“Louise Lawler: WHY PICTURES NOW”

Associated with the Pictures Generation, Lawler was also one of the authors of Institutional Critique, a Conceptualist genre that made museums and other constituents of the art establishment the subject of a deconstructive inquiry. In Lawler’s case, that entailed photos of other artist’s works hanging in museums, storage rooms and the home of collectors. Elegant and cooly composed, Lawler’s images demystified the art object by showing how it lives as a commodity and piece of decor. MoMA surveys her career, which spans nearly 40 years.