Beige

Louise Lawler first rose to prominence in 1984 when she photographed the renowned collection of modern and contemporary masterworks owned by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine as it was installed in their Connecticut home. Since that time, Lawler has focused her camera on the installation of works of art to examine the institutional frameworks that determine their significance. Her photographs of objects installed in museums, galleries, private homes, corporate headquarters, and auction houses demonstrate the ways that an artwork’s display and contextualization shape it’s meaning. The resulting photographs transcend pure documentation, occupying a key position within conceptual discourse. Her appropriation of works in situ—coupled with her clever use of language—addresses the broader social and economic issues that structure modes of presentation. Ultimately it is Lawler’s seeming impartiality that makes her images successful; her work reveals, rather than elaborates, criticizes, or laments, existing conditions. In this regard, Lawler shares the “institutional critique” strategies of Hans Haacke, Daniel Buren, Michael Asher, or Marcel Broodthaers, and appropriation strategies used by contemporaries such as Cindy Sherman, Sherrie Levine, Barbara Kruger, and Allan McCollum.  As Robert Storr has suggested, Lawler’s work is informed by “…an unassuming familiarity with museological stagecraft.” The displacements she engineers are the key to her strength as a conceptual, not documentary, artist.

Lawler’s photograph Beige was taken at The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in 1987. It depicts an installation of minimalist works from the museum’ s permanent collection. The works on display include untitled pieces by Brice Marden (1971–72), Craig Kauffman (1968), Larry Bell (1967–68), and Peter Alexander (1969). Typical of Lawler’s oeuvre, there is a visual decentering that focuses attention on the works’ surroundings and placement rather than on the work itself. In Beige a gallery wall obstructs the full view of Marden’s painting, attention is given to the gallery’s track lighting, and works by Kauffman and Alexander overlap, forcing them to be viewed simultaneously. Lawler’s distinct way of seeing makes visible elements of museological organization and the apparatuses of presentation—elements that are authoritative, but traditionally exist outside of the museum going experience.