Sherrie Levine: MAYHEM (Whitney Museum of American Art)

Although the American artist and conceptual photographer Sherrie Levine (b. 1947) has been the subject of much critical discourse for the past thirty years, she has not been the subject of a comprehensive survey–until now. This handsome volume, created in close collaboration with the artist, contains 100 color images that cover the full range of Levine’s practice, from classic photographic works and sculptures to lesser-known drawings, paintings, and objects. A selection of writings by the artist and several essays by distinguished art historians augment the artworks.
While much of Levine’s art has a historical basis—drawing on existing imagery from both high and low culture—her early and continued engagement with digital technology places her firmly within a contemporary context, in which the borrowing, reframing, and reproduction of imagery have become second nature. This book acknowledges the central role Levine has played in the history of appropriation, and also draws attention to her practice of using repetition, serial images, and the pairing of objects, thereby highlighting conceptual threads that run through her work. Above all, however, the publication focuses on the materiality of Levine’s art, emphasizing its powerfully seductive nature.