In Simple Passion author Annie Ernaux opens with the description of watching an x-rated film on television and closes with a statement in which luxury is associated with the experience of passion, rather than particular objects. Filling the space in between are accounts of possession and obsession during an amorous affair. In these recollections, anticipation produces an “unspeakable terror,” seduction becomes dangerously all consuming and craving takes place through absence.

Presenting a series of new works by Liza Lacroix and a selection of works from across Suzy Lake’s five decade-long practice, Various Positions explores the limits of seduction without becoming its victim. A large-scale photograph, distorted using heat, Lake’s ImPositions #3 (1977/2015) depicts the artist bound as she tries to free herself. Part of a larger series, here a single image both documents her performance and opens an invitation to a choreography of bodies across her practice. Similarly vertical in format, her durational photographs Beauty at the End of the Season (2004-2006), depict a body proxy, a rosebush in the artist’s garden shot over long exposures.

The absence of additional figures are suggested by the titles in Lacroix’s paintings: I wanted to take a picture of you in the Jef Geys show or take a picture of me in the Jef Geys show. (2024); and Lee Lozano: Drawings 1958-64. Published by Karma Books, NY, 2021 (2024). Large and abstract, these works painted in a portrait orientation are also rhythmic ghosts—Lacroix pulls stylistic references from her influences—using repetition as a means of examining the canonization of artists. These lingering remnants are transformed across compositions that relate to the architecture of their initial locations. She produces new works, like site-specific affairs, for each exhibition.

Accompanying these larger works are a pair of eyes housed in a lightbox the size of a two-by-four that is embedded in the wall. Sourced from a cosmetic enhancement website, this confrontational insertion speaks to Lacroix’s broader concern with the commodification of artists. Nearby, in Lake’s documented performance, Dance to Life (1988), a dancer mimes the action of smashing a vase with ostentatious flowers shown in a series of slide projected images. Here Lake connects the action of breaking an object with a refusal to conform with restrictive identity conventions. Together, across generations, mediums, and positions Lacroix and Lake reassert the difference between a desired object and the desiring subject.

Liza Lacroix (b. 1988, Montreal, lives and works in NY) has exhibited at Le Consortium (Dijon), K11 Art Mall (Shanghai), Galerie Gisela Capitain (Rome, Naples, Cologne), Magenta Plains (New York), Midnight Projects (New Jersey), Peana (Monterrey), M23 (New York), AC Repair (Toronto), and Popps Packing (Hamtramck). Later in 2024 she will present her first institutional exhibition at Neue Galerie Gladbeck (Germany). Lacroix has participated in artist residency programs in Detroit, London, New Mexico, Oaxaca and Italy. She is represented by Magenta Plains (NY) and Galerie Gisela Capitain (Cologne).

Suzy Lake (b.1947, Detroit, lives and works in Toronto) is a pioneering artist who has defined a practice through her use of the body as either subject or device. Over five decades she has adopted performance, video, and photography as a gendered exploration into issues of representation, the body, and power relations. Select exhibitions include: Centre Pompidou (Metz), Museum of Modern Art (New York), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), Brandhorst Museum (Munich), Montreal Museum of Fine Arts,  Vancouver Art Gallery, Hayward Gallery (London), Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal. In 2016 Lake was awarded the Governor General’s Award in Visual Arts, and in 2024 the Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement by the College Arts Association. Her works can be found in the collections of international institutions including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the Albright Knox Gallery (Buffalo), The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York) and the The Museum of Modern Art (New York). She is represented by Mfc-Michele Didier (Paris).