Louise Lawler Portrait 1982

Louise Lawler, Portrait, 1982

 

Louise Lawler (*1947) is a key figure of the Pictures Generation of appropriation art. At the heart of her body of work are photographs of other artists’ works as displayed in museums, storage spaces, auction houses, and collectors’ homes. She uses photography as a conceptual tool and way of directing attention to things that are tacit and unspoken—the constraints, rules, and economies of the loose system that governs the art world. The Brooklyn-based artist has been associated with the gallery since 1987.

 

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Lawler’s critical take on the art world was already apparent in the conceptual and performative interventions of her early work. One example is her well-known Birdcalls (1972–1981), for which the artist sounded out the names of regularly exhibited contemporary artists including Julian Schnabel, Gerhard Richter, and Donald Judd, all of whom were men. With calculated wit, the calls that Lawler herself performed pointed to the blatant patriarchal hegemony of the art world.

In the late 1970s, Lawler incorporated photography into her art practice and shifted her focus to the vagaries of the aesthetic experience of existing works of art. She adopted certain principles of conceptual art—involving the viewer as a participant in the work, for example, or refusing to produce further objects—and refined and expanded on them. Lawler’s highly complex photographs have repeatedly managed to examine the conditions of the exhibition, reception, and circulation of artworks, thereby analyzing their fate as things, their lives as objects. Her works give insight into how the meaning of the photographed works changes with their respective environments, forms of presentation and exhibition history. They make visible their transformation into objects of financial investment and highlight how the public interest inherent to any work of art clashes with its entry into mostly private art collections.

It isn’t just in her photographic work that Lawler explores art’s economic regime down to its smallest, seemingly banal details. She also continues to produce ephemera including matchbooks, gift certificates, postcards, posters, and souvenirs such as drinking glasses or paperweights. Invoking her signature, subtle humor, she underscores how the art apparatus relies on a loose network of advertising materials and other articles that help determine how an artwork is recognized and valued.

The artist never leaves any doubt that the only reason she is able to analyze art’s contradictory system is because she herself participates in it to a certain extent. It is in this spirit that she also questions the iconic quality of some of her own works by continuously reframing and restaging them. In an act of ironic self-emptying, she transforms some of her best-known photographs into what she calls “tracings”—black-and-white coloring book templates that are affixed to the wall as wallpaper or in some cases directly appear in a kind of “coloring book.” Her so-called “adjusted to fit” pieces consist of digitally altered images of a number of her photographs that have been stretched or altered to match the proportions of the exhibition walls, and thus appear distorted. Other more recent works are characterized by a socio-political dimension, a timely urgency. Pieces including Drop Bush not Bombs (2001–03), Where Is the Nearest Camera? (2007), or No Drones (2010–11) take a firm, critical stance on American war and surveillance policies without leaving the terrain of art.

Over the course of her career, Lawler has created an impressive archive that documents the rapid transformation of the art world and its turn towards neoliberal economies of attention and speculative interests. In contrast to works within the traditional movement of institutional critique, the artist’s oeuvre refrains from passing judgment and noticeably leaves room for ambiguities. What’s more, by re-staging them in a new exhibition context, she often restores some of the original aura and aesthetic autonomy to the artworks she portrays. Through her probing examination of context and value in contemporary art, Lawler has expanded conventional criticism of the institutions and practices of the art world.

 

Louise Lawler: WHY PICTURES NOW
MoMA, New York, April 30–July 30, 2017
HOW TO SEE the artist with MoMA curator Roxanna Marcoci, 2017

 

Works
Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
(Bunny) Sculpture and Painting (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times), 1999/2015/2019

Louise Lawler
(Bunny) Sculpture and Painting (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times), 1999/2015/2019
Adhesive wall material
Dimensions variable to match proportions of a given wall at any scale determined by exhibitor
Eau de Cologne, installation view, Sprüth Magers, Hong Kong, March 27–April 12, 2019

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
It Spins, 2023

Louise Lawler
It Spins, 2023
Dye sublimation print on museum box
121.9 × 182.9 cm | 48 × 72 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reflection), 2021

Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reflection), 2021
Dye sublimation print on museum box
121.9 × 176.8 cm | 48 × 69 5/8 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Fish (swiped), 2023

Louise Lawler
Fish (swiped), 2023
Dye sublimation print on museum box
121.9 × 182.9 cm | 48 × 72 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A., 2004

Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A., 2004
Silver dye bleach print
74.9 × 59.7 cm | 29 1/2 × 23 1/2 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A. (distorted for the times, three), 2004/2016/2019/2020

Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A. (distorted for the times, three), 2004/2016/2019/2020
Chromogenic color print
114.3 × 91.4 cm | 45 × 36 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Service, 1987

Louise Lawler
Service, 1987
Six printed glasses, glass shelf
each glass: 12 × 9.5 × 9.5 cm
each glass: 4 3/4 × 3 3/4 × 3 3/4 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Formica (traced), 2011/2012/2014

Louise Lawler
Formica (traced), 2011/2012/2014
Adhesive wall material
Dimensions variable in proportion to size of original artwork:
93.3 × 87.6 cm | 36 3/4 × 34 1/2 inches
No Drones
, installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, November 15, 2014–January 17, 2015

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Formica, 2011/2012

Louise Lawler
Formica, 2011/2012
Silver dye bleach print
93.3 × 87.6 cm | 36 3/4 × 34 1/2 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Formica (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times, slippery slope 2), 2011/2012/2015/2017

Louise Lawler
Formica (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times, slippery slope 2), 2011/2012/2015/2017
Adhesive wall material
Dimensions variable to match proportions of a given wall at any scale determined by exhibitor

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reception Area), 1981/1993

Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reception Area), 1987/93
Paperweight
Silver dye bleach print, crystal, felt
5.1 × 8.9 × 8.9 cm | 2 × 3 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
(Roy Lichtenstein and Other Artists) Black, 1982

Louise Lawler
(Roy Lichtenstein and Other Artists) Black, 1982
Silver dye bleach print
72.4 × 94.6 cm | 28 1/2 × 37 1/4 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Fur, 2005/2019

Louise Lawler
Fur, 2005/2019
Silver dye bleach print
74.9 × 60.6 cm | 29 1/2 × 23 7/8 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Arranged by Mera & Donald Rubell, 1982

Louise Lawler
Arranged by Mera & Donald Rubell, 1982
Black and white photograph with text on mat
54.6 × 49.5 cm | 21 1/2 × 19 1/2 inches (image)
71.1 × 81.3 cm | 28 × 32 inches (mat)

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Arranged by Carl Lobell at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, 1982

Louise Lawler
Arranged by Carl Lobell at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, 1982
Black and white photograph with mat
35.6 × 45.1 cm | 14 × 17 3/4 inches (image)
56.2 × 64.8 cm | 22 1/8 × 25 1/2 inches (framed)

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2013

Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2013
Set of 2 Kölsch glasses, 1 box
each glass 15 × 5 cm | 6 × 2 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2010/2011

Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2010/2011
Chromogenic color print
74.3 × 50.2 cm | 29 1/4 × 19 3/4 inches

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler
Woman with Picasso, 1912, 1986

Louise Lawler
Woman with Picasso, 1912, 1986
4 silver dye bleach prints with mat, colored wall and title as wall text
each 66 × 96.5 cm | 26 × 38 inches (image size)

Details
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
(Bunny) Sculpture and Painting (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times), 1999/2015/2019
Adhesive wall material
Dimensions variable to match proportions of a given wall at any scale determined by exhibitor
Eau de Cologne, installation view, Sprüth Magers, Hong Kong, March 27–April 12, 2019

Louise Lawler
(Bunny) Sculpture and Painting (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times), 1999/2015/2019
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
It Spins, 2023
Dye sublimation print on museum box
121.9 × 182.9 cm | 48 × 72 inches

Louise Lawler
It Spins, 2023
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reflection), 2021
Dye sublimation print on museum box
121.9 × 176.8 cm | 48 × 69 5/8 inches

Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reflection), 2021
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Fish (swiped), 2023
Dye sublimation print on museum box
121.9 × 182.9 cm | 48 × 72 inches

Louise Lawler
Fish (swiped), 2023
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A., 2004
Silver dye bleach print
74.9 × 59.7 cm | 29 1/2 × 23 1/2 inches

Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A., 2004
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A. (distorted for the times, three), 2004/2016/2019/2020
Chromogenic color print
114.3 × 91.4 cm | 45 × 36 inches

Louise Lawler
Andy in L.A. (distorted for the times, three), 2004/2016/2019/2020
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Service, 1987
Six printed glasses, glass shelf
each glass: 12 × 9.5 × 9.5 cm
each glass: 4 3/4 × 3 3/4 × 3 3/4 inches

Louise Lawler
Service, 1987
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Formica (traced), 2011/2012/2014
Adhesive wall material
Dimensions variable in proportion to size of original artwork:
93.3 × 87.6 cm | 36 3/4 × 34 1/2 inches
No Drones
, installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, November 15, 2014–January 17, 2015

Louise Lawler
Formica (traced), 2011/2012/2014
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Formica, 2011/2012
Silver dye bleach print
93.3 × 87.6 cm | 36 3/4 × 34 1/2 inches

Louise Lawler
Formica, 2011/2012
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Formica (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times, slippery slope 2), 2011/2012/2015/2017
Adhesive wall material
Dimensions variable to match proportions of a given wall at any scale determined by exhibitor

Louise Lawler
Formica (adjusted to fit, distorted for the times, slippery slope 2), 2011/2012/2015/2017
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reception Area), 1987/93
Paperweight
Silver dye bleach print, crystal, felt
5.1 × 8.9 × 8.9 cm | 2 × 3 1/2 × 3 1/2 inches

Louise Lawler
Untitled (Reception Area), 1981/1993
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
(Roy Lichtenstein and Other Artists) Black, 1982
Silver dye bleach print
72.4 × 94.6 cm | 28 1/2 × 37 1/4 inches

Louise Lawler
(Roy Lichtenstein and Other Artists) Black, 1982
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Fur, 2005/2019
Silver dye bleach print
74.9 × 60.6 cm | 29 1/2 × 23 7/8 inches

Louise Lawler
Fur, 2005/2019
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Arranged by Mera & Donald Rubell, 1982
Black and white photograph with text on mat
54.6 × 49.5 cm | 21 1/2 × 19 1/2 inches (image)
71.1 × 81.3 cm | 28 × 32 inches (mat)

Louise Lawler
Arranged by Mera & Donald Rubell, 1982
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Arranged by Carl Lobell at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, 1982
Black and white photograph with mat
35.6 × 45.1 cm | 14 × 17 3/4 inches (image)
56.2 × 64.8 cm | 22 1/8 × 25 1/2 inches (framed)

Louise Lawler
Arranged by Carl Lobell at Weil, Gotshal & Manges, 1982
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2013
Set of 2 Kölsch glasses, 1 box
each glass 15 × 5 cm | 6 × 2 inches

Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2013
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2010/2011
Chromogenic color print
74.3 × 50.2 cm | 29 1/4 × 19 3/4 inches

Louise Lawler
No Drones, 2010/2011
Louise Lawler

Louise Lawler
Woman with Picasso, 1912, 1986
4 silver dye bleach prints with mat, colored wall and title as wall text
each 66 × 96.5 cm | 26 × 38 inches (image size)

Louise Lawler
Woman with Picasso, 1912, 1986
Details
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Current and Upcoming
Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler, Splash, 2006
© Louise Lawler

Capturing the Moment
Group Exhibition
Tate Modern, London
Through April 28, 2024

A journey through painting and photography The arrival of photography changed the course of painting forever. In this unique exhibition, we explore the dynamic relationship between the two mediums through some of the most iconic artworks of recent times. From the expressive paintings of Pablo Picasso and Paula Rego, to striking photographs by Hiroshi Sugimoto and Jeff Wall, you will see how these two distinct mediums have shaped each other over time. You will also discover how artists have blurred the boundaries between painting and photography, creating new and exciting forms of art, such as Pauline Boty's pop paintings, Andy Warhol’s silkscreen prints, the photorealist works of Gerhard Richter, or Andreas Gursky's large-scale panoramic photographs. In an open-ended conversation between some of the greatest painters and photographers of the modern era, we explore how the brush and the lens have been used to capture moments in time.

Link

Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection
Group Exhibition
The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Through May 5, 2024

The Walker’s newest collection exhibition is organized by five familiar themes: portraiture, the interior scene, landscape, still life, and abstraction. Each of these areas features a diverse range of artists whose approaches to their subjects are often unconventional, innovative, and even surprising.
With more than 100 works—painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, and video installations—the exhibition Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection invites us to become reacquainted with favorites from the collection and discover new pieces by artists who are reinventing genres we thought we knew.

Link
Louise Lawler
Five Ways In: Themes from the Collection, installation view, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, February 14, 2019–September 19, 2021. Photo by Bobby Rogers, courtesy of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Louise Lawler
Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection, installation view, 2024
Courtesy the Marciano Art Foundation. Photo: Heather Rasmussen

Transmissions: Selections from the Marciano Collection
Group Exhibition
Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles
Through February 2025

Curated by Hanneke Skerath and Douglas Fogle, this exhibition brings together works from the Marciano Collection, a collection that seeks to communicate and respond to the most historically significant developments in art history and human society, while continuously considering current socio-political conditions and contemporary visual culture. This presentation will include works by artists including Louise Lawler, Rosemarie Trockel and Kaari Upson.

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Exhibitions at Sprüth Magers
Louise Lawler

GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS
Louise Lawler
November 10, 2023–February 10, 2024
Los Angeles

Louise Lawler examines the conditions, procedures, presentations and boundaries of art. Her photographs and other interventions analyze the contextual production of meaning as well as the very infinitude of context. Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to announce GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS, an exhibition of mostly new works by the artist at the Los Angeles gallery. Presenting pieces from her swiped, adjusted-to-fit, and traced series, Lawler investigates art history as well as her own work and questions both institutional and artistic authority.

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Mondi Possibili
Henni Alftan, John Baldessari, Cao Fei, Thomas Demand, Thea Djordjadze, Lucy Dodd, Robert Elfgen, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Sylvie Fleury, Jenny Holzer, Donald Judd, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, David Ostrowski, Michail Pirgelis, Sterling Ruby, Thomas Scheibitz, Andreas Schulze, Hyun-Sook Song, Robert Therrien, Rosemarie Trockel, Kaari Upson, Andrea Zittel
August 31–September 14, 2023
Seoul

Mondi Possibili highlights the interplay between art and design and explores the many ways in which experimentation with material, technique and scale can reveal the hidden narratives, quiet drama and humor in the everyday items that furnish our lives as well as our imaginations. Connected through a paradigm of the possible, all artworks on show examine familiar objects – citing, celebrating, adapting or appropriating them – offering surprising, playful or unsettling approaches that open up a range of “possible worlds.” This will be the fourth edition of Sprüth Magers’ Mondi Possibili – first titled by Pasquale Leccese – showcasing significant themes in the selected artists’ works as well as the gallery’s longstanding heritage. Its three previous iterations were presented in 1989, 2006 and 2007 in Cologne, where the gallery’s history is firmly rooted, and art and design have intersected for many decades.

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Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler

Sprüth Magers x Artadia

A Benefit Exhibition to Support the Next Generation of Artists
Thea Djordjadze, Lucy Dodd, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Pamela Rosenkranz, Analia Saban, Rosemarie Trockel
April 4–April 22, 2023
New York

Bringing together a group of outstanding female artists in an innovative and collaborative effort to support the next generation, Sprüth Magers is pleased to announce a benefit exhibition to raise funds for the non-profit organization Artadia. Through grantmaking, community-building and advocacy, Artadia strengthens the invaluable role visual artists play in our society.

The exhibition comprises influential contemporary voices across multiple generations, reflecting both the discourse on art, gender and power that is firmly embedded in Sprüth Magers’ history and its enduring support of pioneering female figures. Featured will be works by artists who are all part of the gallery’s dynamic roster, including Thea Djordjadze, Lucy Dodd, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Pamela Rosenkranz, Analia Saban and Rosemarie Trockel. All funds raised will go towards the impactful Artadia Awards program.

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NOT ENOUGH TO SEE
Louise Lawler
November 2–December 23, 2022
New York

Sprüth Magers is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of new works by Louise Lawler at the gallery's space in New York. This latest series of dye sublimation prints focuses on images of Jasper Johns' iconic painting Three Flags (1958), taken earlier this year at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Lawler is a steadfast investigator of the making of pictures. Using long exposures, swift camera movements and cropping, Lawler creates abstract images of this well-known motif. Here, these analog techniques both manipulate the image and comment on both perception and the fast-paced flood of images that marks everyday life in the digital era.

Coinciding with this exhibition, Sprüth Magers is pleased to announce a solo presentation by Louise Lawler at ADAA in New York in November 2022.

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Louise Lawler

GO FIGURE!?
Henni Alftan, John Baldessari, Cao Fei, George Condo, Diane Dal-Pra, Thomas Demand, Alex Foxton, Lenz Geerk, Elizabeth Glaessner, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Oscar yi Hou, Gary Hume, Clementine Keith-Roach, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Jo Messer, Pamela Rosenkranz, Sterling Ruby, Thomas Scheibitz, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Kara Walker, Andro Wekua
May 19–May 26, 2021

GO FIGURE!? is an online exhibition in collaboration with Ed Tang and Jonathan Cheung. It presents works by artists from Sprüth Magers roster alongside a selection of emerging artists from around the globe and across various media, aiming to welcome a playful dialogue between the exhibiting artists and works.

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Louise Lawler

Eau de Cologne
Rosemarie Trockel, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Jenny Holzer / Lady Pink
June 28–August 20, 2016
Los Angeles

The group show Eau de Cologne at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles features work from the late 1970s to 2016 by Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman and Rosemarie Trockel. The exhibition at Sprüth Magers’ recently-opened Los Angeles gallery is a follow–up to its predecessor in Berlin last year. It sheds light on key topics in these artists’ works, but also the specific history of the gallery and its connection to these important female figures of an art that subtly addresses women’s roles in very different ways.

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Louise Lawler

No Drones
Louise Lawler
November 15, 2014–January 17, 2015
Berlin

Over the last 30 years, Louise Lawler has been making photographs that depict views of objects and artworks in their everyday working environments, shifting the emphasis from the subject itself to vantage points, framing devices and the modes of distribution that affect the reception of an artwork. For No Drones, Lawler will exhibit a group of ‘tracings’, a series that she developed for her exhibition at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne, in 2013.

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Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler

No Drones
Louise Lawler
July 2–August 23, 2014
London

Over the last 30 years, Louise Lawler has been making photographs that depict views of objects and artworks in their everyday working environments, shifting the emphasis from the subject itself to vantage points, framing devices and the modes of distribution that affect the reception of an artwork. For No Drones, Lawler will exhibit a group of ‘tracings’, a series that she developed for her exhibition at the Ludwig Museum, Cologne, in 2013.

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Where is the nearest camera?
Louise Lawler
November 28, 2007–January 19, 2008
London

Renowned since the 1980s for her photographs taken in private collections, museums and auction houses, Louise Lawler continues to question the ideas of authorship and the notion of identity that we invest in works of art. Throughout her career Lawler has often focused on the environments where artworks exist after leaving the artist’s studio. As the place of creation, the artist’s studio was rarely of interest to Lawler. It was rather the life of the work afterwards that raised important questions for her: in which surroundings is art presented to us and how does our perception of it depend on these? What are the mechanisms of the institutions and the art market, which determine the various locations where we can find art?

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Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler

Mondi Possibili
Thea Djordjadze, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Claus Föttinger, Thomas Grünfeld, Jenny Holzer, Stefan Kern, Joseph Kosuth, Louise Lawler, Michail Pirgelis, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Thomas Scheibitz, Andreas Schulze, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Franz West
January 17–April 7, 2006
Cologne

As part of the PASSAGEN, the supporting programme of the International Furniture Fair in Cologne, at the beginning of the year Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers present a new edition of the exhibition “Mondi Possibili”. The works on display deal with the subject of furniture from a variety of angles: as citation, as homage, as adaptation, or as copy. Others are usable objects that hardly differ from their reference objects in the domain of design or furniture.

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Not there and other works
Louise Lawler
April 19–June 19, 2004
London

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler

Shadow and Light
Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Matthew Barney, George Condo, Walter Dahn, Olafur Eliasson, Martin Fengel, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Dan Flavin, Sylvie Fleury, Gilbert & George, Dan Graham, Thomas Grünfeld, Andreas Gursky, Stefan Hirsig, Jenny Holzer, Axel Kasseböhmer, Stefan Kern, Karen Kilimnik, Astrid Klein, Louise Lawler, Anne Loch, Paul Morrison, Jean-Luc Mylayne, Bruce Nauman, Manuel Ocampo, Nam June Paik, Hirsch Perlman, Lari Pittman, Barbara Probst, Gerhard Richter, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Frances Scholz, Andreas Schulze, Cindy Sherman, Paul Sietsema, Rosemarie Trockel, Kara Walker, Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool, Martin Wöhrl, Philip-Lorca diCorcia
July 26–August 31, 2003
Salzburg

Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers will open a temporary space in Salzburg together with their London partner Simon Lee for the duration of the Salzburg Festival. One of the main reasons for this was the fact that the galleries are traditionally closed in August and that exhibition operations are shut down, but at the same time cultural life is at its peak in Salzburg, not far from our Munich location. It makes sense to contribute something to the cultural climate with a precisely formulated group exhibition and at the same time to reach a sophisticated international audience.

20th Anniversary Show
John Baldessari, Alighiero Boetti, George Condo, Walter Dahn, Thomas Demand, Thea Djordjadze, Peter Fischli David Weiss, Sylvie Fleury, Andreas Gursky, Jenny Holzer, Gary Hume, Axel Kasseböhmer, Karen Kilimnik, Astrid Klein, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Jean-Luc Mylayne, Nina Pohl, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Frances Scholz, Andreas Schulze, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Andrea Zittel, Philip-Lorca diCorcia
April 25–October 18, 2003
Cologne

In 1983, Monika Sprüth opened her Cologne based gallery with a solo show by Andreas Schulze. Starting from the idea to establish a forum for young and unknown artists, the central focus of the gallery concept was developed in the discourse of the 80s. The gallery program was completed by recourses to artistic attitudes of the last 40 years. This research, motivated by reflection on contemporary art history, was more and more realized in cooperation with Philomene Magers who directed her Bonn gallery since 1992. After a few years of loose cooperation, Monika Sprüth Gallery and Philomene Magers Gallery aligned with each other after, and together the Monika Sprüth / Philomene Magers Gallery opened up in Munich in 1999.

Louise Lawler
Louise Lawler

Reflexions
Carl André, John Armleder, John Baldessari, Sylvie Fleury, Isa Genzken, Thomas Grünfeld, Stephan Jung, Karen Kilimnik, Jeff Koons, Louise Lawler, Robert Morris, Paul Morrison, Andreas Schulze, Andy Warhol, Franz West, Heimo Zobernig
January 24–March 1, 2002
Munich

Press

And other Pictures
Spike Art Magazine, article by Isabella Zamboni, Summer 2023

Artist Project: Louise Lawler’s Tracings for You
MoMA.org, with a text by Roxana Marcoci, March 25, 2020

She’s Here
Spike Art Magazine, review by Bob Nickas, Winter 2019

Louise Lawler’s Quiet Melancholy
Hyperallergic, article by Thomas Micchelli, January 26, 2019

Kindling
Art in America, article by Leah Pires, June/July 2017

Louise Lawler’s Stealth Aesthetic (and Muted Aura)
New York Times, article by Roberta Smith, May 11, 2017

Louise Lawler’s Beguiling Institutional Critique
The New Yorker, article by Peter Schjeldahl, May 8, 2017

Indirect Answers: Douglas Crimp on Louise Lawler’s Why Pictures Now
Artforum, article by Douglas Crimp, September 2012

Her Kindling Voice
Texte zur Kunst, interview by Rhea Anastas, September 2007

Biography

Louise Lawler (*1947, Bronxville, New York) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Selected solo exhibitions include Andy in Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2019), She’s Here, Sammlung Verbund, Vienna (2018), WHY PICTURES NOW, MoMA, New York (2017), Adjusted, Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2013), (Selected). Louise Lawler, Albertinum, Dresden (2012), Twice Untitled and Other Pictures (looking back), Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2006), Louise Lawler and Andy Warhol: In and Out of Place, Dia:Beacon, New York (2005), and Louise Lawler and Others, Museum for Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2004). Selected group exhibitions include Fondazione Prada, Venice; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum Brandhorst, Munich; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; MoMA, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; MUMOK, Vienna; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum, New York, which additionally featured the artist in its 1991, 2000, and 2008 biennials. Her work was also included in the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2022).

Education
1969 BFA, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Public Collections
Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau
Allen Memorial Art Musum, Oberlin College
Art Institute of Chicago
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo
Baltimore Museum of Art
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Centre Georges-Pompidou, Paris
Cincinnati Art Museum
Des Moines Art Center
Detroit Institute of Art
Ellipse Foundation, Cascais
Fondation Cartier, Paris
Fotomuseum Winterthur
FRAC Bretagne, Chateaugiron
Francois Pinault Collection, Venice; Paris
Glenstone Foundation, Potomac
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida, Gainsville
Harvard University, Cambridge
Hessel Collection Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
International Center of Photography, New York
Israel Museum, Tel Aviv
Jumex Collection, Mexico City
Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis
Kresge Museum, East Lansing
Kunsthalle Hamburg
Kunstmuseum Basel
Landesbank Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart
Le Consortium, Dijon
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Magasin 3 Konsthall, Stockholm
Menil Collection, Houston
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Milwaukee Art Museum
Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Montclair Art Museum
Museet for Samtidskunst, Oslo
Museum Boijmans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Museum Brandhorst, Munich
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Museum Ludwig, Cologne
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna
Museum van Hedendaagse, Antwerp
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa
Phoenix Art Museum
Princeton University Art Museum
Queens Museum, New York
Rennie Collection, Vancouver
Rubell Collection, Miami
Sammlung Goetz, Munich
Sammlung Verbund, Vienna
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Seattle Art Museum
Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto
Sprengel Museum, Hanover
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs
Tate, London
Vancouver Art Gallery
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven