Suzy Lake: Political Poetics
Curated by Matthew Brower and Carla Garnet
April 30-June 25, 2011
University of Toronto Art Centre, 15 Kings College Circle, Toronto
Primary exhibition for the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
Suzy Lake: Political Poetics is one of the primary exhibitions in the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival. CONTACT 2011: Figure and Ground investigates the way photography mediates how we perceive, recognize and experience the rapidly changing world around us. This year’s festival explores the tensions between humanity and nature, from the figure in the landscape to the effect of human intervention on the ground.
Lake’s approach to art making over 40 years has been rigorous and challenging. One of the key pioneers in body-based work, Lake produced a significant and coherent corpus of work that examines both politically and aesthetically the experience of gendered embodiment. Beginning in the 1970s, Lake took her own body and life as the subject of her work. From series such as On Stage (1972-5), Choreographed Puppets (1976) and Impositions (1977) through to Peonies and the Lido (2002) and Extended Breathing (2008-present) she has photographed herself in staged situations and using costumes, props and actions to examine models of femininity. In this way she broke ground for later practitioners such as Cindy Sherman.
Lake’s photo-based and performative explorations of the body, femininity, and beauty move beyond simplistic critique to offer a powerful and nuanced investigation into the experience and expression of female identities in the context of contemporary political, social and media environments. Lake’s practice of performing for her own camera creates a complex body of work that politically and aesthetically engages with herself as both the subject and the object of vision. Through her image doubles Lake opened up the fraught relations between image and identity that have become a central concern of late 20th and early 21st century art practice.
Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
Photo by Toni Hafkenscheid.
McIntosh Gallery, London, ON, January 5-February 18, 2012.
MacDonald Stewart Art Centre, Guelph, ON, March 7-April 29, 2012.
Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax, NS, August 25-October 7.
Art Gallery of Peterborough, Peterborough, ON, November 9, 2012-January 6, 2013.
REVIEWS
Leah Sandals, “Suzy Lake: The School of Life,” Canadian Art, September 6, 2012.
Julie Sobowale, “Great Lake,” The Coast, August 23, 2012.
Jennifer Tiffin, untitled review, Hurricane J, June 14, 2012.
Rob O’Flanagan, “The ongoing relevance of Suzy Lake,” Guelph Mercury, March 19, 2012.
Angela Herring-Lauzon, “Western’s McIntosh Gallery: Suzy Lake’s ‘Political Poetics,’” Grapevine Magazine, February 17, 2012.
Sholem Krishtalka, “Suzy Lake: University of Toronto Art Centre,” Ciel Variable, 90, January 2012.
Gabrielle Moser, “Suzy Lake: Political Poetics,” Esse, 73, Fall 2011, 70.
Daniel Baird, “Self Inventions: The Photography of Suzy Lake,” Border Crossings, 119, September 2011, 98-105.
Adi Baker, “Suzy Lake: Political Poetics,” Canadian Art Online, July 7, 2011.
David Jager, “Suzy Lake Makes Waves,” Now Magazine, May 19, 2011, 66.
Jacqueline Nunes, “Say Cheese: The CONTACT Photography Festival,” Collections, Spring 2011, 30-32.
Murray White, “Contact: Suzy Lake, seminal artist,” Toronto Star, May 5, 2011.
Sarah Nicole Prickett, “Photo Finish,” Fashion, May 2011, 136-140.
Leah Sandals, “New kind of beauty in bloom,” National Post, April 29, 2011, PM12.
Sara Angel, “CONTACT Decision Maker,” Eye Magazine, April 28, 2011.
David Balzer, “CONTACT 2011: Figure and Ground,” Canadian Art online, April 28, 2011.
Murray Whyte, “Contact,” Toronto Star, April 28, 2011.