“Levine has recently published a book consisting of two sets of pages inserted into the facing pockets of the covers. On one set are printed the names of rooms in a house - ‘kitchen,’ ‘living room,’ ‘bedroom’ etc. - while on the other are printed the names of family members - ‘mother,’ ‘father,’ ‘sister,’ ‘brother.’ Each of us, needless to say, has the story to complete that book.”
—Douglas Crimp, excerpt from the exhibition catalogue for Pictures
As an integral member of the Pictures Generation, Sherrie Levine, along with Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, and others, constantly challenges our notion of artistic medium, authorship and representation throughout her multifaceted career. In the present text-based work, a variant of which Crimp references above, Levine printed 6 sheets with the names of domestic spaces and six sheets with the names of household members. While one could argue that the words themselves have no inherent pairings, Levine’s work highlights the power of society and culture in our forming of associations between them.