Suzy Lake has been examining and critiquing ideals of the body, gender, and identity since the late 1960s. In her photographs, videos, and performances, she draws attention to social norms and constraints and aims to diminish the barrier between the viewer and the artwork.

Introducing Suzy Lake follows the artist in images across five decades, as her political ideals are forged in Detroit’s civil rights movement in the late 1960s; as she realizes her first successes in Montreal’s artist-led cultural boom of the 1970s in the post-Expo 67, post-Duplessis era; and since 1978 in Toronto, as she finds her home and hones her artistic vision. Influenced by artists such as Cindy Sherman, Lake’s work demonstrates the innovation and continued influence of the “Feminist Avant-Garde” on contemporary art.

Introducing Suzy Lake features almost 100 reproductions of Lake’s photographs, some drawn from celebrated installations, others from newly commissioned series. Complemented by essays by Allyson Mitchell, Robert Longo, Elizabeth Smith, Michelle Jacques, and Sara Angel, Introducing Suzy Lake reveals the richness and originality of Lake’s work and her stature as one of North America’s most influential contemporary artists.

Georgiana Uhlyarik is the curator of Jinny Yu: AT ONCE (2024). She is Fredrik S. Eaton Curator, Canadian Art, and co-lead of the Indigenous + Canadian Art Department, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada. She works collaboratively with artists and curators from across the Americas and Europe. Projects include: Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO (2023); Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting 1910-1940 (Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2021); Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak (2018); Rita Letendre: Fire & Light (2017); Georgia O’Keeffe (Tate Modern, 2017); and Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry (Jewish Museum, NY, 2017). Uhlyarik is adjunct faculty in Art History at York University and University of Toronto.

Georgiana Uhlyarik est la commissaire de l’exposition JINNY YU : AT ONCE (2024). Elle est conservatrice Fredrik S. Eaton pour l’art canadien et codirectrice du département de l’art autochtone et canadien au Musée des beaux-arts de l’Ontario, à Toronto. Elle travaille en collaboration avec des artistes et commissaires de l’Amérique et de l’Europe. Ses projets incluent : Moving the Museum : Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO (2023) ; Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting 1910-1940 (Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, 2021) ; Tunirrusiangit: Kenojuak Ashevak and Tim Pitsiulak (2018) ; Rita Letendre: Fire & Light (2017) ; Georgia O’Keeffe (Tate Modern, 2017) ; Florine Stettheimer: Painting Poetry (Musée juif de New York, 2017). Uhlyarik est professeure adjointe en Histoire de l’Art à l’Université York et à l’Université de Toronto.

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