Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler | |
---|---|
![]() Lawler at Museum Ludwig, Cologne | |
Born | Bronxville, New York |
Education | Cornell University, B.F.A. |
Occupation(s) | Artist, Photographer |
Years active | 1972–present |
Louise Lawler (born 1947) is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York.[1] 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 sculptures 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.[2]
Early life and career
Lawler was born in 1947 in
Work
Lawler has photographed pictures and objects in collectors’ homes, in galleries, on the walls of auction houses, and off the walls, in museum storage. Along with photography, she has created
Early work
Birdcalls (1972/2008
During her time working at Castelli Gallery, Lawler was making paintings, artist’s books, prints, and photographs of her own. However, when she landed her first official gallery exhibition, in 1978 at Artists Space, she did not exhibit any of that work. Instead, she borrowed a small 1883 portrait of a horse from Aqueduct Racetrack — it had been hanging over a Xerox machine in the offices — and mounted it on an empty wall at the gallery. To highlight her appropriation, she installed two spotlights: one above the picture and another pointed out the window, at the building next door, hinting to sidewalk passersby that there was something of note going on upstairs.[5] This particular building was moreover a citybank. It therefore added an economical meaning to the concept.[13]
In 1979, Lawler presented A Movie Will Be Shown Without the Picture at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica. As the full-length soundtrack of
Later work
Lawler developed her individual style during the early 1980s, a time of intense growth in the overall economy and in the art market.[1] In 1981 Lawler had her first West Coast gallery solo exhibition at Jancar Kuhlenschmidt Gallery in Los Angeles. In 1982, for her first solo exhibition at Metro Pictures, Lawler showed a small suite of artworks pulled from the gallery’s stockroom. The pieces were to be sold together, as a single work called Arranged by Louise Lawler, and it was priced at the literal sum of its parts, plus an extra 10 percent commission for Lawler; the piece did not sell.[5]
Lawler's greatest coup came in 1984, when she was granted full access to the New York City and Connecticut residences of twentieth-century collectors Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine. This opportunity occurred on the occasion of the 1984 Tremaine Collection exhibition, and Lawler was again invited to take photos of some artworks in that context. Further, this occurred just a few years before a significant part of their collection was auctioned at Christie's in 1988, and Lawler was permitted to take photos of some of the Tremaine works at auction.[17] In this series of work, Lawler photographed Jackson Pollock's Frieze (1953–55) and the filigree of a Limoges soup bowl in the Tremaines' New York dining room.[18][19] In Living Room Corner, Arranged by Mr. & Mrs. Burton Tremaine, New York City (1984), Robert Delaunay's Premier disque (1912) hangs above a television and a Roy Lichtenstein bust, Ceramic head with blue shadow (1966), which has been turned into a lamp, and seems to stare up and outward. The location was the Tremaines' New York living room.[20][19] Another work in this series is Monogram (1984), taken in a bedroom in the Tremaines' New York apartment, the monogram "ETH" being Emily Hall Tremaine, with Jasper Johns White flag (1955–58) photographed over the bed.[19] The pieces place valuable works among household objects, exploring how environments shape our "reading" of art.[21]
Regarding other works, Fragment/Frame/Text (#163) (1984), Lawler photographed a museum wall label next to a landscape painting by Claude Lorrain; only a fragment of the landscape appears in the photo.[22] In Foreground (1994), a gelatin silver print showing an open-plan living area in the Chicago apartment of art collector Stefan Edlis, Jeff Koons' Rabbit (1986) can be seen next to a refrigerator.[23] By manipulating the focus and the view-finder of the camera, Lawler demonstrated how an artwork is determined by the paradigms of the art world: A label on the wall of an auction house would become the focus of an image, with only a small fraction of the work itself visible, and the idea of the artwork as a commercial entity would be brought to mind.
Photographing at
Recent projects
For a site-specific collaboration with fellow artist
For the 15th installation in a series of artist-designed 25-by-75-foot billboards at the High Line, Lawler created Triangle (adjusted to fit) (2008/2009/2011), an image photographed in a room at Sotheby's auction house in New York, and itself featuring works by artists Donald Judd, Frank Stella and Sol LeWitt.[30]
Exhibitions
Lawler has had one-person exhibitions at the
Lawler has been represented by Metro Pictures, New York, since 1982.[32] She is also represented by Yvon Lambert Gallery,[33] Paris, and by Sprüth Magers, Berlin.
Collections
Pieces by the artist are in the collections of the
Art market
Estimated at $40,000 to $60,000, Lawler's photograph Monogram Arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, New York City 1984, a photograph of a perfectly made bed with
Books
Artists' books
- 1981 Passage to the North, a structure by Lawrence Weiner and photographs by Louise Lawler, New York: Tongue Press
- 1978 Untitled, Black/White, (text by Janelle Reiring), New York
- 1978 Untitled, Red/Blue, New York
- 1972 Untitled, (with Joanne Caring), New York: The Roseprint Detective Club
Books
- Louise, Lawler (2006). Twice Untitled and Other Pictures (looking back). ISBN 0-262-62206-8.
- Louise Lawler and Others, ISBN 3-7757-1420-0
- Louise Lawler: An Arranagement of Pictures, (essay by Johannes Meinhardt, interview with Louise Lawler by Douglas Crimp), Assouline, Paris/ New York, 2000
- Louise Lawler, Monochrome, (essay by Phyllis Rosenzweig), Washington: Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 1997
- Louise Lawler – For Sale, (essays by Dietmar Elger, Thomas Weski), Leipzig: Reihe Cantz, 1994
See also
- Appropriation art
- Conceptual art
- Neo-conceptual art
References
- ^ a b Louise Lawler Skarstedt Gallery, New York.
- ^ Douglas Eklund, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History: The Pictures Generation Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- ^ "2008 Whitney Biennial: Louise Lawler", The Whitney Museum, Retrieved 29 June 2014.
- ISBN 978-0714878775.
- ^ New York Magazine.
- New York Times.
- ^ a b Louise Lawler: Arrangements of Pictures, November 20 – December 18, 1982 Archived October 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Metro Pictures, New York.
- ^ Louise Lawler: Probably not in the show, March 22 - April 27, 2003 Archived December 3, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Portikus, Frankfurt am Main.
- Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.
- ^ ISBN 9783822858547.
- ^ The bird calls were installed at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical within their Gardens Bamboo Garden in 2008 as part of the public art showcase titled Women in the City, curated by Emi Fontana and produced by West of Rome Public Art.
- New York Magazine.
- ISBN 978-0-262-01316-1.
- ^ Morgan, Susan (27 January 2008). "Sex in the City". The New York Times.
- ^ Link to New York Times Magazine article "Sex in the City" on the "Women in the City" project in 2008
- ^ Tate. "Foreground, Louise Lawler 1994 | Tate". Tate. Retrieved 2017-04-11.
- New York Times.
- ^ Louise Lawler, Pollock and Tureen, Arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, Connecticut (1984) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
- ^ a b c (March 15, 2019).Louise Lawler. The Tremaine pictures. List of photoworks (2007). artdesigncafe. Retrieved May 19, 2019.
- ^ Bruce Hainley, Louise Lawler Archived 2008-12-01 at the Wayback Machine Frieze, Issue 56, January–February 2001.
- )
- New York Times.
- ^ Louise Lawler, Foreground (1994) Tate Collection, London.
- ^ Louise Lawler: Looking Forward, October 30 – December 23, 2004 Archived October 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Metro Pictures, New York.
- ^ Louise Lawler Whitney Biennial 2008.
- ^ Louise Lawler Archived 2013-12-03 at the Wayback Machine Palazzo Grassi, Venice.
- Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York.
- New York Times.
- ^ Pei-Ru Keh (November 4, 2013), Artists Liam Gillick and Louise Lawler's work comes together at Casey Kaplan in New York Wallpaper.
- New York Times.
- ^ a b Louise Lawler: Fitting at Metro Pictures, May 6 – June 11, 2011 Archived October 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine Metro Pictures, New York.
- ^ Louise Lawler: Sucked In, Blown Out, Obviously Indebted or One Foot in Front of the Other, May 9 – June 7, 2008 Archived April 13, 2015, at the Wayback Machine Metro Pictures, New York.
- ^ Yvon Lambert
- New York Times.