Seeing Sherrie Levine

I found this essay very interesting and compelling. I admit that throughout the essay I was confused about what was the topic of discussion and the different people they were bringing up, however it brought up good ideas. When reading this article I came to the conclusion that Levine has done a series of “After Walker Evans” which are all photographs that imitate the original photographs of Walker Evans work from the FSA images of the 1930s. Levine’s artwork seems very unoriginal and I remember the discussion of whether this is considered an art being brought up in class. I personally believe think that this is an art, but then there is the question of what is art? As the essay progresses the writer claims that he “looked away not because there was nothing to see, but because I didn’t want to see what was there.” This refusal of looking at the image correlates to the concept of how Levine’s work was definitely unorthodox and how her views opposed the general population. The title of Levine’s work is deceiving in the sense it gives a false identity to what the viewers think. Singerman explains that his belief of the work from just viewing the title would be “the photograph’s absence, its historical supersession or its critical irrelevance.” What her images really reveal is not necessarily the absence but the presence of Walker Evan’s image. A lot of what Singerman proposes about Sherrie Levin is contradicting and often doesn’t make sense at all, but then again does art have to make sense?
Levine claims “ because I am a woman, those images became a woman’s work,” this quote I found highly interesting because the images she is referring to is her “After Walker Evan’s” which is the replication of Walker Evan’s FSA images of the 1930’s. This claim brings up the topic of “sexual difference” and which uncovered a whole new view for interpreting Levine’s work. This “sexual difference” is something that can only be seen by the reader and interpreted respectively. As Duchamp says it “brings the work in contact with the external world.”