LOS ANGELES-The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld, the artist’s first full-scale museum exhibition in Los Angeles. Sarah Charlesworth (1947–2013) was a highly influential artist whose work examined the role that photographic images play in contemporary culture. Charlesworth aligned closely with a group of artists in the 1980s known as the Pictures Generation, which included Jack Goldstein, Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, and Laurie Simmons, among others.
First identified by curator Douglas Crimp in his 1977 exhibition Pictures, at Artists Space in New York, these artists were concerned with how contemporary life is mediated and governed by pictures, specifically experienced through newspapers and magazines, on television, and in film. Over her 40-year career, Charlesworth explored representation and symbolism, first through re-photographing and collaging found images, and later through creating stylized arrangements for the camera.
Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld features photographs from 10 bodies of work— approximately 70 photographs in total—made between 1977 and 2012, including her earliest works (Modern History series) and her final photographs (Available Light series), with important examples in between, including her 1980s series, Objects of Desire. Invested with a rare precision and dedication, Charlesworth produced a body of work that continues to inspire contemporary artists and viewers who are surrounded by an increasingly image-saturated culture.
The Los Angeles presentation of Sarah Charlesworth: Doubleworld is curated by Rebecca Morse, associate curator of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department.
The exhibition was organized by the New Museum of Contemporary Art where it was on view from June 24 through September 20, 2015.
“LACMA is honored to present the first Los Angeles exhibition of this influential artist,” said Michael Govan, LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director. “As an important member of the Pictures Generation, Sarah Charlesworth explored and questioned contemporary life through visual imagery, and her approach is particularly relevant in understanding our current image-oriented culture.”
“As the visual landscape has shifted and image-based social media platforms rely on photographs to behave as a primary language—often in place of written and spoken methods of communication—Charlesworth’s work is extremely pertinent in decoding the roles that images play as forms of representation, as icons, and as symbols,” said Rebecca Morse, exhibition curator.
