Louise Lawler - Photographs New York Wednesday, October 14, 2020 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Directly from the artist

  • Exhibited

    Projects: Louise Lawler, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 19 September – 10 November 1987; Art and its Double – A New York Perspective, Caja de Pensiones, Madrid, 6 February – 22 March 1987; Louise Lawler, Maison de la Culture et de la Communication, Saint Etienne, 12 November 1986 – 16 January 1987; Private View, Galleria Civica Stadtgalerie, Bolzano, Italy, 7 July – 22 August 1999 (for all, another example exhibited)

  • Literature

    Meinhardt, Louise Lawler: An Arrangement of Pictures, p. 54
    Taschen Verlag, Art at the Turn of the Millennium, p. 304
    Grassi and Oliva, Critical Theory for a Private Collection, p. 389
    Groupe Lhoist Collection, Contemporary Photographs, p. 91
    Cameron, “Post-Feminism”, Flash Art: Two Decades of History – XXI Years, p. 164

  • Catalogue Essay

    Louise Lawler’s Women with Picasso was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1987. Dedicated to presenting recent works by contemporary artists, MoMA’s Project 9 showcased Lawler’s then newly established theme of photographing works by other artists. Lawler’s appropriation of existing works directs the spectator's attention to the relationship between objects and their context.

    In Women with Picasso, Lawler photographed a young woman holding Picasso’s Guitar in her hand. A paper construction completed in 1912, Guitar is currently housed at the Musée Picasso in Paris. Lawler took this photograph shortly after the museum opened to the public in 1985. Considering only a curator or a conservator of the museum would be allowed to handle such a delicate construction by Picasso, Lawler most likely captured the young institution's professional in the middle of a presentation or demonstration.

    Lawler created an intriguing juxtaposition between the inestimable value of the work and its casual presentation by displaying a precious piece of art usually only seen in a glass case in someone's bare hands. The contrast challenges one's established perception of a Picasso and reflects upon how the presentation can endow meanings and values to artworks. As Lawler has once stated, "Is it the work, the location, or the stereotype that is the institution?"

90

Woman with Picasso

1986
Dye destruction print.
27 x 39 1/4 in. (68.6 x 99.7 cm)
Signed, dated and annotated H/C in pencil on the reverse of the mount. One from an edition of 5 plus hors commerce.

Estimate
$80,000 - 120,000 

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs

Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Deputy Chairwoman, Americas

 

Photographs

New York Auction 14 October 2020