What immediately strikes you as you enter the gallery for Jeremy Laing’s new show, Mutuality, at Susan Hobbs Gallery in Toronto, is that you must pass through a curtain of chains hanging from the ceiling. Before you walk through it, however, you are greeted by what looks like a couple of non descript, discarded seat covers leaning against the wall on the floor. It is an odd welcome. You are not sure whether you are looking at scrap metal or plastic, and it hardly feels inviting. As you finally move through the curtain, not entirely sure what precious objects you might be breaking in the process, a ripple effect is created. You begin to notice more variations of the seat covers throughout the room, with the collection building into a larger grouping of objects on the second floor of the gallery. These seat covers, you later learn, are ceramic and are repeated and altered throughout the exhibition. Jeremy describes the seat as a metaphor for shaping and being shaped at the same time, fitting oneself into various social molds while simultaneously shifting one’s own shape and boundaries. I would take the metaphor even further, suggesting that this shifting of form can also produce moments of distortion, recalling the work of Sameer Farooq and his ceramic replicas of museum packaging for precious artifacts.
As I reflected on the show, I saw elements from many of Jeremy’s past sculptures alongside echoes of his years hosting warehouse parties. Since 2004, Jeremy, along with many collaborators, has been organizing large queer parties in Toronto, including Big Primpin, Boop, New Nails, and currently, For the Lovers. Entering the gallery through the curtain of chains, under dimmed lighting, took me back to those early moments of stepping into venues that felt dingy and dangerous. As my eyes adjusted, I would slowly make out dancing figures and people dressed just as sluttily as me, and I would know I could relax. I had found my tribe. The uncertain and industrial entrance to Mutuality mirrors that experience, where apprehension gives way to celebration once inside.
Images credit: Toni Hafkenscheid
Images Credit: LF Documentation
About the artist
Jeremy was born in 1979 in Peterborough, Ontario, and raised on a military base in Germany. He studied fashion design at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University, from 1998 to 2002, including an exchange program at the University of Westminster in London. In 2022, he completed a Master’s degree in Visual Studies at the University of Toronto.
Jeremy apprenticed with Alexander McQueen from approximately 2000 to 2004, presented multiple collections at New York Fashion Week, and operated a successful fashion label from 2005 to 2013 or 2014. After retiring from fashion design, he transitioned fully into sculpture. I had the privilege of teaching Jeremy ceramics at my previous studio on Spadina Avenue in Toronto in 2017, and he also produced the work for his 2024 exhibition Stockroom at the Burlington Centre for the Arts here at Clay Space.
