"Device Circle," Corner Cabinet Arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tremaine, Connecticut

Since the late 1970s, Lawler’s works have focused on display practices. This photograph comes from a series of other works of art in public and private collections. Here, Jasper Johns’s Device Circle (1959) is harshly lit by a tabletop lamp, positioned off-center from the credenza underneath it, and surrounded by garish red walls. Lawler includes these details to call attention to the way that the display of art, particularly modernist, abstract art, is never neutral. Such surroundings are reflections of subjective notions of taste, and they inform the way one interprets the work displayed.