Levine: Photographing Photographs

From what I gathered in Singerman’s “Seeing Sherrie Levine,” the author traces his own responses to Levine’s series of photographs “After Walker Evans” as his own understanding progressed. Although Levine’s photographs may, on the surface, appear as nothing more than reproductions of other Evan’s and Lang’s photographs, Singerman argues that by simply reproducing and recontextualizing other photographs with a camera Levine is able to appropriate these images as her own. These are the first photographs we viewed in class where the pieces’ primary focus is that of the viewer of the photograph instead of the subjects within. This attention to the viewer is only possible through photographs of other photographs as photographs of anything else would just elicit the response to the subject. While the photographs by Evans and Lang capture the scenes of destitution in a specific time in American history, Levine is able to reinterpret these photographs focusing on the way in which the photographic medium directs the viewer’s response rather than the actual empathy of the viewer towards the subject. Through such, Levine is able to appropriate these images as her own though superficially they may appear the same as their subject. Singerman also discusses the feminine and masculine perspectives of the photograph, which was quite confusing to me. He cites pornography as an example of the masculine photographic perspective in which female subjects are objectified. However, to Singerman, perspectives can be more complex. He cites the quotation regarding a child walking into his parents’ bedroom to illustrate how photographic perspectives can be split, in which the viewer both simultaneously fixates on the subject and wants to look away. I believe that this is the primary interpretation of Levine’s work by Singerman. As photographs of any other grotesque can also cause the viewer to be both simultaneously interested and turned off, it is only through the process of photographing photographs that Levine is able to focus not on the subject of the photographed photograph but the response of the viewer to the photograph.