Taking the title of a bestselling American self-help book for women from the 1950s, Glorify Yourself is a visceral, intellectual and often quite funny reaction to the advice offered by the book and as a consequence the social norms and constructs it embodies. Finding in the book lessons such as ‘Inviting lips’, ‘Every Woman a Model’ and ‘A Graceful Walk’, Drake feels compelled to cajole and mock, to poke fun at and to literally and metaphorically deconstruct the book.

Originally included as part of her exhibition Men Untitled, a series of portraits of middle-aged men and the symbolism around masculinity she finds perplexing, Glorify Yourself is an acerbic critique of the “the universe of desires and delusions that gave rise to the world we inhabit” (Drake). By working off a textbook, reworking and deconstructing it, Drake continues and develops further a method of working she first begun with Internat and to some extent Wild Pigeon. But instead of inviting collaboration as in these previous bodies of work, here Drake works alone in her studio, photographing herself and then reworking and layering, chopping and stitching and literally inserting herself into the book like a virus corrupting its message that, seventy years after the publication of the book, still jars.