Since the mid-1980s, Pictures Generation artist Louise Lawler has been playing the art world against itself, perpetually recontextualizing, appropriating and slyly critiquing the commercial world of art. 

Part artist part curator, Lawler supported and created gallery shows and exhibitions, where she was prolific in creating clever invitations and ephemera. These objects make up a unique body of work with a dry sense of wit. Gallery invitations, napkins, envelopes and matchbooks include phrases like “You’ve already seen this”, “For sale”, “How Many Pictures”, and “A Picture is no substitute for anything”. 

Lawler’s core practice is image making, where she photographs works from other artists in atypical contexts; in a museum storeroom, hung over a bedroom in a private home, or in a gallery through a distorted lens. These photographs are a bit of a provocation: How much does the gallery space or museum setting confer value on a work? What is the value of an image of an artwork?

Like the work of other pictures generation artists including John Baldessari & Barbara Kruger, Lawler works with appropriated images. Her photographs, however, feel like they’re raising the stakes on Duchamp by a step. Duchamp’s medium was the ready-made object, Lawler’s medium is the ready-made artwork from another artist altogether.