Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld is a monument of modernist architecture. It was built by Mies van der Rohe in 1928 as a private residence. Together with Haus Esters right next door, the two residences are part of the Kunstmuseums Krefeld, and are among the most beautiful exhibition spaces for modern and contemporary art in Germany. Haus Lange is a space that the American artist Sherrie Levine had long dreamt of using. For her solo exhibition in this historically and aesthetically significant building she presented a tailor-fit selection of works, mixing signature pieces with some that might surprise or irritate viewers. Levine is known for her habit of using modernist artworks as a point of departure for her own work. She belongs to the forefront of a generation of artists that became known during the late '70s and early '80s under the label of postmodernism. During the first half of the '80s many American artists based their own work on earlier modernist art—critics described this trend as "appropriation art." The photo works by Sherrie Levine after Walker Evans, Andreas Feininger, Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz and other masters of early modern photography are among the most radical works in this context. Her re-photographed images raised questions of originality and even copyright infringement. They are icons of the age of postmodernism.
The concept of postmodern art, as it was put forth by many critics at the time, can be seen today as an attempt to describe a fissure between modernism and the new art. In the view of postmodern critics such as Craig Owens or Hal Foster, modernism was identified with a quest for originality, authenticity and transcendence, whereas the new art was described as a manifestation of disillusionment with these values. It seemed fitting at the time to encounter so many artists preoccupied with questioning the originality of modern vanguard art. But, as most attempts at historical classifications of artistic developments are bound to fail because of their implicit simplification, it became obvious that the fissure between modern and postmodern was not so easy to pin down. Appropriations of earlier works have taken place in almost all periods of artistic creation as well as in many genres, from painting and sculpture to music, poetry and literature, with a variety of motivations ranging from education—copying the master—to homage, and to satire and even plagiarism and forgery. Sherrie Levine has reflected this complex territory from the very beginning of her artistic career. It might be justified to claim today that it is no longer important to attempt a classification of her work as modern or postmodern—it suffices to say that it surely qualifies as an art of outstanding complexity and beauty, stimulating desire as well as philosophical thought.
Levine has worked in a variety of media, ranging from photography to painting and sculpture. Her works are distinguished by a strong sense of perfection with little trace of the human hand—many of her works are manufactured by highly specialized artisans working repetitiously with carefully selected materials. Her paintings are in most cases executed on mahogany panels. Her sculptures are either cast in polished bronze or in black or white frosted glass. She has also crafted the appearance of objects as readymades, presented in rows of seemingly identical pieces such as the billiard tables in her 1991 exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art, derived from Man Ray's painting "La fortune" (1938). Over the years, Levine has extended the panorama of original objects in her work. In addition to modern art she has represented everyday and natural objects such as skulls and animal skeletons. For her exhibition at Haus Lange, she selected works forming pairs or small groups she calls "posses"—an unusual word in this context but nicely alliterative with "pairs." The presentation was impeccable. In the hall on the first floor of the villa, "White Newborn" (1993-1994) was presented on a Steinway grand piano; four walls of the building were sparsely and elegantly furnished with several postcard collages; and in the smaller rooms of the house, wooden showcases contained reflective bronze and occasionally black or white glass sculptures. It is unusual that these sculptures are presented as single pieces, making them appear more precious and less "conceptual" than in earlier shows in which the whole edition of a sculpture was exhibited—as for instance in Levine's solo exhibition at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe in 2007, where an impressive row of cattle skulls could be seen, in clear reference to paintings by O’Keeffe. Repetition has been an important aspect of Sherrie Levine's art, alluding simultaneously to the industrial fabrication of the object and to a psychoanalytic dimension—detachment and desire are present at the same time.