Artists

Sherrie Levine

Hazleton, USA 1947

The American conceptual Artist Sherrie Levine was born in Hazleton, Pennsylvania in 1947. Her mother was a painter who took her to museums during her free time, which sparked Levine’s interest in the arts. She earned a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Wisconsin and currently lives between New York and New Mexico with Cindy Sherman, Robert Longo and David Salle. Levine is considered one of the most important figures in the appropriation art movement, which emerged in the United States in the 1980s. In this type of art, Artists reproduce other Artists’ works exactly or with slight variations, and sign their own names to the works. The goal of this type of art is to make viewers question the authenticity of creations, as well as the role of copies and reproductions.

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Levine began her artistic career in 1977 with the project “Shoe Sale,” in which she purchased 35 pairs of identical black lace-up children’s shoes and sold them in a store at 3 Mercer Street, New York City, signing them with her own name. In the early 1980s, Levine’s work gained popularity with the project “After Walker Evans,” which involved re-photographing images from an Evans catalogue  without making significant changes. The work was exhibited at her solo show at the Metro Pictures Gallery in New York City. It is considered a foundational work of Post Modern Art. However, Evans’ heirs did not appreciate the work, and for copyright reasons, they prohibited its sale. Today, the project belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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Levine is also known for the work “Fountain - after Marcel Duchamp” (1991), which is a reproduction of Duchamp’s famous 1917 urinal in a new version made of gilded bronze. The goal of this work is to confuse the public, subvert the meaning, and attribute a feminine touch. Levine is a feminist artist, and she appropriates the works of male predecessors to analyse their role in the art world and highlight the concept of gender difference.

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Levine’s work has been exhibited in numerous international museums, including the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C.; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia; Portikus, Frankfurt; Museum Haus Lange, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Germany; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.