Louise Lawler
1947 (Bronxville)
Living in : New York
Working in : New York
Artist's gallery
Since the 1980s, Louise Lawler has been regarded as a major figure in appropriationism alongside Sherrie Levine and Cindy Sherman. After studying art at Cornell University in Ithaca (1963-1969), she moved to New York and worked for the famous Leo Castelli Gallery. Close to the conceptual movement, she developed a critical approach to painting and photography in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lawler established her distinctive style in the early 1980s when she began photographing artworks displayed in museums, auction houses, storage rooms, galleries, and private collections. These photographs, resembling mises en abyme, focus on the conditions, procedures, and processes involved in the exhibition, sale, and circulation of art. Not always perfectly framed, they draw attention to a detail, the context in which the works are displayed, and show what is not always visible: labels, pedestals, walls… Through this work of reappropriation and desacralization, Louise Lawler challenges the value, meaning, and use of art.
Living in : New York
Working in : New York
Artist's gallery
Since the 1980s, Louise Lawler has been regarded as a major figure in appropriationism alongside Sherrie Levine and Cindy Sherman. After studying art at Cornell University in Ithaca (1963-1969), she moved to New York and worked for the famous Leo Castelli Gallery. Close to the conceptual movement, she developed a critical approach to painting and photography in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Lawler established her distinctive style in the early 1980s when she began photographing artworks displayed in museums, auction houses, storage rooms, galleries, and private collections. These photographs, resembling mises en abyme, focus on the conditions, procedures, and processes involved in the exhibition, sale, and circulation of art. Not always perfectly framed, they draw attention to a detail, the context in which the works are displayed, and show what is not always visible: labels, pedestals, walls… Through this work of reappropriation and desacralization, Louise Lawler challenges the value, meaning, and use of art.