Accompanies Louise Lawler’s first solo exhibition in Vienna at the Sammlung Verbund Art Collection
Louise Lawler’s unusual photographs makes clear that our perception and meaning of an artwork is always influenced by its local and institutional environment. Depending on whether the artwork is in a gallery, in a museum, in a depot, in the auction house, in private rooms of collectors, its presence, impact and message change. Lawler does not change the particular situation in which she takes the artwork, but points to it. In conjunction with the Vienna exhibition at the Collection’s Vertical Gallery, the Sammlung Verbund is also publishing this book, which was created in close collaboration with the artist. Its starting point is the twenty-seven artworks acquired by the Sammlung Verbund Collection, juxtaposed to related works which result in an exciting dialogue between one hundred works of art in colour and black and white. The reader is asked to sharpen her or his perception to find the subtle similarities and differences between the presented works. Repetition, multiplication and slight variation in her motive are the artist’s core conceptual methods. A conversation between Gabriele Schor, the Collections founding director, Jessica Morgan, director of the Dia Art Foundation, and the curator Philipp Kaiser sheds insight into these aspects of Louise Lawler’s oeuvre.