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Louise Lawler

Shifting Boundaries
B.F.A. ’69
a green and yellow parrot looking backwards at the camera against a solid red background
Portrait (1982), silver dye bleach print.
Text provided by Louise Lawler, through Grace Sachi Troxell, MFA '21.

Louise Lawler recalls her time as an art student at Cornell and getting started as an artist in New York City:

I mostly resist interviews and personal profiles, not wanting to intrude on the reception of my work that I hope functions without me.

However, I am grateful for my time at Cornell and the community that made working generative.

Coming to New York City, I was more involved with work that didn’t need a gallery or a stage — work epitomized by the Grand Union Dance Group (member Barbara Dilley was at Cornell one summer) and 112 Greene Street (co-founded by Gordon Matta-Clark, it also exhibited works of Susan Rothenberg — both studied at Cornell). At the time, there was less distance, sometimes none at all, between audience and performer, who were sometimes the same — parallel to my experience of working and studying in Ithaca, between and beyond departments, making this style of collaboration familiar.  

The Earth Art exhibit at Cornell in 1969 illustrated to us that there were alternative and viable ways of working to intervene in and enter the broader world. Exposure to these practices and people made going to New York City less daunting, a community in hand. 

Metro Pictures Gallery | Louise Lawler Website

black and white photo of plastic stretched out over a lawn facing Olin library at Cornell University
Early work on Cornell’s Art Quad by Louise Lawler. photo / provided

Projects

Click to view project images full screen.

Selected Work

  • image of a photograph hung over a sheet on a wall above a bed
  • An interior angle of a red and green Andy Warhol portriat on the wall
  • image of a large open atrium with art on the walls and many skylights
  • image of art on the wall in an open atrium with skylights and people on walking on the wood floor
  • black and white rendering of an abstract painting above a ceramic service
  • a circular crop of a fancy interior with many seats, art on the walls, with blue walls and a chandelier
  • image of the inside of a building with a Robert Longo photograph on one side and a window overlooking cities on the left
  • image of a Maurizio Cattelan piece of Picasso figure wrapped, the head is wrapped in plastic and the body is laid on a moving blanket with a photograph in the background
  • a green and yellow parrot looking backwards at the camera against a solid red background
  • A view of a Gordon Matta Clark section of a building inside of a museum
  • A view of many pieces of art, a Takashi Murakami on the left, a large inflatable work of a character with wild eyes and a mouth, and a stacking of Warhols with more images and artworks to the right
  • A Richard Artshwager table work on the left with a white monochrome painting behind inside the MoMA
  • an image of 2 tall drinking glasses with words etched
  • Text that says
  • A view of a billboard with triangles and a photograph on it above a parking lot near the highline, nyc
  • image of a bleacher stand in front of a photograph and some audio equipment at PS1, Queens

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