["His gesture moved us to tears." Announcement and Envelope for "A Picture Is No Substitute For Anything", James Turcotte Gallery, Los Angeles]

Louise Lawler

1981 · Print · Photographs

As her peers vied for gallery representation, Lawler took matters into her own hands, staging shows in the lofts and studios of friends. She collaborated with Levine to form an ad hoc gallery, A Picture Is No Substitute for Anything, whose unconventional exhibition announcements were works unto themselves. Invoking unseen pictures, they took the place of fine art objects, at times quite literally: one mailer, for a 1981 exhibition in Los Angeles, was the only artwork in the show—a single, powder blue card was framed on the gallery wall, with duplicates stacked nearby. The text on its face, "His gesture moved us to tears," wryly impugns the macho mode of neo-expressionist painting then in vogue. Opting out of this trend, Lawler and Levine maintained an ironic distance from images, instead co-opting their modes of dissemination.

Artist

Louise Lawler

Date

1981

Medium

Print

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Gift of the artist, 2014