The New York Times recently ran an article with the headline “Art Isn’t Supposed to Make You Comfortable”—Margaret Lazzari’s series of works devoted to her traumatic struggle with breast cancer, “The Cancer Series,” fits right into that category. More than 30 works of paintings, drawings and videos created between the years 2003 and 2004—when Lazzari was in treatment—fill the back gallery of the USC Fisher Museum, where the smaller gallery for this intimate show seems the perfect space for these bold and sometimes hard-to-look-at work.

Margaret Lazzari. CHAKRAS. Acrylic on unstretched canvas, 47.5 x 35 inches, 2004

Making a point of exposing her scars from breast surgery, Lazzari doesn’t hold back with this candid look at her experience with cancer. There are three videos—each around two-minutes long, all self-portraits. In one particularly strong video titled Headdress (2004), we see her nude reflection stopping at her breasts, cropped closely within the frame (almost like an accident). Lazarri preens and fake-smiles as she tries on different wigs, hats and scarves for masking her bald head, a result from the chemo treatment. She applies makeup as she tries out different profiles with each new look. This is hard to watch—even though her grooming is somewhat charming and comical—because the scarred breast is always in the frame, as a constant reminder, along with her baldness of the hardship she’s been through. In another animation video, Tumbling (2004), Lazzari’s charcoal drawings of her bald nude figure cascade downward in different stages of repose, intertwining, overlapping and overlaying, eventually obliterating the image sometimes, accompanied with heavy breathing sounds, seemingly in agony. All of a sudden the ominous soundtrack fades into a breezy jazz background music for a cocktail party. Then the screen flashes—for only a second—to Lazarri looking glamorous with a fetching platinum short haircut dressed in a deep-blue, low-cut cocktail dress—but alone, not at a cocktail party.

Margaret Lazzari. 25 Flower Paintings from the Get Well Series (ongoing). 2021-2024. Acrylic on Canvas, each is 10 x 8 inches. As installed in Fisher Museum.

The gallery is filled with other drawings, all self-portraits, in various stages of her breast surgery. Lazarri does not leave anything to the imagination, exposing the pain and abyss one enters with chemotherapy. One might expect the series to be sympathy-inducing, but the work is so powerful and daring, the viewer is more in awe and empathy. She does, however, provide hope, implied by a grid of 25 same-sized small paintings, all of flowers, filling one wall. This is from the ongoing “Get Well” series (2021–24), depicting all the flowers she received from well-wishers. So, in the midst of all the pain, there is a brightness to the darkness that Lazzari presents in this emotionally charged exhibition, and yes, it makes us uncomfortable. Like art is supposed to do.

Margaret Lazzari: The Cancer Series
USC Fisher Museum of Art
Through May 10, 2024