Louise Lawler's photographs focus on the presentation and marketing of artwork. Photographing the work of artists in collectors' homes, in galleries, on the walls of auction houses, and in museum storage, Lawler is also known for her installation pieces and experimental works. Birdcalls, from the 1970s, is an audio artwork that transforms the names of famous male artists into a sound poem, parroting names such as Richard Artschwager, Dan Graham, and Lawrence Weiner—a mockery of the conditions of privilege and recognition given to male artists at that time.

Louise Lawler was born in 1947 in Bronxville, New York, and lives and works in New York. One of the foremost members of the Pictures Generation, in 2017 she was the subject of a one-person retrospective, WHY PICTURES NOW, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. She has had additional one-person exhibitions at Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Dia:Beacon, New York; and Museum for Gugenwartskunst, Basel. She has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; MoMA PS1, New York; MUMOK, Vienna; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and the Whitney Museum, New York, which additionally featured the artist in its 1991, 2000, and 2008 biennials.

Text courtesy of Metro Pictures