Best known for his photography and conceptual art, Arnaud Maggs began his career as an artist in the 1970s. However, Maggs was already an artist before he officially declared it in his forties-he was established as a fashion photographer and graphic designer. After training and working as a graphic designer, Maggs decided to become a visual artist concentrating on photography and conceptualism. As an artist, he has been critically renowned for his serial approach to image making and social history. In works that range from portraiture to archival documentation, and which are often presented in large-scale photo-grid installations, he has consistently struck a masterful balance between the conceptual mechanics of photography and a deep-set humanist sensitivity for narrative and history (McLaughlin 23).
The work from Arnaud Maggs that opened at the Susan Hobbs Gallery is slightly unusual. Entitled The Köchel Series, it is consistent with Arnaud's earlier work, in which the means of presentation3 persists, as does the general concern of classification. Each part of the piece is placed appropriately to represent a specific type of composition horizontally, vertically and diagonally. Even with the absence of an actual image of a person and neutrality in color, these works create a poignant portrait of life's traces. Derived from the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's musical catalogue, the Köchel Series does not sit far from Maggs' major conceptual concerns. Each print depicts a single annotation from the Köchel-Verzeichnis4. Ludwig von Köchel, a 19th century Austrian musicologist, published the monograph in 1862, and his system of annotation-a capital letter K, followed by a number-has remained a "helpful shorthand" in referring to individual works in Mozart's vast output. The Köchel Series can be seen as an abstract biography of Mozart, an index of the composer's development as an artist from life to death.