Arnaud Maggs: The Köchel Series
04 Sep - 11 Oct 2014
Arnaud Maggs
The Köchel Series
Opening on Thursday, 11 September from 7 to 9 p.m., and open for viewing from September 4th until October 11th, the gallery is pleased to present The Köchel Series by Arnaud Maggs.
Arnaud Maggs’ artistic practice emerged naturally from his work as a graphic designer, where his photographic studies of envelopes, colour charts, hotel signage, and human subjects refigured the world within ordered systems of classification. Maggs’ Köchel Series (1990) depicts selections from Ludwig von Köchel’s Köchel-Verzeichnis, the first complete and chronological catalogue of all of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 626 works, from his first pieces composed at the clavier as a young boy to his final Requiem prior to his death at the age of 35. Similar to Maggs’ large-scale installation The Complete Prestige 12" Jazz Catalogue (1988), here he focuses not on the content of each record but the numerical signifier derived from von Köchel’s system: a capital letter K, followed by a period, and then a number. Working with the late Toronto type designer Ed Cleary, Maggs letterpressed each entry in black ink onto rag paper. But rather than repeating von Köchel’s comprehensive survey here Maggs presents selections culled from the whole and organized into thematic groupings—a way of bracketing Mozart’s diverse body of work into overarching themes.
The exhibition will be on view beginning September 4, with an opening reception on September 11. This will be the first large-scale exhibition of these works in Toronto.
Arnaud Maggs was born in Montreal in 1926 and died in Toronto in 2012. Maggs worked as a successful graphic designer and fashion photographer until his late-forties, when he decided to pursue a career as an artist. His work has been exhibited in venues across Canada, the United States and Europe. His work has been collected by the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Vancouver Art Gallery and the Maison Europeanne de la Photographie in Paris, as well as additional public and private collections in Canada and Europe. He was recognized with numerous honours, including the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (1984), the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (1991), a Governor-General’s Award in Visual Arts (2006) and The ScotiaBank Photography Award (2012). In 1999, The Power Plant hosted a twenty-five year retrospective of his work, and the National Gallery of Canada mounted a survey exhibition in 2012.
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.
The Köchel Series
Opening on Thursday, 11 September from 7 to 9 p.m., and open for viewing from September 4th until October 11th, the gallery is pleased to present The Köchel Series by Arnaud Maggs.
Arnaud Maggs’ artistic practice emerged naturally from his work as a graphic designer, where his photographic studies of envelopes, colour charts, hotel signage, and human subjects refigured the world within ordered systems of classification. Maggs’ Köchel Series (1990) depicts selections from Ludwig von Köchel’s Köchel-Verzeichnis, the first complete and chronological catalogue of all of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 626 works, from his first pieces composed at the clavier as a young boy to his final Requiem prior to his death at the age of 35. Similar to Maggs’ large-scale installation The Complete Prestige 12" Jazz Catalogue (1988), here he focuses not on the content of each record but the numerical signifier derived from von Köchel’s system: a capital letter K, followed by a period, and then a number. Working with the late Toronto type designer Ed Cleary, Maggs letterpressed each entry in black ink onto rag paper. But rather than repeating von Köchel’s comprehensive survey here Maggs presents selections culled from the whole and organized into thematic groupings—a way of bracketing Mozart’s diverse body of work into overarching themes.
The exhibition will be on view beginning September 4, with an opening reception on September 11. This will be the first large-scale exhibition of these works in Toronto.
Arnaud Maggs was born in Montreal in 1926 and died in Toronto in 2012. Maggs worked as a successful graphic designer and fashion photographer until his late-forties, when he decided to pursue a career as an artist. His work has been exhibited in venues across Canada, the United States and Europe. His work has been collected by the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, Vancouver Art Gallery and the Maison Europeanne de la Photographie in Paris, as well as additional public and private collections in Canada and Europe. He was recognized with numerous honours, including the Canada Council’s Victor Martyn Lynch-Staunton Award (1984), the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (1991), a Governor-General’s Award in Visual Arts (2006) and The ScotiaBank Photography Award (2012). In 1999, The Power Plant hosted a twenty-five year retrospective of his work, and the National Gallery of Canada mounted a survey exhibition in 2012.
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.