TORONTO.- Praised by Artforum for her “multilayered swirl of reality, fiction and perception” and by the New York Times for her “savvy and elegant” images, Anne Collier makes coolly analytic photographs that dare to ask how photography influences our perception. Tackling issues of gender, celebrity, perception and appropriation, Anne Collier marks the American photographer’s first major solo exhibition and brings together 40 large-scale prints, including works from her signature Woman with a Camera series. Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) and on view at the Art Gallery of Ontario from Sept. 23, 2015, Anne Collier invites visitors to reconsider how we see images. The exhibition runs to Jan. 10, 2016, and makes its only Canadian stop in Toronto.

Additions to the AGO installation of Anne Collier include three recent aquisitions to the AGO’s growing contemporary photography collection. Clouds (2012) and Photo (Tom Jacobi) (2013) were both purchased by the AGO with funds from The New Group, with assistance from The Contemporary Circle Fund. Collier’s iconic Negative (California)(2013) is a promised gift to the Gallery from donors Robin & Malcolm Anthony and Donna & Robert Poile.

Born in California, Collier (b. 1970) has produced a body of work notable for its conceptual ambition. Using a manual 4-by-5-inch camera, she still embraces traditional forms of image production, using chemical processing and printing, even as she invites viewers to reconsider their use. Building upon the legacies of such artists as Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince, Collier recontextualizes images sourced from popular culture—including record-album sleeves, magazines, coffee-table books, Hollywood film stills and pictorial calendars—and reshoots these artifacts. Her nuanced photographs draw attention to the assumptions embedded in these objects, to the clichés and conventions of commercial photography and the lingering effects of sexism.

Photographs of photographs of heavily photographed women, Collier’s Woman with a Camera series depicts female celebrities, among them Marilyn Monroe, Faye Dunaway, Jacqueline Bisset and the supermodel Cheryl Tiegs, posing with cameras. These images offer a feminist twist on the “male gaze,” and their impact is amplified later in the series Questions (2011), whose printed queries ask the viewer directly, “Why is this important?”, “Could things be otherwise?” and “What is the source and how reliable is it?” Combining the personal and the analytical, Collier locates herself within the bigger pop-culture context, as seen in works like Folded Madonna Poster (Steven Meisel) (2007), where an iconic 1990’s image of the singer smoking in bed is recontextualized.

Anne Collier is curated by MCA Chief Curator Michael Darling. Installation of the exhibition at the AGO is being coordinated by Kitty Scott, the AGO’s curator of contemporary art and modern art. Anne Collier will be on view in the AGO’s fourth-floor Contemporary Tower.

“[Collier’s] work feels timely and relevant because we’re so photo-obsessed right now,” says Michael Darling. “Taking a retrospective look at these technologies and how women have been portrayed in them prepares you to think about how photos are being used today.”

“This artwork invites scrutiny,” says Scott. “It is both personal and nuanced in its critique. It asks us to reconsider the photograph and to re-evaluate what we choose to take images of and how we do so. We are very pleased to welcome Anne and another incredible exhibition of contemporary photography to Toronto.”

Anne Collier (b. 1970) lives and works in New York City. She received a MFA from the University of California Los Angeles and a BFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She was recently a visiting artist at the Yale University School of Art, New Haven. An internationally exhibited artist, Collier’s works are held in collections around the world. Recent solo exhibitions include the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL; Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO; The Modern Institute, Glasgow, Scotland; and Marc Foxx, Los Angeles, CA. Forthcoming solo exhibitions are planned for Anton Kern Gallery, New York, NY, Rat Hole Gallery, Tokyo and Galerie Neu in Berlin in 2016.