About the Work
Is the American appropriation artist Louise Lawler misleading us when she speculates that 'It Could Be Elvis'? After all, what she as an exponent of Appropriation Art has appropriated and cited is in fact the bottom half of the portrait that Andy Warhol created of Joseph Beuys. So why the intentional distraction? Lawler wants us to see her photo as an essay. The punchline lies in the detail. The photographed portrait appears as an art quotation in a private household. It loses its autonomy when alienated from the studio and outside the museum. Since 1982 the entire photographic art of Louise Lawler has focused on this loss. Photographed interiors contain only interchangeable, copied, multiple quotations. Famous originals, strategically arranged as fragments in the upper-class living environment, accentuate the ownership of possessions. Suddenly, a drip painting by Jackson Pollock must be accommodated near a sideboard and soup tureen or - as is the case here with the speculative 'It Could Be Elvis' (namely a Beuys by Warhol) - next to a rocaille occasional table and Japanese inlay work. Wherever Lawler photos hang, they also parody the use of art as ornamentation.
