Sturtevant

Known for her early ‘repetitions’ of the work of her contemporaries – including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist and Andy Warhol – Sturtevant turned the visual logic of Pop art back on itself, using Duchamp’s model of the readymade to probe uncomfortably at the workings of art history in real time. Yet the aspect of her work that allowed her to be described as ‘the one artist who can’t be copied’ – her chameleon-like embrace of other artists’ art – is also what has allowed her to be largely overlooked in the history of postwar American art. As a woman making versions of the work of better-known male artists, she has passed almost unnoticed through the hierarchies of mid-century modernism and postmodernism, at once absent from these histories while nevertheless articulating their structures. Despite a rising reputation in Europe, Sturtevant is still largely unknown in her home country. Published to accompany the first retrospective of her work in a US museum since 1973, at The Museum of Modern Art, this publication considers Sturtevant as a uniquely American artist, with political concerns inflected specifically by her upbringing and adult life in the US. Featuring previously unpublished drawings and sketches from the artist’s archive, the book includes an essay by the exhibition curator that provides a comprehensive overview of the artist’s practice while situating it more concretely within American culture.