STURTEVANT

About

Société is pleased to present a solo exhibition by the American artist Sturtevant. The exhibition is dedicated to her iconic Warhol Flowers series. A radical iconoclast, Sturtevant became known in the New York art scene for "her work consisted of copying that of other artists," as Jill Johnston wrote in 1967 in the Village Voices . The result was one of the most radical and amazing oeuvre of the 20th century.

Elaine Sturtevant was a rebel. Her “repetitions” of the works of art by male contemporaries often create a feeling of confusion in the viewer. She liked to say that her work "makes you feel dizzy". Sturtevant worked in real time, ie she examined the works of other artists and copied them at the same time as they were created. She had an exceptional ability to capture the most important breakthrough aesthetic innovations of her time, and developed approaches that would ultimately become an integral part of the Western canon of modern and contemporary art, not in retrospect but as they emerged. Though her work met with great opposition during her lifetime,

Begun in 1964, Warhol's Flowers are the earliest works in Sturtevant's oeuvre and date from the same year that Warhol's screen prints were made and exhibited in the Castelli Gallery. For Sturtevant, technology and medium were of secondary importance. Her artistic practice, however, was aimed at creating an intellectual shock in the viewerto trigger, which should overturn the conventional understanding of the creative process and artistic practice. When Warhol was asked how he made his screen prints, he replied with the famous saying: “Ask Elaine”. In fact, Warhol had made the original screen prints available to Sturtevant so that she could produce her “Flowers”, which do not seem to differ from Warhol's either in appearance or in the manufacturing process. According to Sturtevant, these works became "non-original originals" because they were created outside of Warhol's studio and therefore in a different context. Still, Sturtevant doubted that he had actually understood her conceptual approach. “Everyone says, 'Andy really got it!' Well, I see it differently. I think he didn't give a fuck.

In cooperation with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac London · Paris · Salzburg and Sturtevant Estate.

Sturtevant (born 1924, Lakewood, Ohio - died 2014, Paris) has her work in solo exhibitions at the MOCA, Los Angeles; MMK, Frankfurt; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin; Serpentine Galleries, London and the Albertina, Vienna and many other exhibition locations. Her works are part of renowned public and private collections such as ARC, Paris; DAP, Paris; FRAC, Brittany; MAMCO, Geneva, MOCA Los Angeles; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Musée d'Art Moderne de la ville de Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Pinault Foundation; Secession, Vienna, Sintra Museum of Modern Art, Sintra; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Weimar New Museum, Weimar; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, ZKM, Karlsruhe. In 2011 Sturtevant received at the 54. Venice Biennale awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. In 2013 the Sprengelmuseum also honored her with the Kurt Schwitters Prize for her life's work.