STURTEVANT was born in ohio (USA) and made the first years of her artists life working in new york where she began in 1965 to manually reproduce paintings and objects created by her contemporaries with results that can immediately be identified with an original – closely enough to intrigue the viewer and raise the fundamental question, what am I looking at? reflection, thinking, and analysis is the core of her work, from the paintings of the late 1960’s to the most recent videos and installations. there is a famous Sturtevant maxim that runs, “negative definition is a very powerful philosophical position.” during the era of pop-art sturtevant made her version of warhol’s flowers, john’s flags, stella’s black and grey paintings and developed this discourse a decade later after moving to paris, with works based on marcel duchamp, joseph beuys and anselm kiefer. in the last two decades sturtevant has evolved a highly structured and rigorous exploration of current events making multi-screen video works, and installations exposing the simulacrum that is as much an attack on arts media/advertising dimension as the corrupt power structures that surround it.
In 2010 sturtevant had an important exhibition titled The Razzle Dazzle of Thinking at the musee moderne de la ville de paris. the artist was awarded The Golden Lion award for lifetime achievement at the venice biennale in 2011. the moderne museet, stockholm presented an exhibition curated by daniel birnbaum in march 2012 which moved afterwards to the kunsthaus zurich.
On may 7, 2014 Elaine Sturtevant passed away in paris where she worked and lived since the 1990s. her timeless work and unique contribution to contemporary art in connection to other intellectual discourses will forever be reflected in future avant-garde generations.
in 2014/2014, the MMK museum für moderne kunst in frankfurt am main (Germany), the albertina in venna (Austria) as well as the hamburger bahnhof in berlin (Germany) presented a comprehensive survey of her works on paper, titled Sturtevant, drawing double reversal.
in the USA, the museum of modern art new york and the museum of contemporary art LA honoured Sturtevant with a retrospective bringing together over 50 key artworks from all periods and in almost every medium in which she worked.
STURTEVANT
Gonzalez-Torres Untitled (Blue Placebo), 2004
mmhhmm, candies.. it was hard not to take one : ) and guess what I know someone who did, in fact many people did but still that doesnt mean that I have to take one too. anyways, I really like this piece and I absolutely love STURTEVANTs work.
at this very moment I am flying to Sicily for one week of vacation – and I thought that this is the perfect art piece to show today. blue like the sea or like the sunny summer sky. in case you wanna stay up to date with what I am doing then please check my SOCIAL MEDIA category. you will find all the twitter, instagram and facebook posts. stay tuned. X
