Suzy Lake
dal 29/4/2011 al 24/6/2011
Segnalato da
29/4/2011
Suzy Lake
UTAC art lounge, Toronto
Political Poetics. A major themed exhibition of the work of a seminal figure in the history of Canadian art and feminist practice on the international stage. 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. The show is one of the primary exhibitions in the Scotiabank Contact Photogaphy Festival.
Curated by Matthew Brower and Carla Garnet
Organized by the University of Toronto Art Centre and the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival
In May 2011 UTAC and Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival will mount Suzy Lake: Political Poetics a major themed exhibition of the work of a seminal figure in the history of Canadian art and feminist practice on the international stage.
Suzy Lake: Political Poetics is one of the primary exhibitions in the Scotiabank CONTACT Photogaphy 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.
A catalogue will be published to provide theoretical content and to document the exhibition with essays written by the curators, Carla Garnet and Matt Brower, and writer, cultural theorist and historian Dot Tuer.
The exhibition will tour to the , the McIntosh Gallery at the University of Western Ontario, the Macdonald Stewart Art Centre at the University of Guelph, Mount Saint Vincent University Art Gallery, Halifax, and the Art Gallery of Peterborough.
The exhibition is supported in part through contributions from the Toronto Friends of the Visual Arts; Partners in Art; the Ontario Arts Council; Celebrate Ontario; the Toronto Arts Council; the Canada Council, and the Delta Gamma Women’s Fraternity. With additional support from: Janal Bechthold, Jane Bunting, Gillian Fleming, Jean Griffiths, Sasha Krstic, Judith McErvel, Margaret McKelvey, Nancy Robinson, Patti Stoll, Annita Wilson and Jane Zeidler.
Scotiabank CONTACT Photogaphy Festival. CONTACT 2011: Figure and Ground
http://scotiabankcontactphoto.com
Thursday 19 May 2011 7–9 pm
Art with Insight Conversation: Self Image Performance
Generously supported by Peter Allen
Artists, Suzy Lake, Johanna Householder, and Chris Ironside discuss the aesthetic, practical and political implications of basing an artistic practice in the representation of the artist's own body. Moderated by Carla Garnet and Matthew Brower.
Wednesday 22 June 2011 7–9 pm
Art with Insight Conversation: Performing Poetics and Exhibition Catalogue, Launch
Generously supported by Peter Allen
Exhibition curators Matthew Brower and Carla Garnet join Sophie Hackett, Assistant Curator, Photography, the AGO and Dot Tuer, cultural theorist, and contributor to the exhibition catalogue, to map out the significance of Suzy Lake's work.
Image: Extended Breathing: Under Porchlight, Performance/ photography, 2009. Courtesy of Paul Petro Contemporary Art.
Press contact
Maureen Smith for information about University of Toronto Art Centre exhibitions and programs tel (416) 946-7089 maureen.smith@utoronto.ca
UTAC art lounge
15 King's College Circle, Toronto, ON M5S 3H7
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