Walker Evans, Sherrie Levine, and the Politics of Photography
This paper examines the relationship between Walker Evans's documentary photograph of Allie Mae Burroughs, taken during the Great Depression, and Sherrie Levine's 1981 appropriation of that image in Untitled / After Walker Evans 4. Drawing on Roland Barthes's theory of encoding and Christopher Phillips's concept of simulacra, the paper argues that Levine's reproduction transforms the politics and semantics of the original image rather than its content or form. Evans is critiqued for "othering" his subject even while advocating for the poor, while Levine is credited with exposing the exploitative dynamics inherent in documentary photography and returning a degree of subjectivity to Allie Mae Burroughs.
- Introduction: Photography, Power, and Reproduction: Evans, Levine, and photographic politics introduced
- Evans's Portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs: Close visual analysis of Evans's original photograph
- Levine's Reflexive Commentary on Photography: Photography critiquing itself as an exploitative medium
- Objectivity, Bias, and the Documentary Mode: Evans's failed objectivity and Levine's contrasting approach
- Levine, Barthes, and the Act of Re-Encoding: Barthes's encoding theory applied to Levine's work
- Remaking the Subject: Levine's Critique of Evans: Levine restores subjectivity to Burroughs
- Conclusion: Appropriation, Exploitation, and Art: Levine transforms photojournalism into reflexive art
✍️ How to write this paper — guide, tools & examples ▾
What makes this paper effective
- The paper builds a sustained argument across its sections, consistently returning to the central tension between Evans's documentary intentions and the exploitative dynamics his work inadvertently reproduces.
- It grounds abstract theoretical claims — drawn from Barthes and Phillips — in close visual analysis of a specific photograph, keeping the argument concrete and anchored.
- The parallel structure of critiquing Evans and then rehabilitating Levine is logically coherent and persuasive, avoiding a simplistic condemnation of either artist.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates comparative image analysis combined with theoretical framing. Rather than treating each work in isolation, the author reads Levine's appropriation directly against Evans's original, using Phillips's concept of the "order of simulacra" and Barthes's encoding theory to explain how meaning shifts when an image is reproduced. This shows how secondary sources can be used as lenses rather than as mere supporting citations.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with historical and political context (New Deal, photojournalism), moves into close description of the Evans photograph, then pivots to Levine's re-reading of it. Subsequent paragraphs develop the theoretical implications — reflexivity, simulacra, encoding — before returning to the subject of the photograph herself, Allie Mae Burroughs, as a way of grounding the conclusion. The bibliography lists two theoretical sources that underpin the entire argument.
Introduction: Photography, Power, and Reproduction
During the Great Depression, Walker Evans worked primarily as a photojournalist and documentarian, using the medium of photography to capture American life in visual detail. Many of Evans's most famous photographs appear in his book, co-written with James Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. The book was funded in part by grants issued by New Deal programs that the Roosevelt administration designed to address systemic poverty. Photojournalism was integral to achieving the goals of the New Deal, which is why Evans and Agee were able to compile their historiography.
In his photograph of Allie Mae Burroughs, Evans depicts the primary purpose of his research: to offer proof of the effects of income disparity and economic exploitation. In 1981, Sherrie Levine reproduced several of Walker Evans's images, including that of Allie Mae Burroughs. Reproducing the photographs transformed the original images — not necessarily in terms of content or form, but in terms of their politics and semantics. The original photograph situated the photographer as an actor empowered by the state against the subject. Thus, Evans engaged in "othering," even if he intended to communicate the abject poverty of American sharecroppers. Levine redefines the role of photography, divorces the medium from the message, and opens the image up for ongoing discursive action.
Bibliography
Barthes, Roland. 1977. "Rhetoric of the Image."
Phillips, Christopher. 1982. "The Judgment Seat of Photography." October, Vol. 22, pp. 27–63.
Create your account
Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.