User:Noorlara22/sandbox10

On Stage, 1996 is in the collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Description
On Stage is a selenium toned gelatin silver print which documents Lake's performance for the camera in numerous guises and settings. She adopted the appearance and gesture of professional modelling and aimed to question the malleable state of identity as it pertains to the construction of gender. Lake perceived this collection of images as "a package that was sold to my generation ... of how we should be ... the woman my mother brought me up to be. I mimicked it to invert it."

This image was conceived and exhibited as a slide projection sequence of 80 images, it was shot during a time in which Lake briefly worked as a model with the Montreal based modelling agency S.L.A.A.M. The photo shoots presented Lake with the opportunity to photography herself in between the shoots or after work.

Historical information
Born in Detroit, Michigan, 1947 Lake studied painting and printmaking at Wayne State University and immigrated to Montreal after the Detroit riots and at the height of the Vietnam war. Over the span of four decades, Suzy Lake has produced a prolific body of works through the mediums of performance, photography and video. She examines and critiques the ideals of the human body, gender and identity in performances, videos and photographs. Her artistic practice has been influenced by prominent contemporaries such as Cindy Sherman, Lisa Steele and Barbara Kruger.

On Stage has been exhibited in venues such as Canadian Art in the 1960s and 1970s through the lens of Coach House Press, AGO (2009) and Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, MOMA (2008).

Acquisition
Gift of Carol and Morton Rapp 2009.