Sherrie Levine
Sherrie Levine is an influential American artist known for her role in the appropriationist movement, which focuses on the practice of reinterpreting existing artworks by other artists. Born on April 17, 1947, in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, Levine was raised near St. Louis and later studied at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where she earned her degrees in fine arts. Her early work involved painting and printmaking, but she evolved into collage and photography, notably creating rephotographs of iconic images, such as Walker Evans' 1936 photographs. This approach sparked significant debate within the art community, with critics praising her ability to provide new contexts and interpretations while others accused her of mere copying.
Levine's 1981 exhibit "Untitled: After Walker Evans" exemplified her controversial style and led to strong reactions, including opposition from Evans' estate. Despite this, her work has been widely accepted in galleries, where it commands high prices. Through her art, Levine challenges traditional notions of originality and copyright, encouraging viewers to rethink the context and meaning of art. She is recognized alongside other prominent artists, like Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger, for shaping the appropriationist movement. Levine continues to exhibit her work internationally, contributing to ongoing discussions on the ethics of image use in the digital age.
Sherrie Levine
Artist
- Born: April 17, 1947
- Place of Birth: Place of birth: Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Education:University of Wisconsin in Madison
Significance:Sherrie Levine is from a school of artists known as appropriationists. Their art is drawn directly from other’s work, sometimes to the extent that it is essentially a copy.
Background
Sherrie Levine was born on April 17, 1947, in the Northeastern Pennsylvania town of Hazleton. She was raised near St. Louis, Missouri, but little information is available about her early years or personal life. Levine has said in interviews that she does not want to participate in the "myth-making" that surrounds the production of art and declines to provide personal information.
Levine spent part of her formative years in the Midwest and attended college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. There she earned a bachelor’s degree in 1969 and a master’s degree in fine arts in 1973. During her time there, Levine focused her art mostly on painting and printmaking. Eventually, she turned to collage, taking images from photographs and other sources and combining them on mat board to create a new work of art.
Her earliest efforts were included in Pictures, a famous exhibition in New York in 1977. Shortly after this, Levine began to turn her attention to taking her own photographs that served as the basis for her work.
Life’s Work
By around 1980, Levine’s photography changed in a way that the art world saw as simultaneously unique and scandalous. She photographed photos taken by others and treated them as if they were her own art. Her 1981 exhibit Untitled: After Walker Evans in the Metro Pictures Gallery in New York was literally a collection of photographs she took of the famous 1936 photos taken by Walker Evans (1903 – 1975) depicting a sharecropper family named Burroughs.
The exhibit sparked significant debate, with some praising the artistic merits of creating a new context for previously existing artwork. Others considered it copying and copyright infringement. Members of Walker Evans’ estate were so outraged that they bought Levine’s entire exhibit so the photographs would no longer be shown and could not be copied again. The photographs, which Levine eventually donated to the family, are now in a collection at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The firestorm of reactions to her artwork did not deter Levine, who continued the technique of rephotography, as it came to be known, with works previously created by Henri Matisse (1869 – 1954), Willem de Kooning (1904 – 1997), Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918), and Edward Weston (1886 – 1958) among others. In some cases, she elaborated on the technique, as in the case of one famous photo Levine called Fountain (Madonna). Based on a 1917 work by Marcel Duchamp (1887 – 1968) also called Fountain, the photo depicts a urinal. Duchamp’s was a regular white urinal with a name scrawled on it, while Levine’s is a stylized version cast in bronze.
Levine has also created paintings and three-dimensional pieces based on the work of others, including paintings copied from Vincent Van Gogh (1853 – 1890) and a full-sized sculpture copied from a painting by Man Ray (1890 – 1976). Levine’s sculpture depicts the perspective of the painting, including the way the viewing angle alters the appearance of the table from its rectangular form.
Levine created a 1993 series called Museum Studies by making glass casts of sculptures made by Constantin Brancusi (1876 – 1957), which is on display in a Philadelphia museum. Glass was also Levine’s medium of choice for a 2010 series entitled Crystal Skulls. Levine’s materials list expanded in 2016 when she used refrigerators as a backdrop for an untitled series of single-color paintings displayed in a New York gallery.
Despite the unconventional nature of her appropriated art style, Levine has been accepted by the art world. Her work is shown in major galleries and commands a high price when made available for sale. Levine has said in interviews that she sees her work as a form of the traditional artistic practice of copying original artwork to make prints. She has referred to her rephotographed works as "ghosts of ghosts."
Together with other artists who rose to prominence in the 1970s and 1980s such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo , Louise Lawler, Barbara Kruger, and David Salle, Levine is credited with establishing the appropriationist form of art. Their work encourages viewing art outside of its original context in a way that generates new responses and allows for different interpretations than the originals.
Levine has been the subject of a 2012 book entitled Sherrie Levine: Mayhem (Whitney Museum of Modern Art), which was also the name of an exhibit of her artwork at the Whitney Museum in 2011 and 2012. Her work has been the focus of numerous exhibits, including a 2023 exhibit held concurrently at David Zwirner gallery locations in Paris and East 69th Streen in New York, as well as a 2024 exhibition at the Hall Art Foundation gallery in Reading, Vermont. Levine maintains residences in New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Impact
Levine’s technique of appropriating art work, placing it in a different context, and calling it a new work of art has led critics and viewers to consider the definition of original art as well as the ethics that apply to copyrighting visual images. In an age where digital technology makes viewing and sharing images easy and almost instantaneous, the questions raised by the art of Levine and other appropriationists will have lasting influence on issues of originality and artistic merit.
Bibliography
Freedman, Alex. "How to Explain Sherrie Levine to Your Grandmother." Art21 Magazine, April 2011. Web. 27 June 2016.
Myers, Julian. "Sherrie Levine, In and Against Collage"" Open Spaces: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, June 2009. Web. 27 June 2016.
Pollack, Maika. "Will the Real Sherrie Levine Please Stand Up? ‘Mayhem’ at the Whitney."Observer, November 2011. Web. 27 June 2016.
Rodenbeck, Judith. "We Need To Talk About Sherrie Levine." X-tra. Volume 13, Spring 2013. Web. 27 June 2016.
"Sherrie Levine." Artsy.net, n.d. Web. 27 June 2016.
"Sherrie Levine." David Zwirner, 2023, www.davidzwirner.com/exhibitions/2023/sherrie-levine. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
"Sherrie Levine." Hall Art Foundation, www.hallartfoundation.org/exhibition/sherrie-levine‗1/information. Accessed 1 Oct. 2024.
"Sherrie Levine." International Center of Photography, n.d. Web. 27 June 2016.
"Sherrie Levine." Tate Gallery, n.d. Web. 27 June 2016.
"Sherrie Levine." UbuWeb, n.d.. Web. 27 June 2016.
"Sherrie Levine: Mayhem." Whitney Museum of Modern Art, November 2011. Web. 27 June 2016.
Siegel, Jeanne. "After Sherrie Levine." Michigan State University, n.d. Web. 27 June 2016.
Winant, Carmen. "Sherrie Levine's ‘Mayhem’: A Retrospective of The Original Fake at The Whitney." WNYC.org., Nov. 2011. Web. 27 June 2016.