Elaine Sturtevant

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Elaine Sturtevant (* 23. August 1924 in Lakewood , Ohio as Elaine Horan , † 7. May 2014 in Paris ) was an American artist of postmodernism . After moving to New York City in the early 1960s, Sturtevant began imitating works by contemporary artists in 1965 as a painter, sculptor, and object artist.

Working method

The principle of appropriation and forms of repetition are used strategically by Sturtevant. Your work thus consists in making technically exact repetitions of certain works using a wide variety of media. She provides this with her signature. The appropriated models are original works by famous artists such as Andy Warhol , Marcel Duchamp , Joseph Beuys , Sherrie Levine and Claes Oldenburg , which are as closely as possible to the copy made by Sturtevant (for example, Pop Art artists with their immediate precursors). Sturtevant at times concentrates on certain artists, deals intensively with them and sometimes makes repetitions of entire work cycles. Thanks to her enormous productivity, her work encompasses a large quantitative scope and is characterized by a wealth of facets. Slight formal deviations in terms of material properties are possible when attempting an exact repetition, but are of no importance, since your work is not designed for a formal comparison. The only significant formal deviation from the original is Sturtevant's signature with which she provided the repetition, which excludes this aspect from the process of appropriation.

Sturtevant used various artistic means of expression such as painting, sculpture, photography and film to make the copies. The critics still disagree on how the artist acquired a feeling for which art movements will be successful in the respective periods, since the originals of the copied works are now considered to be typical of the time.

intention

Sturtevant's approach suggests that the work's intention lies in undermining the traditional categories of modern art, such as creativity and originality. However, Sturtevant intends to contrast the values ​​of the modern conception of art , although she chooses pictorial models that begin to differentiate themselves from the artistic categories of modernity . Its intention is to achieve a “critical examination of originality” without wanting to undermine the category of originality. Sturtevant uses repetition as a means to stimulate a discussion about aesthetic conventions and the existing constitutional conditions of art. With her work she intends to expand aesthetic ideas.

Even before Concept Art reaches its climax, the artistic implementation of the idea as the core point of artistic consideration is pushed into the background in Sturtevant's work by the copy. The category of creativity is raised to the level of pure intellect, according to Concept Art. She did not attribute any authority to the intuitive act of creation, which radically undermines the idea of ​​modernity. Instead, she copies her templates using a distanced, mechanical, purely manual process. The manufacturing process is leveled, just as the work itself only serves as a conceptual instrument and has no intrinsic visual value. The conceptual determination of the function raises the work to a purely theoretical level.

Sturtevant's strategic intentions have a strong influence from the French artist Marcel Duchamp , which the artist herself specifically emphasizes: “I think that certainly his concern with trying to redefine what we consider art was a very big factor in terms of my own work . ”With regard to the criticism of the artistic conditions, intention and strategic method between Duchamp and Sturtevan's first works, despite the 40-year gap between them, parallels can be established. Sturtevant combines Duchamp's methodology with that of Pop Art , which uses everyday motifs and objects, of which Andy Warhol is one of the representatives. In a significant way, Sturtevant appropriates already existing works of art. Accordingly, it transfers the ready-made process into art. Existing categories of art are not eroded from the outside as in Pop Art and Duchamp, but undermined or questioned from within. In contrast to the models repeated by Sturtevant, according to the traditional understanding of art, their works do not meet the conventional categories of art, although criteria such as creativity and originality were also hardly recognizable, especially in their models of the Ready-Mades . With the signature that Sturtevant gives her repeated works, the artist declares her work as an original and in this way ignores the original rules of authorship. The work thus claims a categorization that does not belong to it according to the traditional categories of the art world.

Two creative phases

Sturtevant's oeuvre can be divided into two creative phases without, however, changing the artist's intention. The reception of Sturtevant's work alone is different in the two creative phases. The first phase was from 1964 to 1974. After her last exhibition in the Onnasch Gallery in New York, Sturtevant made the decision to stop her work for the time being. After a twelve-year hiatus, the artist exhibited her work for the first time in 1986, which initiated her second creative phase, which spanned the period from 1986 to the end of the 1990s.

Reception of the first creative phase

Although the artists whose work Sturtevant repeated showed interest in general, it was not easy for the artist to gain understanding and recognition for her work in the institutional framework in the 1960s and 1970s. While she was allowed to exhibit her works in some galleries, museums initially held back. After Sturtevant took part in the group exhibition Art in the Mirror at the Museum of Modern Art in 1967 , she did not receive her first major solo exhibition until 1973 at the Museum of Art of Syracuse. Sturtevan's work was almost completely ignored by the critics and received very little review. Her work lacked an art-historical treatise in the first creative phase. Nonetheless, Sturtevant stuck to her method and repeatedly confronted the art world with exact repetitions, which made her work more serious, which ultimately led to her work being completely rejected. “The viewers and those affected did not succeed in overcoming the irritation caused by their work and in finding satisfactory answers to the questions raised.” Thus, their work was often understood as a destructive sign. Sturtevant himself said in an interview as follows: “At the show in '65, the reaction was very mixed. It certainly wasn`ta generally hostile but that`s because it was not taken seriously. People thought I was anti-art, super Pop or joshing. Of course that was not my intention. When I did the store of Claes Oldenburg, it became clear that I was serious and people began to perceive the work as dangerous. Then the hostility began. ”Sturtevant felt her work was misunderstood, so she decided to stop working for the time being. “Basically what I thought was, when I continue to show the work, and they continue to write about it, it would change the work, it would become what they decided it is. So I decided that I would not do it until this mental rethought catches up. "

Reception of the second creative phase

This rethink finally took place in the 1980s. The contextual change had an impact on the reception of her work, but not on Sturtevan's artistic intention. Sturtevant continues her concept unchanged even after the resumption of her work. In addition, she maintains the focus on artists who also use strategic appropriation in their works, and thus continues to refer to the artists who were repeated in their first creative phase.

When Sturtevant resumed her work in the 1980s, however, the attitude towards the process of artistic appropriation had fundamentally changed. At this time, an artistic trend emerged which critics grouped under the label of Appropriation Art (appropriation art). Their works are based on a process that was very similar to Sturtevants. Motifs from everyday life, but also from the art world, were adopted and declared as independent and original works of art. The intention of the appropriationists was to “expose the ideological constitutional conditions of the modern concept of originality and ban it from art.” With this trend, the initial ignorance with which critics encountered their work in the first creative phase gave way to an interest influenced by poststructuralist theories. These theories saw the principle of repetition as a central theme. Sturtevant takes a contrary position and clearly distinguished himself from it. Nevertheless, it is often referred to simply as the forerunner of Appropriation Art. However, she recognized that her work was given shape by the contrary movement of Appropriation Art: “And talking about the Appropriationists I should mention the importance of this movement for me as it allowed entry into my work; gave references that could be used as negative definition. ”Thus, Sturtevan's work can be classified under the term appropriation art, but not under the style term of the art movement Appropriation Art.

Quote

"... you would have to be left in your head to claim the death of originality."

- Elaine Sturtevant

credentials

Andy Warhol

In 1964/65 Elaine Sturtevant made copies of Andy Warhol's Flowers from 1964 , which she copied in accordance with her concept in a technically precise manner and gave the resulting copy her signature, which granted her authorship. In order to achieve the exactness of the copy of the screen prints, Warhol even gave her his sieve sticks. Sturtevant describes Warhol's reaction to her plan as follows: “Warhol was very Warhol. `Wow Elaine`, and he gave me the screen for the flower." Sturtevant's copy is called Sturtevant - Warhol Flowers . Since the Flowers have been reproduced in many ways and are known almost all over the world, the viewer who has art-historical knowledge automatically assigns them to the Warhol category. The confrontation with the Flowers , which did not come from Warhol, only begins when the viewer becomes unsettled by the signature. This signature of Sturtevant, which breaks the “all-too-known”, allows the viewer to reflect on the relationship between the original and the copy and on Sturtevant's intention. Accordingly, a reception that reflects the strategic dimension of repetition can only take place if the model is known.

By copying Sturtevant, the original regains its originality, which was lost through mass reproduction by Warhol himself. The “return of the 'general' work of art, e.g. B. Warhol Flowers , on what was originally special, namely the original, ”is the focus of Sturtevant's work, in line with her artist's intention.

The Sturtevant - Warhol Flowers were not only created in 1964/65, but also in 1966 and 1969/70, and she also created other works in Sturtevant's second creative phase.

Prizes and awards

Solo exhibitions

literature

  • Bill Arning: Bill Arning Interviews Sturtevant, Interview in: STURTEVANT. Stuttgart, 1992.
  • Joerg Bader: Elaine Sturtevant: The Eternal Return of Masterpieces . Interview in: Art Press 236, June 1998.
  • Dieter Daniels: Duchamp and the others. The model case of an artistic impact history in the modern age . Cologne, 1992.
  • Anne Dressen and others: Sturtevant - The Razzle Dazzle of Thinking. JPR Ringier Kunstverlag, Zurich 2010, ISBN 978-3-03764-090-6 .
  • Anne Dressen: Sturtevant: The House of Horrors . Sprengel Museum, Hannover 2013.
  • Rikard Ekholm: Identical: But Still Different: An Artistical Appropriation in Visual Art , Dissertation: Uppsala University , Sweden.
  • Bruce Hainley: Sturtevant: Shifting Mental Structure. de./en. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2002, ISBN 3-7757-9112-4 .
  • Udo Kittelmann : Volume 1: Sturtevant: The Brutal Truth , de./en. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2004.
  • Udo Kittelmann: Volume 2: Sturtevant - Catalog Raisonnée 1964-2004. de./en. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2005.
  • Romana Rebbelmund: Appropriation Art, the copy as an art form in the 20th century. Frankfurt am Main, 1999.
  • Viola Vahrson: The radical nature of repetition in Sturtevant's work. Fink, Paderborn 2006, ISBN 3-7705-4242-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Romana Rebbelmund: Appropriation Art, the copy as an art form in the 20th century . Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 103 .
  2. ↑ Dieter Daniels: Duchamp and the others. The model case of an artistic impact history of the modern age . Cologne 1992, p. 304 .
  3. ↑ a b Violal Vahrson: The radicality of repetition - interferences and paradoxes in the work of Sturtevants . Munich 2006, p. 29 .
  4. ↑ Bill Arning: Bill Arning Interviews Sturtevants . In: STURTEVANT . Stuttgart 1992, p. 9 .
  5. ↑ Viola Vahrson: The Radicality of Repetition - Interferences and Paradoxes in the Work of Sturtevan . Cologne 1992, p. 31 .
  6. ↑ Joerg Bader: Elaine Sturtevant: The Eternal Return of Masterpieces . In: Art Press . tape 236 , June 1998.
  7. ↑ Click in the head . In: Der Spiegel . No. 31 , 1992, pp. 145-146 ( online - 27 July 1992 ).
  8. ↑ Viola Vahrson: The Radicality of Repetition - Interferences and Paradoxes in the Work of Sturtevan . Munich 2006, p. 61 .
  9. ^ Romana Rebbelmund: Appropriation Art, the copy as an art form in the 20th century . Frankfurt am Main 1999, p. 102 .
  10. ↑ Do it yourself first. In: FAZ . February 13, 2013, p. 26.
personal data
SURNAME Sturtevant, Elaine
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Horan, Elaine (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American artist of appropriation art
DATE OF BIRTH August 23, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Lakewood , Ohio , United States
DATE OF DEATH May 7, 2014
Place of death Paris , France