Lez Con: An Exhibition by Onya Hogan-Finlay

Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives, Toronto

January 20 – April 10, 2012

ONE Archives’ collaborator and sister Onya Hogan-Finlay currently has an exhibition, Lez Con, on view at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives (CLGA) in Toronto. Lez Con is a satellite exhibition in conjunction with Coming After, an international group exhibition on queer time at The Power Plant, also in Toronto  (December 10, 2011 – March 4, 2012), for which Onya produced the 2012 calender Periods, with image from calenders at ONE Archives.

A description of the exhibition Lez Con:

“Where is the lesbian content? Artist, Onya Hogan-Finlay, presents an explorative and humorous exhibition that unearths lesbian representation in the CLGA. Groupings of lesbian books, periodicals, journals, photos, buttons, paintings from the CLGA National Portrait Collection and ephemera appear along side Onya’s limited edition artist multiples, screen prints, photo collages, ink drawings and videos.

“While Canadian Content (Can Con) regulations shape the fabric of Canada culture, Lez Con exposes the often overlooked indexical record of the political, aesthetic and sex lives of lesbians. Much like the museum, LGBTQ archives often reproduce institutional sites of hegemonic masculinity that enjoy the same pervasive conditions of white male privilege that underpin Western historical canons. The works in Lez Con represent a platform for lesbians and the artist-curator to image and represent their own eroticisms, lifestyles, desires, and fantasies through a lesbian-to-lesbian gaze which actively challenges the potential misogynist and conventional heteronormative male consumption of women’s bodies.”

So if you are in Toronto in the coming months make sure to check out these shows! More information on Lez Con can be found here. Information on Coming After at the Power Plant can be found here.

Above: Onya Hogan-Finlay, Cover of the 2012 Calender Periods, 2012, and Poster created for Lez Con at the CLGA, 2012.