“Mayhem” is a curious title for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s recently opened mid-career retrospective of Sherrie Levine’s work. Walking through the museum’s spare galleries is as sedate a subdued trip to Soho’s neo-modern furniture boutiques – a quiet room of smoked-glass skulls encased in mahogany vitrines, a long passage of three perfectly aligned, spotless snooker tables, a dark gallery walled with washed-out photos of flowers.
Not that this couldn’t be precisely the point curators Johanna Burton and Elisabeth Sussman are trying to make, as Levine’s work has always dealt with commodification and consumption in one form or another. But is that this exhibition’s goal? Sherrie Levine: Mayhem traces Levine’s career from photo-based work of the late 70s, through the heyday of appropriation art (of which Levine was a star), to her more sculptural work of the 90s and 00s, and positions objects and photographs from different periods in dialogue with one another, an arrangement the curators hope will “provoke new associations and responses.” Hence, the infamous After Walker Evans: 1-22 series, classic Walker Evans photos Levine rephotographed from an exhibition catalogue, is hung above Fountain (Madonna), a gold-plated urinal set under glass at foot level.
The “new associations and responses” are meant to address questions of art historical meaning and authenticity, subjects Levine has always been explicitly engaged with. Throughout her career, the artist has played insider art games, her new work reflexively quoting from the preceding modernist canon. But I found these galleries much more involved with how we engage with art objects as products displayed, bought, sold, and displayed again. Duchamp’s urinal has ossified in conceptual gold for many generations of artists, but it is also literal gold for collectors, and for the increasingly complex constellation of dealers, collectors, independent curators, etc. who make their living in the shadow of the art market. Imagine the bidding war Duchamp’s original urinal would inspire in today’s post-war and contemporary auctions. Looking at Levine’s Crystal Skulls: 1-12, displayed under spotless glass, I couldn’t shake that window shopping feeling, and though I have no doubt that Levine herself is very interested in producing this disconcerting experience, I am less certain as Burton and Sussman are.
That being said, I’m still thinking about the Evans series’ moiré effect, and dreaming about red and white snooker balls. What better reason to (re)visit a show?
Sherrie Levine: Mayhem
Through January 29, 2012
Whitney Museum of American Art
945 Madison Ave. at 75th St
New York, NY 10021
Photography, top to bottom: Whitney Museum of American Art, Danny Kim, Whitney Museum of American Art
