{"data":{"id":"10205","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":10205,"topgoose_id":806,"tms_id":10205,"display_name":"Sturtevant","sort_name":"Sturtevant","display_date":"1924–2014","begin_date":"1924","end_date":"2014","biography":"\u003cp\u003eIn the mid-1960s the artist Sturtevant (born Elaine Sturtevant) began to make “repetitions” of recent paintings, sculptures, and installations by contemporaries such as \u003ca href=\"/artists/653\"\u003eJasper Johns\u003c/a\u003e, \u003ca href=\"/artists/964\"\u003eClaes Oldenburg\u003c/a\u003e, and \u003ca href=\"/artists/1384\"\u003eAndy Warhol\u003c/a\u003e. Although she mimicked her fellow artists’ subjects and methods, Sturtevant was not simply cloning the work of others but rather underscoring her belief in the conceptual underpinnings of art. Indeed, her project questions how art is made, institutionally contextualized, and monetarily valued. “The brutal truth of the work,” Sturtevant has explained, “is that it is not copy”; rather, “the push and shove of the work is the leap from image to concept.”\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSturtevant has reimagined\nnumerous works by \u003ca href=\"/artists/1715\"\u003eMarcel Duchamp\u003c/a\u003e,\nan artist whose “readymade” sculptures\nhelped to spearhead conceptually\nbased art making. For\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/em\u003e\u003ca href=\"/collection/works/43110\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eDuchamp Man Ray\nPortrait\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e, she restaged the 1924 portrait\nphotograph\u003cem\u003e\u0026nbsp;Duchamp with Shaving\nLather for Monte Carlo Bond\u003c/em\u003e, taken by\nthe artist’s frequent collaborator Man Ray.\nDuchamp’s neck and face are coated\nin soapsuds in that image, and his lathered\nhair, pulled back from his forehead into\ntwo stiff spikes, resembles the winged\nhelmet of Mercury, the Roman messenger\ngod. Assuming the guise of Duchamp-\nas-Mercury, Sturtevant not only re-creates\nthe earlier image but also echoes the fluidity\nof Duchamp’s ambiguously gendered\nself-representations, in which he frequently\nappeared disguised as his female alter\nego, Rrose Sélavy. Although she consistently\nemphasized the idea over the object,\nSturtevant never neglected the material\nbasis of each work she made. As a result,\nher maneuvers paradoxically call upon\naudiences to look more closely at what they\nthink they already know.\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500047422","wikidata_id":"Q3050403","created_at":"2017-08-30T15:52:26.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-03-27T07:02:28.504-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/10205/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/10205/exhibitions"}}}}