Seeing Sherrie Levine

The concept of rephotography is a little confusing to grasp with regard to this essay. Sherrie Levine takes photos of photos taken by Walker Evans. Singerman makes three points that I find interesting. He says that with Levine's work, she is pushed into the subject matter of the photograph, that the photograph has a completely different meaning because it was taken by a woman, and that there is a fourth look.

"It lets me put Levine across the colon and into the list." The list consists of the subjects of what Walker Evans likes to photograph, such as "women, nature, children, the poor, and the insane." Her value is based on what viewers make of the photograph, that is, she is judged just like the subject matter. "levine positions herself...as an object on the other side of hte picture." levine is seen to be standing with those in the picture, in "solidarity. " the photograph is then judged by the audience(who the essay calls men), and is sold as a commodity.

There is a strong debate over feminism and its relationship to photography in this essay. Singerman claims that the female photographer is playing the role of the transvestite because she is trying to take the picture from a man's point of view. Levine is seen as envious of Evans because of her "resentment at the fact that her name will never be as glamorous as Walker Evans." But frankly, I argue that Singerman is making Levine's name more glamorous simply by writing this essay with ehr as the central figure of analysis. He even calls her "appropriations" a result of her "penis envy." This is contrary to the perspective of the of this penis envy is the masquerade. This is putting Levine assuming the image, and therefore making it feminine. Levine's masquerade is "as a female artist; she enacts the readings adn plays the part of the 'woman artist' in quotes, the artist's Binary Other." Now we are getting somewhere. Levine is not envious of Evan's masculinity and ability to take a photograph, but rather she si celebrating it and making the viewer take a second look at this already beautiful masterpiece. She is the Binary Other of hte artist. She gives the photo new meanign because she is a woman. People view the image in a different way.

The fourth look is only apparent in rephotography because it has already been seen. The spectator becomes the subject, and since Levine has vanished into the photograph, the spectator, who has already seen the original, is left alone standing before the photograph. "The one looking stands not on the side of power, , but is instead riven from the outset by the fear f discovery; the fear not only of being caught, but of being caught knowing. Certainly, the sight before me knows, and my coming to knowledge amounts to guilt." This passage reminded me a lot of the "primal scene", as the essay brings up, of Adam and Eve. The essay talks about the primal scene of the mother adn father; however, the primal scene can be seen in a different way. Adam and Eve were not onyl caught standing in front of the forbidden tree, but they were caught knowing, adn that made the situation so much worse. The knowledge was equivalent to guilt, and for this, the viewer is overwhelmed with the guilty feeling of standing in front of the paiting. The spectator is not guilty before God liek Adam and Eve, but "the fourth look glares from the place of the law."