
Guerrilla Girls, Why do women have to be naked to get into Boston museums?, 1990, poster, 55.9 x 43.2 cm. National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives, Ottawa. Art Metropole Collection, gift of Jay A. Smith, Toronto, 1999. Photo: NGC / MBAC
PhotoLab 2: Women Speaking Art
PhotoLab 2: Women Speaking Art
Words figure strongly in contemporary art, as medium and message. For women artists in the 70s, 80s and 90s, text is used to explore the contexts of who is speaking and why; convey issues of social concern; provoke response; inform; and most importantly stimulate viewers to an active role of questioning. Images reflect on the social positioning of the female subject, and women’s sometimes awkward subjection to the camera’s gaze. By employing strategies of appropriation, exploiting time-based media, and fragmenting narrative, their artworks represent the social realm as a challenged and challenging site, where women’s role is especially under constant question and scrutiny. PhotoLab 2 invites visitors to explore the power of language through fourteen video and photographic works by Lorna Boschman, Susan Britton, Sara Diamond, Guerrilla Girls, Jenny Holzer, Mary Kunuk, Shelley Niro, Lorna Simpson, Lisa Steele and Carrie Mae Weems.