Louise Lawler Books

Focusing on the innovative photography of Louise Lawler, this volume showcases her work capturing art in various contexts, from private homes to auction houses. It delves into her diverse creations, including objects that comment on art's value and exchange systems. Lawler's contributions to photography and institutional critique are highlighted, alongside her feminist perspective and collaborative spirit. Accompanying essays from notable art historians and curators provide deeper insights into her political engagement and artistic evolution, marking her overdue recognition in the art world.

Louise Lawler's unusual photographs makes clear that our perception and meaning of an artwork is always influenced by its local and institutional environment. Depending on whether the artwork is in a gallery, in a museum, in a depot, in the auction house, in private rooms of collectors, its presence, impact and message change. Lawler does not change the particular situation in which she takes the artwork, but points to it. Including a conversation with Philipp Kaiser, Jessica Morgan, Gabriele Schor.

Unser Buch versteht sich als Hommage an Gerhard Richter, dessen 80. Geburtstag im Februar 2012 gefeiert wird. Richters heute weltberühmte Werke, zu großen Teilen malerische Umsetzungen photographischer Bilder, inspirierten die amerikanische Künstlerin und Photographin Louise Lawler, geb. 1947, zu einer Serie besonderer Art: Ihre hier versammelten 21 Arbeiten aus zwei Jahrzehnten erzählen davon, wie die Malerei von Gerhard Richter in Museen, kommerziellen Galerien, Auktionshäusern und in privaten und öffentlichen Sammlungen präsentiert, inszeniert und rezipiert wird. Am Beispiel ausgewählter Richter- Gemälde, sei es in situ oder in transit, erfahren wir viel über den Umgang mit moderner Kunst auf den verschiedenen Ebenen des zeitgenössischen Kunstbetriebs. Die scharfen, farbigen, fast minimalistischen Kompositionen von Lawlers Photographien korrespondieren mit Richters ebenfalls die Photographie thematisierenden, unterkühlten Malereien und führen zu einer Art medialer Verdoppelung, zu einem kühlen Echo sozusagen. Tim Griffin, langjähriger Herausgeber von Art Forum und seit kurzem Chefkurator und Direktor der Ausstellungsinstitution The Kitchen in New York, schrieb den einführenden Essay.

Louise Lawler subjects the concept of art to critical analysis by re-photographing her own drawings, paintings, and sculptures and incorporating aspects of their immediate surroundings into these "copies." Viewed with a certain detachment, her demystified reproductions also reveal the contextual and situational connotations of her artworks, which recede to a certain extent into the background. Lawler also applies these methods to the work of other artists, photographing their art pieces, particularly as they are mounted in private collections. These contextualizing photographs retain fragments of their surroundings, thus clarifying how the presentation and interpretation of artwork is never free of value judgment or environmental influence. This publication offers the first retrospective overview of the artistic accomplishments of Louise Lawler over the past 20 years. Included are a number of very recent works, some of them created especially for this book.