Sturtevant Copied Warhol, Haring, And More
“To be a Great Artist is the least interesting thing I can think of,†wrote Sturtevant (née Elaine Frances Horan; Sturtevant, her single professional name, was taken from an ex-husband) in 1972. Yet here she is at the Museum of Modern Art, the temple of great artists and an institution that owns none of her works, but many of the sources for them. MOMA’s exhibition “Sturtevant: Double Trouble” looks at first like a group show of some of the most famous figures of the last century: Beuys and Warhol, Lichtenstein and Haring. In fact they are all works by one artist, who recreated her colleagues’ paintings and sculptures with the same techniques they used, and not via photographic or digital means. She never asked permission, though Warhol once lent her his flower silkscreen. Andy could be generous when he wanted.
