All Those Eyes

A member of the Pictures Generation, known for its critiques of authorship and originality, Louise Lawler produces images about art and its structures of authority. She photographs the artworks of others in situ—on display in corporate collections, homes, auction houses, and museums, among other places—to remind viewers that the contextual cues surrounding an artwork always inform our understanding of it. Gesturing toward the cultural aggrandizement of an elite (often white, male) artist class through the power of the art market, Lawler frequently selects artworks by blue-chip artists as her subjects: in this case, Jeff Koons. Her photograph grants access to a sight normally invisible to the general public: artworks condensed into a small storage space, where it is unclear where one monumental work ends and the other begins.