Susan Hobbs

Didier Courbot

28 Nov 2013 - 18 Jan 2014

Didier Courbot, Table Works 2013
Didier Courbot

Opening on Thursday, 28 November from 7 to 9 p.m., and continuing through to 18 January 2014, the gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Didier Courbot.

For this exhibition, Courbot presents a series of new sculptural works as a concurrent extension of his needs (1999-present) series. In needs, Courbot documents his improvements to existing public infrastructure as unprecedented acts of civic duty. His actions, deliberately earnest and eccentric, pit against Situationist tactics, from nailing a bird house to a street lamp at a busy Paris intersection to painting a chess board on a concrete embankment along the Seine. Courbot’s new works distill the ethos of the needs works into discrete, furniture-like objects. Among them, a book stand, a wall hook, and a fruit bowl refer formally and conceptually to previous needs and demonstrate his ongoing maintenance of previous public gestures but as proposals for domestic space.

In addition, a selection of new tabletop sculptures and wearable objects demonstrate his improvisational approaches to material and acute sense of aesthetics. Each work is an intimate formal study of a scrap of discarded material from his studio, either poised on custom brass stands or plated in gold.

Paris-based Didier Courbot was born in Hazebrouck (Nord), France in 1967, and studied at the Ecole regionale des Beaux-Arts in Dunkerque. His work has been broadly exhibited in Europe, including recent exhibitions at Maison Revel – Centre de ressources du Pôle Pantin Métiers d'Art, Pantin, France; Fondation Fernet-Branca, St. Louis, France; Les Rencontres d’Arles Photographie, Marseille, France; Museum of Modern Art, Moscow; John Tevis Gallery, Paris; La Maréchalerie centre d’art contemporain, Versailles, France. As well, he has recently exhibited at SCAI THE BATHHOUSE Gallery, Tokyo and Access Gallery, Vancouver.

Susan Hobbs Gallery is open to the public Wednesday to Saturday from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and by appointment. The gallery is located at 137 Tecumseth Street, Toronto.

For more information about this exhibition or the Susan Hobbs Gallery, please give us a call at (416) 504.3699 or visit www.susanhobbs.com.

 

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