Simon Fraser University
Engaging the World

Susan Bozic: The Dating Portfolio

January 12 – February 23, 2008
SFU Gallery

Romance is always changing; it has always been the same. The cinema has long-ago arrogated to itself the task of representing romance's pleasures and foibles, while the global revival of staged, performance-based photography that began with Cindy Sherman and Jeff Wall's work in the late 1970s has rarely taken romance as its subject.

Susan Bozic's The Dating Portfolio documents her character's dates with a male mannequin and reflects on consumer society's pursuit of the good life and advertising's “Hollywood ending” approach to spending one's way to happiness. Bozic expands the boundaries of performative photography and indirectly references the Internet dating phenomenon by staging dates with someone a little bit “different.” Her project merges the optimism of movie-star promotional photographs with questions about both the tradition of courtship and its current state.

The exhibition is accompanied by a 64-page catalogue with texts by Gordon Hatt and Bill Jeffries. The catalogue, co-published with the Southern Alberta Art Gallery and Rodman Hall Arts Centre, includes new images from Bozic's follow-up series, The Dating Portfolio: Meeting The Parents. The artist will be in attendance.

Susan Bozic completed her BFA at Concordia University in 1998 and currently lives and works in Vancouver.

Curated by Bill Jeffries.

Events

Opening Reception and Book Launch
Saturday, January 12, 2008, 3–5pm

Artist Talk: Susan Bozic
Wednesday, January 16, 2008, 7pm
Room 1600, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street

Lunchtime Tours of the Exhibition
Wednesday, January 16, 12:05pm
Thursday, January 17, 12:35pm
Wednesday. January 23, 12:35pm

Panel Discussion: Dating Photographs and Dating Mannequins
Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 7pm
Room 1600, SFU Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings Street
Speakers: Grant Arnold, Curator, Vancouver Art Gallery; Jessie Caryl, Vancouver-based writer and curator; Bill Jeffries, Director/Curator, SFU Gallery.

A panel discussion on the possibilities (or impossibilities) of love and socializing in a universe dominated by the Internet, and on the relationship of present-day romance to contemporary art.