ART CITIES:N.York-Sherrie Levine
Sherrie Levine’s methods of appropriating and citing the works of important 20th Century male artists established her as a consequential artist of postmodernism, ushered in during the late 1970s. Levine critiques the core tenets of Modernism, calling into question the role of the romantic, artist-genius. Along with artists such as Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince, she questions how images are culturally constructed and the effects of their dissemination in a media-saturated age.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: David Zwirner Gallery Archive
Sherrie Levine presents new works at her solo exhibition “After Reinhardt” at David Zwirner Gallery in New York. Sherrie Levine’s work introduces perceptual questions about what exactly one is looking at and asks viewers to consider the reasons why we inherently trust and often fetishize values in art such as authenticity and originality. While Levine sees her work as more of a collaboration with previous artists, in copying and replicating the work of male artists Levine also levels a feminist critique against the ingrained patriarchy of art history and society at large. “Monochromes After Reinhardt: 1–28” (2018) continues the artist’s investigation of color separated from its representational function. Inspired by the exhibition “Ad Reinhardt: Blue Paintings” held at Pace Gallery in New York in 2017, Levine has created abstract restatements of the 28 works that were on view, making use of pixelation to consolidate the range of blue tones in each painting into a single, truly monochromatic value. This work revisits a technique first employed by Levine in her 1989 group of woodcut prints “Meltdown”, in which an averaging algorithm was used to create a checkerboard composition based on modernist artists’ iconic paintings. Also on view will be two new sculptures: “Meiji Elephant and Tigers” and “Meiji Tiger and Alligator” (both 2019), that belong to Levine’s ongoing body of everyday and decorative objects removed from their original function and cast in bronze; as well as two suites of “After Chaim Soutine: 1-16” (one in color and one in black-and-white; both 2018), a continuation of the artist’s practice of photographing reproductions of artworks that she began in the early 1980s. Through the use of mechanical reproduction, Levine challenges notions of uniqueness and context, further emphasizing questions of originality and authorship. Alongside the exhibition, a publication designed by the artist in collaboration with David Zwirner Books will be available, featuring full-color reproductions of “Monochromes After Reinhardt: 1–28” and the 1965 text “Reinhardt Paints a Picture” in which Reinhardt famously interviewed himself.
Info: David Zwirner Gallery, 34 East 69th Street, New York, Duration: 28/2-20/4/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.davidzwirner.com
