Untitled (after Fernand Leger)

Sherrie Levine copies the work of male “geniuses,” such as Joan Miró, Willem de Kooning, and Walker Evans, either by photographing their paintings and photographs or by meticulously remaking them in their original medium. This long-running series, titled After,, calls into question not only the traditional values of authorship, originality, and uniqueness, but the historical association of these qualities with male artists. Although Levine’s copies are practically indistinguishable from the originals, she does often leave traces of the act of reproduction, typically in the form of slight distortions in color or surface quality—just enough to offer a hint to the observant student of art history. Levine, however, does not think of herself as an appropriation artist in the manner of Richard Prince or Barbara Kruger. Her rhetoric instead focuses on the notion of reproduction, as she aims to complicate the value (both monetary and art-historical) still attributed to originality and authenticity, even after the postmodern “death of the author” announced in the late 1960s. Ironically, Levine’s works have become valuable in their own right, illuminating the ways in which a hungry art market and complicit arts institutions are able to co-opt and neuter philosophical critiques leveled at their very foundations.