s work has focused on photographing portraits of other artists’ work, giving special attention to the spaces in which they are placed and methods used to make them. Examples of Lawler's photographs include images of paintings hanging on the walls of a museum, paintings on the walls of an art collector's opulent home, artwork in the process of being installed in a gallery, and sculpture in a gallery being viewed by spectators. Along with artists like Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons and Barbara Kruger, Lawler is considered to be part of the Pictures Generation.
- Wikidata
- Q539270
- Nationality
- American
- Gender
- Female
- Roles
- Artist, Conceptual Artist, Installation Artist, Photographer
- Name
- Louise Lawler
- Ulan
- 500088762
Exhibitions
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Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011
Nov 3, 2019–Mar 1, 2020
MoMA PS1
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509: Florine Stettheimer and Company
Oct 21, 2019–Oct 12, 2020
MoMA
Collection gallery
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201: Public Images
Ongoing
MoMA
Collection gallery
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Louise Lawler: WHY PICTURES NOW
Apr 30–Jul 30, 2017
MoMA
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Greater New York
Oct 11, 2015–Mar 7, 2016
MoMA PS1
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Louise Lawler has
15 exhibitionsonline.
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Louise Lawler Truck 1978
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Louise Lawler Volkswagen 1978
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Louise Lawler Postcard and announcement for Untitled, Red/Blue and Untitled, Black/White 1978
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Louise Lawler Truck and Volkswagen 1978
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Louise Lawler Poster for ___________, Louise Lawler, Adrian Piper & Cindy Sherman, Artists Space, New York, September 23–October 28, 1978 1978
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Louise Lawler Business card for Dan Graham 1979
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Louise Lawler (Allan McCollum and Other Artists) Chartreuse 1981
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Louise Lawler Why Pictures Now 1981
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Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine Announcement card for A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything, Ronnelle Gallery, Halifax, December 18–19, 1981 1981
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Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine Announcement card for A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything, Harold Rivkin, New York, May 27, 1981 1981
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Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine Announcement card for A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything, Louise Lawler, 407 Greenwich Street, New York, June 25, 1981 1981
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Louise Lawler Portrait 1982
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Louise Lawler (Jenny Holzer and Other Artists) Kelly Green 1982
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Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine Announcement card for A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything, Louise Lawler, 407 Greenwich Street, New York, January 1, 1982 1982
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Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine Announcement card for A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything, James Turcotte Gallery, Los Angeles, April 6, 1982 1982
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for Another Gallery, Anna Leonowens Gallery II, Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, August 23–27, 1982 1982
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Louise Lawler Matchbook for Arrangements of Pictures, Metro Pictures, New York, November 20–December 18, 1982 1982
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Louise Lawler Poster for A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything: Louise Lawler + Andy Warhol, ID Gallery, Valencia, California, February 16, 1982 1982
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Louise Lawler Stationery for Documenta 7: A Story, Kassel, June 19–September 28, 1982 1982
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Louise Lawler Matchbook for Borrowed Time, Baskerville + Watson, New York, March 9–April 9, 1983 1983
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Louise Lawler Sappho and Patriarch 1984
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for Interesting, Nature Morte, New York, May 1985 1985
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Louise Lawler Press release for Interesting, Nature Morte, New York, April 1985 1985
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for It Remains to Be Seen, Metro Pictures, New York, January 17–February 13, 1987 1987
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Louise Lawler Exhibition brochure for Enough. Projects: Louise Lawler, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, September 19–November 10, 1987 1987
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Louise Lawler Does Andy Warhol Make You Cry? 1988
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Group Material, Mike Glier, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Carrie Mae Weems, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Nancy Spero, Nancy Linn, Hans Haacke, Richard Prince, Louise Lawler Inserts, an advertising supplement produced for New York Times 1988
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for Vous avez déjà vu ça, Yvon Lambert, Paris, April 23–May 26, 1988 1988
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for How Many Pictures, Metro Pictures, New York, April 29–May 27, 1989 1989
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for A Vendre, Yvon Lambert, Paris, September 8–October 10, 1990 1990
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Louise Lawler Matchbook for Carnegie International 1991, Pittsburg, October 19, 1991–February 16, 1992 1991
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Louise Lawler Matchbook for Carnegie International 1991, Pittsburg, October 19, 1991–February 16, 1992 1991
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Louise Lawler Matchbook for Carnegie International 1991, Pittsburg, October 19, 1991–February 16, 1992 1991
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Louise Lawler Stationery for For Sale, Metro Pictures, New York, May 25–June 22, 1991 1991
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Louise Lawler, Allan McCollum Fixed Intervals/6-10 Set (1-B) 1988–92
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Louise Lawler, Max Becher Poster for Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, March 26–May 9, 1993 1993
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Louise Lawler Postcards for Paperweights, Postcards, Pictures, Cannibalism, Centre d'Art Contemporain, Geneva, January 20–February 27, 1994 1994
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Louise Lawler Matchbook for Metro Pictures, Gramercy International Art Fair, New York, April 1995 1995
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Louise Lawler Poster for A Spot on the Wall, Neue Galerie, Graz, Austria, April 30–May 28, 1995 1995
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for A Spot on the Wall, Kunstverein, Munich, March 16–April 23, 1995 1995
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for Paint, Walls, Pictures: Something Always Follows Something Else. She Wasn't Always a Statue, Metro Pictures, New York, February 1–March 15, 1997 1997
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Various Artists, Louise Lawler, Sol LeWitt, Richard Artschwager Notes on a Room 1998
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Louise Lawler Untitled from Notes on a Room 1996, published 1998
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Louise Lawler Untitled from Notes on a Room 1996, published 1998
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Louise Lawler Untitled from Notes on a Room 1996, published 1998
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Louise Lawler Napkin for The Museum as Muse: Artists Reflect, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 14–June 1, 1999 1999
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Louise Lawler Untitled (Wheel) 1999
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Louise Lawler Announcement card for Looking Forward, Metro Pictures, New York, October 30–December 23, 2004 2004
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