LOUISE LAWLER

GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS coalesces around the idea of movement anddisorientation, which has been a throughline in Lawler’s four-decade-long practice ofphotographing artworks in public and private collections, at auctions, or in storage.Displayed on the gallery’s first floor are several new swiped works, which areproduced by a physical gesture in space; Lawler uses long exposures and swiftcamera movements to create abstract images of well-known motifs. Frozen yetmoving, they become transcendent images that perpetually blur and shift, taking herlongstanding investigation into the making and viewing of meaning still further. Theirsubtitles, ‘swiped,’ might be a humorous comment on the artist’s practice of capturingthe works of others whilst further evoking the contemporary consumption of digitalpictures on our screens – perhaps speaking to the feelings of loss of focus and clarityunder the constant exposure to a deluge of pictures.

Operating within certain structures, Lawler often displaces or redirects power andattention. In a growing body of works, her methodology involves continuously revisitingand restaging her own works by transferring them to different formats and materials,often allowing for external influences to shape what is seen. For her adjusted-to-fitworks, she re-presents the original image by permitting it to be digitally altered foreach installation, stretching it to match the aspect ratio of a given wall. Its shape, sizeand position are out of the artist’s hands and are determined instead by the institutionor collector displaying them, indicating the numerous influences on the proceduresof presentation and reception.

In the upstairs gallery, Lawler’s photographs are translated into large-scale tracings,black-and-white line versions of her photos, which are produced with children’sbook illustrator Jon Buller. They may or may not be punctuated by additionalmounted photographs.

GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS is inextricably linked to questions related toinstitutional framing, but it is also profoundly self-reflexive, ambivalent andcontradictory. Bringing together pieces that are connected by varying degrees ofanalogue and digital movement, confusion and reversal, the show turns viewers’ headsin multiple directions. Exploring the artist’s role, Lawler, at times, confounds ourunderstanding of authorship and questions how we look at works of art, how theycome to have meaning, the desires invested in these objects, their interactions andtheir temporality. This press release is written before the installation.

Louise Lawler (*1947, New York) lives and works in New York. Solo exhibitions includeArt Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2019), Sammlung Verbund, Vienna (2018), MoMA,New York (2017), Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2013), Albertinum, Dresden (2012),Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2006), Dia:Beacon, New York (2005),and Museum for Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2004). Selected group exhibitions includeFondazione Prada, Venice, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, MuseumBrandhorst, Munich, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Institute of Contemporary Art,Boston, MoMA, New York, MoMA PS1, New York, MUMOK, Vienna, Hammer Museum,Los Angeles, and the Whitney Museum, New York, which additionally featured theartist in its 1991, 2000, and 2008 biennials. Her work was also included in the 59thInternational Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (2022).