Minimalist composition featuring a white rectangular panel suspended between two vertical metal frames with wood and dark accents, set against a neutral background. The geometric intervention questions spatial perception through stark contrast between the inserted form and its surrounding environment.

Place (Series) + Lines In My Eyes

Bill Jacobson

5/8/2015 – 6/20/2015

Press Release (PDF)

Haw Contemporary is pleased to announce a solo exhibition of two related series by New York-based Bill Jacobson. Place (Series) + Lines In My Eyes together showcase the celebrated photographer's newest bodies of work, completed between 2009 and 2014. A 92 page monograph, recently published by Radius Books (Santa Fe), will accompany the exhibition and be available for sale at the gallery.

For Place (Series), Jacobson inserts rectangles of various sizes and surfaces within both studio-based and natural settings. The subsequent photographs question the notion of what constitutes an image, as well as what is ‘real’ and what is ‘abstract’. Through their peculiar manner of construction they suggest the creation of place, and the simple act of placing, as manifestations of choice and desire. On the surface they differ from Jacobson's earlier defocussed imagery; yet they are connected through underlying concerns with memory, perception and the dialogue between absence and presence. While Place (Series) involves interventions by the artist, Lines In My Eyes is more about direct observation of the built world. Both touch on something deeply human in their exploration of the impulse to construct space, image and the physical world around us.

Jacobson received a 2012 grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation. In addition, a number of the images were made during residencies at MacDowell Colony (2009 and 2010), Civitella Ranieri Foundation (2013), and Bogliasco Foundation (2014).

Spanning a career of over 40 years, Bill Jacobson has published four previous monographs, and exhibited widely throughout the U.S. and Europe. His work is in numerous museum collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art; The Guggenheim Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Nelson-Atkins Museum; Victoria and Albert Museum; and many others.

Exhibition Images ()

  • Four framed photographs mounted on a white gallery wall display geometric interventions within architectural and natural spaces. The images feature rectangular shapes of varying colors and materials—moss green, deep brown, ochre, and mixed tones—inserted into doorways, corners, and interior scenes, exploring the relationship between placement, perception, and constructed space.
  • Contemporary gallery space with polished concrete floor and white walls featuring four framed photographs spaced across the walls. Each photograph depicts geometric forms—colored rectangles and blocks—positioned within architectural or landscape settings. Natural light streams through a central opening, illuminating the minimal, clean composition of the gallery interior.
  • Three framed photographs hang on a white gallery wall, each featuring geometric compositions of colored rectangles and planes arranged within minimalist settings. The leftmost image shows stacked brown and gray forms, the center depicts a light rectangular aperture, and the right presents layered tan, gray, and black elements. The works explore abstract spatial relationships and the interplay between constructed and observed forms.
Minimalist composition featuring a white rectangular panel suspended between two vertical metal frames with wood and dark accents, set against a neutral background. The geometric intervention questions spatial perception through stark contrast between the inserted form and its surrounding environment.

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