Unhorned Steer Skull

Working through the medium of photography to discuss notions of originality and authenticity, Sherrie Levine’s reproductions of photographic material call to question the idolization of the male artist and the praise of artistic genius. In creating reproductions of famous works, Levine interrogates the validity of the male gaze and restructures our understanding of the relationship between subject and artist. Not always working through a subversive lens, however, Levine shifts her critical eye to one of admiration in Unhorned Steer Skull. She does not appropriate the work of a male artist, but references the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, one of the world’s most prominent and acclaimed artists of the 20th century. Drawing from the motif within O’Keeffe’s New Mexico paintings of animal skulls, Levine presents it in another function. Translating the painted image to sculpture, Levine not only brings the skull closer to its original form, but suggests permanence in replacing the bone with metal. Levine cites O’Keeffe, but does it loosely, allowing for flexibility in the translation of the work; through this comes a multiplicity of meaning, introducing another notion of evaluating American icons and identity. Levine transforms the skull into a bronze art object, defining it not only as symbolic of O’Keeffe and America, but as a precious commodity as well. These possibilities of interpretation can be credited to Levine’s desire to “make art which celebrates doubt and uncertainty. Which provokes answers but doesn’t give them. Which withholds absolute meaning while perpetually dispatching you toward interpretation, urging you beyond dogmatism, beyond doctrine, beyond ideology, beyond authority” (S. Levine quoted on Label text for Sherrie Levine, Fountain (after Marcel Duchamp: A. P.) (1991), from the exhibition Art in Our Time: 1950 to the Present, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1999 – 2001). Tied to her oeuvre through concept, Unhorned Steer Skull pays homage to O’Keeffe and the spirit of the Southwest, combining the strength and creative brilliance of these two female forces in the art world.