Suzy Lake

Suzy Lake at Big Ideas lecture.

Suzy Lake is originally from Detroit, Michigan, USA and since 1968 has made Canada her home. She completed a Master of Fine Arts degree at Concordia University, Montreal in 1980. She is an internationally recognized artist presently based in Toronto, Canada. She is known to be among the first female artist to adopt performance, video, and photography to explore the politics of gender, aging, the body, and identity. Lake’s work critiques the ideals of these notions by drawing attention to social norms and constraints. By incorporating herself into her work, the body not only becomes both subject and device, it also develops an understanding of the social restrictions for women. She has participated in significant conceptual and feminist exhibitions such as WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution (LA MOCA and tour, 2007-08), Identity Theft: Eleanor Antin, Lynn Hershman, Suzy Lake, 1972-1978 (Santa Monica Museum of Art, 2007), Held Together With Water (Sammlung Verbund, Vienna and tour, 2008) and Traffic: Conceptual Art in Canada 1965-80 (Art Museum at University of Toronto and tour, 2010). Her work is currently on view in Pictures Revisited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on NYC.

Lake was a founding member of Vehicule Art Inc., Montreal in 1972 and later TPW, the Toronto Photographers Workshop. Concurrent to her practice, Lake taught for 40 years in various institutions including Montreal, Toronto, Guelph and received Professor Emerita status from the University of Guelph in 2008. In 2013, Suzy was awarded the Dazibao artist book prize and launched Suzy Lake: Performing an Archive in 2015. In 2014 the Art Gallery of Ontario presented a full-career retrospective titled Introducing Suzy Lake. An Art Canada Institute monogram on her work will be launched in winter 2021. Suzy Lake is a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts. In 2016, she was the recipient of the Governor General's Award in Visual and Media Arts and the Scotiabank Photography Award.

Suzy Lake is currently represented by Georgia Scherman Projects in Toronto. (I am no longer with Donald Brown or Solway Jones) Suzy continues to address the relationship of the individual to societal forces to reveal constructions and restraints that have been built into our culture. In 1985, Lake had a solo exhibition Recent Work at the Embassy Cultural House and is participating in the Hiding in Plain Sight inaugural virtual exhibition on October 30, 2020. Please visit her website for more information.

Art Works

Choreographed Puppet 2011 UTAC installation, 1976-77

Imitations of myself, 1973-2012

Rhythm of a True Space, 2008

Suzy Lake as Gary William Smith, 1973-74

Performing Haute Couture #1, 2014

Pre-Resolution-Using the Ordinances at Hand #7, 1985

Pre-Resolution Using the Ordinances at Hand #10, 1985

Back-Room Boys, 2019

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