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Lot Essay
Nestled among a cast of Pictures Generation stars, such as Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince, whose careers boast flashy, bold, and daring works of art, Louise Lawler is the confident yet demure mastermind who grew out of the same school. Lawler's artistic practice arose in the late 1970s. The decade prior to her emergence was marked by conceptualism, which gave way to artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, Hans Haake, Lawrence Weiner, Daniel Buren, and Michael Asher, who lead the first generation of institutional critique. Lawler's art is seeded in this earlier generation. However, it branches into a distinct dialogue created among her direct contemporaries. Her participation with New York's Artists Space, her collaborations with artists such as Sherrie Levine and Allan McCollum, and her skillful appropriation strategies have linked her to the Pictures Generation of the late 1970s and 1980s. As a result of her discourse with both her immediate past and the artists of her own generation, Lawler's photographs simultaneously exist within the fields of institutional critique and appropriation art without placing emphasis on one over the other.
Culled from the walls of one of the most distinguished private collections of modern and postmodern art, Monogram (1984-1987) is part of Lawler's highly acclaimed series, The Tremaine Pictures, which followed the visionary collection of Burton and Emily Tremaine as it circulated through the art world-from their home to Christie's auction block. Revealing not only ownership, but also a display reflective of the arranger's own identity, Lawler's intimate composition reveals Jasper Johns' 'signature' White Flag mirrored by the namesake monogram of Emily Hall Tremaine.
Reintroducing private property into public circulation, Monogram cleverly implies that the desires of ownership not only belong to those who posses the actual object, but also to the viewer for whom the image becomes intellectual property. A skillful wordsmith, Lawler's photographs are never complete without their titles. Here, Monogram makes an obvious reference to the scrawl on the impeccably made bed, denoting the ownership of property. However, a classically intriguing staple of Lawler's oeuvre, Monogram proposes an ingenious riddle for the most perceptive of viewers. Composed of three components that result in an intimate setting: Jasper Johns' White Flag, a bed, and a monogram, the keen viewer is able to decipher that the photograph secretly suggests artist, Robert Rauschenberg. Thus, Rauschenberg who was not only Johns' fellow Neo-Dadaist and lover, but also the creator of the iconic combines Bed and Monogram, becomes the intellectual property of the piece. Reflecting Rauschenberg's desire to merge art and life, Monogram is an exemplary paradigm of the humble intellect in which Louise Lawler approaches her artistic practice.
Culled from the walls of one of the most distinguished private collections of modern and postmodern art, Monogram (1984-1987) is part of Lawler's highly acclaimed series, The Tremaine Pictures, which followed the visionary collection of Burton and Emily Tremaine as it circulated through the art world-from their home to Christie's auction block. Revealing not only ownership, but also a display reflective of the arranger's own identity, Lawler's intimate composition reveals Jasper Johns' 'signature' White Flag mirrored by the namesake monogram of Emily Hall Tremaine.
Reintroducing private property into public circulation, Monogram cleverly implies that the desires of ownership not only belong to those who posses the actual object, but also to the viewer for whom the image becomes intellectual property. A skillful wordsmith, Lawler's photographs are never complete without their titles. Here, Monogram makes an obvious reference to the scrawl on the impeccably made bed, denoting the ownership of property. However, a classically intriguing staple of Lawler's oeuvre, Monogram proposes an ingenious riddle for the most perceptive of viewers. Composed of three components that result in an intimate setting: Jasper Johns' White Flag, a bed, and a monogram, the keen viewer is able to decipher that the photograph secretly suggests artist, Robert Rauschenberg. Thus, Rauschenberg who was not only Johns' fellow Neo-Dadaist and lover, but also the creator of the iconic combines Bed and Monogram, becomes the intellectual property of the piece. Reflecting Rauschenberg's desire to merge art and life, Monogram is an exemplary paradigm of the humble intellect in which Louise Lawler approaches her artistic practice.