The source of appropriation: Sherrie Levine's 'After Walker Evans' suite

Few female artists have received as much critical reception as New York based artist Sherrie Levine. Her best known works, the After Walker Evans suite, is partially responsible for the increased attention given to issues of originality, authorship, ownership, and representation in art criticism and theory. Levine's source for her appropriations has, until now, been given little to no attention by historians and critics. However, it is an important aspect of her work. Furthermore, the book and history of Evans's images provide additional insight into the totality of Levine's critiques of ownership, institutional acceptance of male artists, and commodification.; This thesis is an attempt to demonstrate that the source of Levine's appropriation is an important detail of her work. It involves a discussion of numerous issues in Levine's After Walker Evans suite, such as the difference between readymades and appropriation, the history of Evans's Farm Security Administration photographs, a focused section dedicated to the issue of auratic works, and ownership and representation.