Artforum.com Critics’ Pick: Didier Courbot at Susan Hobbs, Toronto

This month on Artforum.com, I review Paris-based artist Didier Courbot’s solo show at Susan Hobbs. I was first introduced to Courbot’s work through “Site Exercises,” a show that Jen Hutton organized at Hobbs’ space in 2010 that featured several of Courbot’s drawings that served as propositions for interventions into the facade and architecture of the gallery. In these new works, similar to his ongoing needs series, Courbot makes temporary interventions in the urban landscape, this time using discarded materials and their constituent parts (such as this Adirondack chair) to create fanciful sculptures.

Courbot’s work is concurrently showing at Paris’ Jeu de Paume as part of the group show “BLOW UP” which focuses on artists’ infiltrations into the gallery space. For the show, which continues to March 2012, Courbot is executing a series of interventions in the gallery that neither the curators nor the gallery staff know about, such as painting one edge of a white wall leading to a staircase a vibrant teal colour, or leaving a fresh flower on the edge of a railing. There are more subtle switches planned, all of which you can follow on the gallery’s website.