Gareth Long: Let's Look at the Figures

Toronto, ON – opening on Thursday, 7 February 2019 from 6 to 8 p.m.  and continuing through to 23 March 2019, Susan Hobbs Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new works by Gareth Long.

Let's Look at the Figures is inspired by the popular British publishing imprint Pelican Books (1937-1984/1989). Focused on a range of intellectual subjects from urban planning to psychology, music, art and mathematics, the publishing platform functioned as a low-cost non-fiction paperback series often described as an everyman’s library – an autodidact’s university curriculum. The books provided much of the reading material for the sexual and political upheavals of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The works in this exhibition draw from the covers of each book produced in the years between 1970 and 1972, a time when the popularity and quality of the publishing series was in fact on the wane. This was the beginning of a new era of political unrest, economic stagnation, and the slow rise of neoliberalism – pressures that have particular bearing on our current moment of widespread political unease. The works distil, simplify, and reduce the book covers into a single object and colour. There are 140 objects taken from 140 books covers, arranged as a constellation of each year’s thinking.    

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.