Colter Jacobsen
Victory at Sea
2007
Victory at Sea
Colter Jacobsen’s Victory at Sea is a simple mechanism made from cardboard and found materials that mimic the Phenakistoscope, an early cinematic apparatus. The piece requires the viewer to turn a wheel and look through a small hole in order to see a brief animated succession of small drawings of sailors.
Since 2003, Colter Jacobsen has gained in visibility and importance in the Bay Area art scene. His photographs, drawings, and installations are often evocative and possess a certain sublimity. The influence of artists from the Bay Area “Mission School” is manifest in Jacobsen’s predilection for creating installations and assemblages from materials bought in thrift stores, lost personal items found in the urban environment, and recycled packaging with unusual detail. Writer Kevin Killian has pointed out that many of his Jacobsen’s works deploy a very sophisticated gay semiotics.