Working more as facilitator or restorer than artist, ROBIN COLLYER produces sculptural and photographic works through processes that eschew formal and compositional criteria. Through avoiding conventional means of production, Collyer facilitates “as-is” or “fixed-up” objects in unexpected ways. Recent double-exposed photographs are produced with elements of chance and randomness. In 1969, artist Douglas Heubler remarked, in a statement mirroring Collyer’s recent philosophy of production, “The world is full of objects, more or less interesting; I do not wish to add any more. I prefer, simply, to state the existence of things in terms of time and/or space.”
Documentation
Essay
A few opening remarks*
[...]Each, insofar as it stands forth, is marked by what it is not, internally spaced out so that if one were to superpose one case onto the other, each unit would see itself imposed upon by this lackits doppelganger as you put it. The actual space between the units that Collyer emphasizes by cropping and the addition of the symbol becomes the representative of their having been re-marked.[...]
Artist Bio
Robin Collyer
Robin Collyer is a Toronto-based artist who reworks objects and images that evoke both familiarity and surprise. Collyer has exhibited regularly since the 1970s throughout Canada, the U.S., and Europe and his most recent commissions include Dwell, an outdoor sculpture installation for the TTC/Sheppard Subway Station (2005), and Canopy, an integrated artwork for the Canadian Embassy in Berlin, Germany (2002). His work appears in the collections of the Art Gallery of Ontario (Toronto), the National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa), the Vancouver Art Gallery (Vancouver), the Muse d’art contemporain (Montreal), and the Muse des Beaux Arts de Nantes (Nantes), among others. Collyer has exhibited in group shows several times at YYZ (1984’s Influencing Machines, 1986’s The Interpretation of Architecture, 2003’s Psychotopes); This is his first solo exhibition with us. Collyer is represented by Susan Hobbs Gallery.