"Lawler looks intensely, always finding small things that stand in for bigger issues. She frequently shows us works of art in various stages of installation and de-installation as she moves behind the scenes of museums, auction houses, and collectors’ houses. The work rarely ventures outside the space for art, but from this restricted lexicon, Lawler aims to create a wide metaphor for the world at large."
—James Welling
In her photographs of artworks in settings variously public and private, permanent and temporary, no artist has commented so trenchantly on the physical presence of art in our lives as Louise Lawler. Lawler is part of The Pictures Generation, an independent group of artists shown in the 1977 group exhibition Pictures organized by curator Douglas Crimp. The group utilized photography and appropriation of popular images from the media, cinema, television, music, magazines, and even other artworks to inspire their own renderings while examining modes of traditional representation.