Luis Jacob: Connecting the Dots
Luis Jacob Album X 2010 Detail Courtesy the artist and Birch Libralato
The excitement of a new Luis Jacob show for Torontonians rests not only on the artist’s recent successes abroad—from Documenta 12 in 2007 to last year’s inclusion in the Guggenheim group show “Haunted” and, then, a solo show at New York’s Art in General—but also on the wait the city has had to see these successes in person. Indeed, Toronto hasn’t had an entire gallery devoted to the work of this hometown boy since the Documenta work was displayed at Birch Libralato that same year. In the interim, Jacob has touched down on places close by—Queen’s University’s Union Gallery and, last year, in a triumphant outing, Montreal’s Darling Foundry—with work that bears traces of his Toronto roots. The debut version of the show at Union Gallery, forms of which were carried on to Art in General, came from a Nuit Blanche project at Maple Leaf Gardens; at the Darling Foundry, there were photographs of abandoned artist studios on Hanna Avenue.
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Luis Jacob Dot Drawing 1990 Courtesy the artist and Birch Libralato |
Jacob’s new show at the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art is a sequel of sorts to that Darling Foundry show, part of a “multi-city, mid-career survey” that pays heed to its various exhibition contexts. Accordingly, Jacob has decided to make the Toronto portion a revisiting of his earliest output—small colour-field paintings, text-based works that emerged from a University of Toronto class assignment in 1990, and (as a promotional image) a picture of him taken in high school—in light of recent, similar projects, such as his “tie-dye paintings,” owl-like interpolations of Rothko, which will soon appear as public art on the city’s new Dufferin underpass. Also on display is the latest volume of his Album series—archives of found images that follow intuitive narratives and, this time, reflect on the act of art consumption as both local and international, self-reflexive and universal. (952 Queen St W, Toronto ON)
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Luis Jacob They Sleep With One Eye Open 2008 Detail Courtesy the artist and Birch Libralato |
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Luis Jacob Untitled, April 4, 1995 1995 Courtesy the artist and Birch Libralato |
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