Suzy Lake (born June 24, 1947) is an

American-Canadian American Canadians are Canadians of American descent. The term is most often used to refer to Canadians who migrated from or have ancestry from the United States. Demography According to the 2016 Census, 29,590 Canadians reported American as ...

artist based in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Canada, who is known for her work as a photographer, performance artist and

video producer Video production is the process of producing video content for video. It is the equivalent of filmmaking, but with video recorded either as analog signals on videotape, digitally in video tape or as computer files stored on optical discs, hard dri ...

. Using a range of media, Lake explores topics including identity, beauty,

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

and

aging Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...

. She is regarded as a pioneering feminist artist and a staunch political activist.

Life

Lake was born June 24, 1947 in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at th ...

, Michigan."Suzy Lake", in ''Contemporary Canadian Artists'', Gale Canada, 1997, editor Roger Matuz She began her fine art studies at

Wayne State University Wayne State University (WSU) is a public research university in Detroit, Michigan. It is Michigan's third-largest university. Founded in 1868, Wayne State consists of 13 schools and colleges offering approximately 350 programs to nearly 25,000 ...

and

Western Michigan University Western Michigan University (Western Michigan, Western or WMU) is a public research university in Kalamazoo, Michigan. It was initially established as Western State Normal School in 1903 by Governor Aaron T. Bliss for the training of teachers ...

Kalamazoo, Michigan Kalamazoo ( ) is a city in the southwest region of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Kalamazoo County. At the 2010 census, Kalamazoo had a population of 74,262. Kalamazoo is the major city of the Kalamazoo-Portage Metropolit ...

from 1965 to 1968. During this period, she became involved with the anti-war and

civil rights movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

s of the 1960s. She also witnessed the Detroit Race Riots of 1967. Soon after, in 1968 Lake immigrated to Canada with her husband to escape the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

draft. Settling in Montreal, she found herself amidst social upheaval as a result of the

Quiet Revolution The Quiet Revolution (french: Révolution tranquille) was a period of intense socio-political and socio-cultural change in French Canada which started in Quebec after the election of 1960, characterized by the effective secularization of govern ...

. Lake completed a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree at

Concordia University Concordia University ( French: ''Université Concordia'') is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1974 following the merger of Loyola College and Sir George Williams University, Concordia is one of the t ...

in 1980. Lake taught at the University of Guelph from the 1980s until her retirement in 2008, when she was given the title Professor Emerita.

Artistic impact

Using

costume Costume is the distinctive style of dress or cosmetic of an individual or group that reflects class, gender, profession, ethnicity, nationality, activity or epoch. In short costume is a cultural visual of the people. The term also was tradition ...

s, make-up and props, Lake creates photo-based

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

s, often by assuming new identities. Her adopted personas highlight the possibilities for deception involved in posing for the camera. An example is "Suzy Lake As Patty Hearst", a project Lake made in collaboration with Bill Jones, featuring the artist as the

eponymous An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

Hearst. American artist

Cindy Sherman Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters. Her breakthrough work is often co ...

has cited Lake's photo-performance as an influence on her work. Suzy Lake has twenty-five portfolios of her artwork. Each deals with politics of gender, identity and beauty. She creates art to express how what she does relates to what she is or to what people think she is. She uses her photographs, videos, and performances to draw attention to

social norm Social norms are shared standards of acceptance, acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into wikt:rule, rules and laws. Social normat ...

s and constraints. Lake explained in an interview that she always uses herself in her art because this is how she develops understanding of social restrictions for women. Lake uses art to control her own representation. Her earlier ''On Stage'' photos were influenced by Detroit. In these, Lake photographed herself as a wife and mother but later she wanted to make work to reverse that . In Montréal, Lake observed a marked power difference between genders, and she stated that women have a "

glass ceiling A glass ceiling is a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.Federal Glass Ceiling Commission''Solid Investments: Making Full ...

" that led to her ''Choreographed Puppet'' photos. More recently, Lake introduced a new vision of beauty by displaying her older body in her portfolio entitled "Beauty and the Aging Body."

Early work

Lake lived in Montréal for about ten years. She taught at the Montreal Museum School (1969–1978) and was mentored by the

Minimalist art Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or conc ...

ist,

Guido Molinari Guido Molinari (October 12, 1933 – February 21, 2004) was a Canadian artist, known internationally for his serial abstract paintings. Biography Molinari was born in Montreal, Quebec to Italian heritage with his parents from Cune (Borgo a ...

. She was active in the early

conceptualist In metaphysics, conceptualism is a theory that explains universality of particulars as conceptualized frameworks situated within the thinking mind. Intermediate between nominalism and realism, the conceptualist view approaches the metaphysical co ...

art scene there. In 1971, Lake became a co-founder (with twelve other artists) of the artist-run

gallery Gallery or The Gallery may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Art gallery ** Contemporary art gallery Music * Gallery (band), an American soft rock band of the 1970s Albums * ''Gallery'' (Elaiza album), 2014 album * ''Gallery'' (Gr ...

Véhicule Art Inc. Lake's work during this period was influenced by photo-based artists (including

Les Levine Les Levine (born 1935) is a naturalized American Irish artist known as a pioneer of video art and as a conceptual artist working with mass communication. In 1967, Levine won first prize for sculpture in the Canadian Sculpture Biennial. Life and ...

) who were using the camera to represent an idea rather than documenting reality. This was also a period when Lake began to concentrate on the subject of identity. In her 1973 series of photographs entitled ''A One Hour (Zero) Conversation with Allan B.'', she is the subject as the camera records her expression at various intervals of a candid conversation with a friend. To emphasize her expressions, Lake used white face make-up. She then invited her friends and family to circle which of the photographs most represented her personality. In an interview in ''Magenta'' magazine, Lake noted the influence of the political climate of the 1970s on her work. She stated: "I know that I am a feminist, but I can see that my politics originated in human rights issues, civil rights, the FLQ in Quebec and race issues in the States." In 2006,

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied at ...

of the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' compared her work to that of

; however, Thomas Micchelli, reviewing the feminist collection of the

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

-based

Verbund AG Verbund AG, formerly known as Verbundgesellschaft or Österreichische Elektrizitätswirtschafts-AG, is Austria's largest electricity provider. Verbund covers around 40 percent of electricity demands in Austria and generates 90 percent thereof fro ...

for Hyperallergic.com asserts that Lake was an influence on the latter in school. The two artists were contemporaries in the 1970s and in 1975 Sherman invited Lake to exhibit in a

Hallwalls Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (aka Hallwalls) is a non-profit art organization located in Buffalo, New York. Since 1974, Hallwalls has shown and shows the work of contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds who work in film, video, literature ...

show in New York. From the mid-1980s until 1994, Lake ceased appearing as the subject of her work as she turned her attention to more direct forms of camera activism. Among her notable works from this period is a series of photographs she created in collaboration with the Teme-Augama Anishnabai Band of Bear Island in Temagami, Ontario, to bring greater public awareness to their land claim. Lake continues to make work about the female body, now focusing on ageing. She exhibits her work worldwide.

Major exhibitions

Lake was the subject of a comprehensive

retrospective A retrospective (from Latin ''retrospectare'', "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past. As a noun, ''retrospective'' has specific meanings in medicine, software development, popu ...

exhibition, ''Introducing Suzy Lake'', at the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

in 2014–15 curated by

Georgiana Uhlyarik Georgiana Uhlyarik-Nicolae, also known as Georgiana Uhlyarik (born 1972) is a Romanian-born Canadian art curator, art historian, and teacher. She is currently the Fredrik S. Eaton Curator of Canadian Art at the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO). She ...

. In 2016, she received the Scotiabank Photography Award. This resulted in another survey exhibition curated by Gaëlle Morel at the Ryerson Image Center (RIC) in Toronto, as part of the 2017 Contact Photography Festival.

Honours

Suzy Lake is a member of the

Royal Canadian Academy of Arts The Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) is a Canadian arts-related organization that was founded in 1880. History 1880 to 1890 The title of Royal Canadian Academy of Arts was received from Queen Victoria on 16 July 1880. The Governor General ...

. In 2016, she was recipient of

Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts The Governor General's Awards in Visual and Media Arts are annual awards for achievements in visual and media arts in Canada. Up to eight awards are presented annually with the prize amount is $25,000 Created in 2000 by then Governor General Adrie ...

. and the Scotiabank Photography Award.

Gallery representation

She has been represented by Galerie Gilles Gheerbrant (1974–1977); Jared Sable Gallery (1976–1990), and Paul Petro Contemporary Art (1995 – 2012). Lake is currently represented by Georgia Scherman Projects, Toronto (2012 – ); Solway Jones Gallery, Los Angeles (2009 – ); Galerie Donald Browne, Montréal (2010 – ).

Bibliography

Catalogues

* ''Suzy Lake: Concealment/Revealment'', (2006), Hallwalls Gallery, Buffalo, NY * ''Attitudes et comportements'', curator Jocelyn Fortin, Suzy Lake (2002) ISBN TR647 L35 2002 * ''Suzy Lake: Points of Reference'' by Martha Hanna (1993) , * ''Suzy Lake: authority is an attribute, part II'' (1992) , * ''Suzy Lake: are you talking to me?'' (1980) OCLC: N6545 V353 * ''For Suzy Lake, Chris Knudsen, and Robert Walker'' (1978) OCLC: 83615339 * ''Suzy Lake'' (1975)

Selected books/journals

*
Suzy Lake: Life & Work
', by Erin Silver (2021) ISBN 978-1-4871-0247-0 *''Radical Gestures: Feminist Performance Art in the US and Canada, 1970's to c.2000'', by Jayne Wark (2006) * ''Carte Blanche, a compendium of Canadian photography'' (2006) , * ''Point & Shoot: Performance and Photography'', France Chouiniere and Michele Theriault eds. (2005) * ''Caught in the Act: An Anthology of Performance Art By Canadian Women'', by Johanna Householder and Tanya Mars (2004) , * ''Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography since 1955'', by Penny Cousineau-Levine (2003) , * ''From the Center: Feminist Essays on Women's Art'', by

Lucy Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. S ...

(1976) ,

Selected exhibitions

* ''Suzy Lake: Political Poetics'',

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

Art Centre * ''Donna: Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s'', from Sammlung Verbund, Vienna Galleria nazionale d'arte moderna, Rome * ''Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada, 1965–1980'',

Art Gallery of Alberta The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) is an art museum in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The museum occupies a building at Churchill Square in downtown Edmonton. The museum building was originally designed by Donald G. Bittorf, and B. James Wensley, alth ...

, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto and the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...

* ''Identity Theft: Eleanor Antin, Lynn Hershman and Suzy Lake'',

Santa Monica Museum of Art The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), formerly known as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, CA. As an independent and non-collecting art museum (or kunsthalle), it exhibits the ...

, Santa Monica, CA * '' WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution 1965–1980'', Los Angeles, CA Museum of Contemporary Art/Geffen Contemporary, National Museum of Women in Art, DC * ''Faking Death: Canadian Art Photography and the Canadian Imagination'', Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, NY * ''The Unseen Cindy Sherman: Early Transformations (1975–1976)'',

Montclair Art Museum The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) is located in Montclair, New Jersey, United States, a few miles west of New York City. Since it opened in 1914 as the first museum in New Jersey that granted access to the public and the first dedicated solely to a ...

; Montclair, New Jersey

Selected public collections

* Sammlung Verbund,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

* Musée d'Art Contemporain, Montréal, QC * Art Gallery of Hamilton,

Hamilton, Ontario Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Hamilton has a population of 569,353, and its census metropolitan area, which includes Burlington and Grimsby, has a population of 785,184. The city is approximately southwest of T ...

Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ( en, National Museum of Fine Arts of Quebec), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is situated in Battlefield Park and is a complex consisting of four bui ...

, QC *

Winnipeg Art Gallery The Winnipeg Art Gallery (WAG) is an art museum in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Its permanent collection includes over 24,000 works from Canadian, Indigenous Canadian, and international artists. The museum also holds the world's largest collect ...

, Winnipeg, MB *

Southern Alberta Art Gallery The Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin is a contemporary art gallery located in downtown Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. It has three gallery spaces and a gift shop. History In 1974, local residents formed the Southern Alber ...

Lethbridge Lethbridge ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. With a population of 101,482 in its 2019 Alberta municipal censuses, 2019 municipal census, Lethbridge became the fourth Alberta city to surpass 100,000 people. The nearby Canadian ...

, AB * Vancouver Art Gallery,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

* Glenbow Art Gallery,

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography The Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography (CMCP) (french: Le Musée canadien de la photographie contemporaine (MCPC)) was a gallery of Canadian contemporary art and documentary photography. Founded in 1985 and affiliated to the National Galle ...

, Ottawa, ON * Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Montréal, QC * Museum Lodz,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

* Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, ON * Albright Knox Museum,

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from South ...

External links

Finding aid to Suzy Lake archives at Art Gallery of Ontario

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lake, Suzy 1947 births Living people Artists from Michigan Canadian conceptual artists Women conceptual artists Canadian contemporary artists Canadian multimedia artists Canadian photographers Concordia University alumni Members of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts Wayne State University alumni Western Michigan University alumni 21st-century Canadian women artists Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts winners