Wednesday, March 12, 2008

I am so confused. I didn't really like this essay because I was never too sure where it was going. I still don't get what Levine has done. Did she steal Walker Evans Photos and name them her own, in a fight because she's female? Was she trying to prove a point? Is that what rephotography is? Is it suddenly a different photograph, or interpreted differently once the artist is known to be female? "..Camouflaged as the search for rephotography, for a uniqueness that would protect both Evans and Levine by proving the original inimitable and the artist's hand unavoidable." Also Levine insists, "Because I am a woman, those images became a woman's work". I like the notion of the spectator playing an important part of the creative act, interpreting it in their own way. Does that make LEvine a spectator of her own work, since it's a copy of Walker's work? Is that where the mark idea comes into play? 

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I was really taken aback by Sherrie Levine. I read this writing by Singerman and I just couldn't understand any argument that supported her. I don't believe that by taking a picture of another's picture that it makes it your own. I do not believe that by the mere fact that she was a women taking the picture that it eould make me look at it in any addtional light. I agreed that when looking at Levine's pictures you do not see the "absence of Walker Evans, but the presence of the image." I've always been in support of art and the many definitions that it has and pushing beyond the boundaries but can you take a picture of someone else's work and claim it. I'm not sure. I don't think that Singerman even knew it seemed in the end that he believed that she filled some sort of void that is normally present when looking at a photograph but throughout he seems to insert exerpts that state the way that she is stealing. Even refered to as a "thief". Singerman even mentions the fact that others could see her pictures as copies, even just reproductions of the photo and not as an additonal work of art. I agree that this is the case. I don't believe that by taking pictures of Walker Even's work she is doing anything extroadinary to the photograph or changing the way I look at them. Walker Evans set out to show people what the lower classes were going through the depression and Sherrie Levine merely came in and thought "I wish I had done that."