Robert Fones
Series #3 in the Project Room
Sculpture, Prints & Bookwork

Toronto Artist
Brochure: Project Room Series (1992-1993)

MEDIA RELEASE

Under the title Series, Mercer Union is presenting a number of exhibitions in the Project Room which investigate the recent history of local art.

Series 3 is an exhibition of work by Robert Fones from the early 1970's. The show opens on November 26 at 8pm and continues through December 19, 1992.

Fones' Anthropomorphs are based on a collection of found company trademarks such as the famous "Michelin Man" which mimic the shape of the human body. The work in the exhibition represents these trademarks in various ways: a human-scale cut-out, as collage, drawings or in the form of book.

Drawing on signage and packaging images Fones recalls from his childhood, these logos are representative of a particular historic marketing strategy which strove to mitigate the alienation of industrial society by giving human form to mass produced commodities. Recalling the strategies of Pop Art and Duchampian ready mades, popular in the 1970's, this work examines commercial logos as an image which is a complex economy of sign, language and social activity.

Robert Fones lives and works in Toronto. He was born in London, Ontario and studied at the London Artist's Workshop under Art Seger in 1962. Recent Solo exhibitions include Carambolage (1992) at the Staatlichen Kunsthalle in Baden Baden, Working Truths/Powerful Fictions (1991) at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina. In 1989 the Power Plant presented a retrospective titled Robert Fones: Selected Works 1979-1989 which has travelled throughout Ontario.

Mercer Union has produced a publication in conjunction with each of the Series exhibitions.