Louise Lawler: Why Pictures Now - Why I Found the Show Surprising & Stimulating

Louise Lawler (b Amer 1947) is a photographic artist.  Lawler photographs artworks by other well-known artists and morphs them into inviting and provocative pieces that have their own unique gravitas and levity.  I did come to the exhibit with a chip on my shoulder.  Elaine Sturtevant had a major show at the MoMA "Double Trouble" of her works which are I considered plagiarism.  Sturtevant is lauded for bringing artists work to a larger audience.  I credited her for pirating & profiting off other people's creativity.  Lawler is known for photographing other artists works & museum's exhibits. I was prepared to dismiss her work as merely appropriating other artists' creations.  However, I found Lawler to have a unique flair & intention.  Lawler is considered along with other photographers:  Cindy Sherman & Laurie Simmons as belonging to the Pictures Generation.  What Lawler generated with her innovative lens is a body of works that provide the viewer a more intimate & evocative interaction.  Furthermore, her syntax & titles are uproarious.  The entrance to the exhibit juxtaposes a floor to ceiling photo of a skyscraper skyline alongside an elongated, suspended male figure.  The urban setting is void of life. The male figure's eyes are shut his head bent listlessly resembling a hanging corpse.  Together they evoke isolation, melancholy & dissociation.  Melancholy was a common theme.  "More than Melancholy" is a hazy photo of washed out Agnes Martin paintings hung in a room lit by chandeliers.  For all the golden tones & twinkling lights, there's a feeling of sadness & abandonment.  There's a fascination with the ways in which paintings are hung, mounted & displayed. "Twice untitled" shows the white backs of 2 canvases leaning against a blank wall.  Wiring is attached to the back; waiting to be installed or transported elsewhere.   The oversized images in the galleries have been adjusted to fit the space.  Therefore, Lawler's art is always in a state of flux, re-presentation or adjustment.   The large colorful, distorted photo mural of Murakami's images blends Warhol's & Hirst's images with a Jacqueline Kennedy portrait.  The viewer is drawn into these oversized photos with their dreamlike imagery.  Some other artists Lawler restages in her photos include:  Jasper Johns, Picasso, Degas, Rauschenberg, Richter, Hirst, and Flavin.  There is wisdom & wit in Lawler's work.  There are 2 clear paperweights encased in glass, placed atop white pedestals.  "But doesn't anybody really know anything by comparison?" (Lynne Tillman)  Lawler revisits the artists works in delightful new ways to rediscovery & experience art.  Richter's "Nude on a Staircase" is shot  horizontally & his WWII planes retitled "No Drones."  I felt Lawler's admiration for other artists while feeling a sense of irreverence & dismay at the alchemy of the art as commodity.   "Once there was a little boy & everything turned out all right.  The End."