Sold for: $2,500

PROVENANCE
Paul Petro Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto

LITERATURE
Georgiana Uhlyarik, Introducing Suzy Lake, 2014, reproduced pages 8-9, details from the 1974-76 slideshow reproduced pages 25-27 and 69-73
Helena Reckitt and Georgiana Uhlyarik, Scotiabank Photography Awards: Suzy Lake, 2017, details from the 1974-76 slideshow reproduced pages 6, 8, 10, and 38-47

EXHIBITED
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Introducing Suzy Lake, November 5, 2014 - March 22, 2015

Suzy Lake’s first major work, On Stage was a series of images made between 1972 and 1974 that focussed on the social construction of identity. Reacting against the way women were represented in the mass media, Lake used herself as a model, mimicking the poses and performances found in fashion photography and self-portraiture through exaggerated makeup, costuming, wigs, and gestures.

The portraits were produced in three major bursts: the initial fashion photographs were followed by a series of didactic and subversive texts that clarified her intention. The final iteration in 1974 included a group of close-up portraits of Lake applying white makeup on herself. The series established some key devices in her work, including arranging images in a grid (recalling photographers’ contact-sheets or family albums), the “blank slate” of whiteface, and imitation. The 84 final images were presented first as a slideshow, and later was arranged in a large-scale grid.

Though initially not explicitly conceiving of her practice as feminist critique, Lake was part of a vibrant and energetic language of female artists working in the late 60s and early 70s, and her strategies of mimicry, masquerade, subversion and staging would become incredibly influential on her contemporaries. Most significantly, On Stage was a major inspiration for Cindy Sherman’s own conceptual portraits that she began making at the end of the 1970s.

This lot was printed in 1996 in an edition of 10 using a selection of images from the 1972-74 slideshow.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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