dsdn 144 | precedent

Sherrie Levine - appropriation art

I am quite interested in the work of Sherrie Levine whose work I find quite anarchic. Her work, for example After Walker Evans, (fig. 1)  that focuses on photographing or reproducing existing photographs or sculptures, is so subtle that it's easy to miss the point. (Google Sherrie Levine images and you'll see what I mean). When you realise what the artist is doing, (i.e. rephotographing others work and presenting it as her own) you may be surprised at how you feel next. I was slightly annoyed the first time. I am not often annoyed by contemporary art. But in this case I think it's because it feels like a trap. A practical joke (I don't much care for those either). But there's an excellent piece written about her retrospective held at the Whitney in NYC in 2012 that properly engages with what's at stake here and it sits really nicely with the Time project.

Fig 1. Sherrie Levine: After Walker Evans, 1981 (Evans/Levine)

Don't worry fellow DSDN'ers, I am not going to turn in a project of other great photography shot by me, but it does fit with some ideas I have had about photographing old photos from my childhood or of my elderly mother who I am unable to see very often. Perhaps using a collage method or in a photo album. Interesting.