Sherrie Levine

Posted by Fabio 23 November 2012

An exhibition of new work by the American artist Sherrie Levine. This body of work continues to develop the themes of reproduction, seriality and commodification, which have become the hallmarks of the artist’s practice over the past three decades. Levine has recurrently drawn on artistic antecedents to challenge the privileged status of originality which was established during the modernist era, positioning her as one of the most celebrated figures in the development of post-modernism.

In this exhibition a series of twelve copper mirrors lines the walls of the gallery, accompanied by twelve pink glass skulls displayed in vitrines.

Levine has stated, “I wanted to put a picture on top of a picture.” This layered genealogy appears to propose a cumulative logic, however the artist’s work produces a cycle of repetitions that increases beyond mathematical reasoning. By presenting twelve palpably identical versions of both the mirrors and the skulls Levine strips bare the visual differences between the works, paradoxically serving to increase the work’s potential as markers of differentiation. The iterated objects oscillate between being experienced as a network and as individual objects. Within the exhibition they form a register of the viewer’s varied thoughts and experiences as they move around the space. Levine combines serial reproduction with exquisitely crafted seductive materials to produce an exhibition that offers a forthright provocation of our notions of artistic value.

Sherrie Levine
Simon Lee Gallery
28 November 2012 – 5 February 2013