Archi-féministes! : Performer l’archives

Olivia Boudreau

Sorel Cohen

Raphaëlle de Groot

Suzy Lake

Claire Savoie

Jana Sterbak

Sophie Bélair Clément

Vera Frenkel

Clara Gutsche

Emmanuelle Léonard

Sorel Cohen, The Shape of a Gesture, 1979
Ektacolor prints on paper mounted on foamcore
94,2 x 62,2 cm (each print)
Collection Winnipeg Art Gallery
(G-79-5.1 to 4)
©Sorel Cohen / SODRAC (2012)
Photo : Richard-Max Tremblay

This work is among the artist’s first productions, in the late 1970s, when she was examining the place of women in society and in art history. Using photography, she records her gestures as she cleans a window with colourful rags, transforming a household chore into an artistic activity with references to painting. Cohen reconsiders the modernist legacy (Action Painting) which excluded all references extrinsic to the medium—not least the subject, and a female one at that. Lending them visibility, she rehabilitates once-excluded realities, those of a woman in the private sphere. A reciprocal connection established with the spectator’s body, confronted with the dimensions of the support, lends this work a critical dimension. The Shape of a Gesture was first presented at OPTICA in 1978, in the group exhibition “Foto Fiction.”

M-E.C.