Lacy, Suzanne

Dates:

Birth 1945

Gender:

Female

Nationality: Americans,

Language: English,

Biographical notes:

Suzanne Lacy (born 1945) is an American artist, educator, writer, and professor at the USC Roski School of Art and Design. She has worked in a variety of media, including installation, video, performance, public art, photography, and art books, in which she focuses on "social themes and urban issues." She served in the education cabinet of Jerry Brown, then mayor of Oakland, California, and as arts commissioner for the city. She designed multiple educational programs beginning with her role as performance faculty at The Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman's Building in Los Angeles.

In 1977, Lacy and collaborator Leslie Labowitz combined performance art with activism in Three Weeks in May. The event included a performance piece on the steps of Los Angeles City Hall and self-defense classes for women in an attempt to highlight and curb sexual violence against women. The artists updated a map with reports from the Los Angeles Police Department, printing the word "rape" on spots on a map of the greater Los Angeles Area. Lacy and Labowitz teamed up with Bia Lowe, and other artists, in 1977 to create, In Mourning and In Rage, a large-scale public protest performance. It had been designed to challenge media coverage that sensationalized a rash of murders of women by the so-called Hillside Strangler; the tone of the press coverage seemed geared to heighten the climate of fear which reinforced the image of women as victims.

Lacy produced many performances in various sites around the world, mostly focusing on race, class and gender equity. During the first two decades of the 2000s, she reworked earlier performances, including WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution, based upon the venues and objectives. In 2012, she re-created the 1977 performance for the Getty Pacific Standard Time Performance Festival. Three Weeks in January was an anti-rape performance based on her landmark 1977 project; this time the map was installed prominently on the Los Angeles Police Department's main campus.