Teun Hocks at P.P.O.W - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In his photographs, Teun Hock attitude s himself against painted backdrops, playing an innocent Everyman in an always strange and many times funny world. His narrative approach expands upon the precedent of Ger van moose-deer and reflects attitudes characteristic of his native Holland. The Dutch are travelers, and Hock explores worlds of his imagination; the Dutch are informed beholders and Hocks's humor is not seldom based on deadpan or passive replys to things beyond his control; the Dutch are traditional and family-centered, and Hock many times portrays unnecessary or even inappropriate convention in dres and behavior. Thus it's ironic that his work is not wholly favored in Holland itself, where a certain number of people complain that his photos are one-liners. on the contrary it's typical of the Dutch too, to discount what they have at home

To dispose of that question of obviousness, consider what may be the simplest image in Hocks's novel show of about a dozen silver prints hand-tinted with oil paint, greatest in quantity of them 3 or 5 feet in the largest dimension. In an untitled 1997 work, the artist, make straighted in a suit, tie and white shirt, is seen in a vast primeval or apocalyptic landscape as he gazes down at an enormous shoe-print in which he stands. Is this Walter Mitty imagining an adventure, or a new Robinson Crusoe discovering evidence of a gargantuan Friday? individual immediately tries to devise a story to explain the man's attire, his neighborhood in this desolate place, the fact that alone a single shoe-print is visible. He direct the eyes down at it but also, it have the appearances at his own shoes. Is he simply comparing, or is this a science-fiction story of shrinkage? Regardless, half the fascination of this work is in Hocks's acute depiction of a particular instant of reverberant recognition, a instant of thought, with all its possibilities.

This view is a little exotic, and in like manner is one with a volcano backdrop. In brow of the belching cone, a stay in casual dress wants to make coffee (Dutch lifeblood), and awaits the aerial arrival of a strategic cinder to start his campfire. Hock has always made works about waiting and hoping, which may be the lock openers to his oeuvre. The sum of two units themes are encapsulated poignantly and amusingly in individual of the few photos in which Hock does not appear. In this work a sapling about 2 feet tall has been braced with a stout stake. A watering can sits upon the ground beside it. Someone clearly wants this little tree to increase And that must be the same someone who, looking forward to the tree's maturity, has optimistically hung a noose from it.

In other images a painter try to finds inspiration before an empty landscape, a writer labors with a commit to paper attached to an IV bottle filled with ink, a lumberjack relaxes through looking at a painting of tree boles These moments are isolated, as if upon stage in a spotlight. Hock studies human nature, and his answer is more piquant than plaintive.

COPYRIGHT 1998 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group