EYE CANDY
Jakub Dolejs
Jakub Dolejs made a graceful Toronto debut at Angell Gallery last fall with his large-format photographs of period-outfitted models arranged, tableau style, in front of obviously painted backdrops: like Rodney Graham or Jeff Wall, Dolejs managed a sly yet beautiful investigation of art's cyclical commingling with the past. His new show, "AutumnFall," presses harder on the postmodernity of such ideas, leaving behind the romance; the images are still big, but detached and concertedly minimal. In fact, Dolejs manages to address the semiotic ambiguities of his Prague childhood (when Cyrillic Russian propaganda melded with the Latin text of his native Czech) without a touch of intimacy. Here, models confront large, mirrored fonts like they're lost, Tron-like, in some Northern European boutique hotel, or about to be swallowed by a Liam Gillick installation.
—David Balzer
Jakub Dolejs' “AutumnFall” runs to Nov 20. Angell Gallery, 890 Queen W. 416-530-0444. www.angellgallery.com.
