Sherrie Levine’s artwork consistently challenges ideas commonly accepted in society. More specifically, she often deals with the questions of mass media and originality. (http://moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3515) Her first Presidential Collage, and the series it began, perfectly demonstrate both themes in her work in a framework that is eye-catching.
What first caught my attention about this photograph was that the image of the woman within the silhouette strikingly defines the decade in which Levine lived and worked. Everything from the model’s hair to the colors around her are instantly recognizable as belonging to the early 1980s. Levine takes this snapshot of an era and plays with it. The woman, an image ripped from a magazine, is placed within the boundaries of a silhouette of George Washington. I believed that this photograph was supposed to be a statement about gender and power; behind every president is a woman, perhaps. Or it could be that the woman is imprisoned within the man who literally confines her in this image. I appreciated the image’s ambiguity – it could be a combination of both.
When I returned to my dorm I looked up the image to find out what exactly Levine was attempting to express in this photograph. According to art analysts at the MoMA and the College of William and Mary, Levine chose this particular silhouette of Washington because it is the most recognizable image of him, being the head on a quarter. (http://peterandjoan.blogs.wm.edu/2008/09/29/sl-untitled-president-4/) This brings into the picture the ideas of consumerism, mass culture, money, and, again, power. This woman, or rather model of a woman, is seen through the eyes of consumerism when we look at her through the frame of a symbol of money. This analysis intrigued me, and perhaps makes more sense than my own original interpretation. But I still believe there is a question of gender and power in this series. Levine could have chosen some different symbol of mass culture and money. Each model in this series is confined by the image of a man as well as a symbol of money, and this move was probably deliberate.
This series also embodies the question of originality and art that Sherrie Levine so often tackles in her artwork. None of these images are her own photographs. They all come from magazines. Levine simply framed them in presidential silhouettes to make a statement. Because Levine was manipulating others’ artwork rather than creating her own, this series was received with some skepticism when it was first released. But Levine is one of many modern artists who have helped to further the idea that art lies in the concept, and not necessarily the image. Fine art is a different level of art, where the concept must be joined with the skill to produce something of not only beauty but value. However, true Art is at its core the communication of an idea, and the medium through which this communication occurs is not as important as the idea itself.
