The solo exhibition Day In, Day Out by Dutch photographer Teun Hocks (1947) at TORCH Gallery featured ten new photo-paintings that Hocks had created over the previous two years. He is known for his humorous self-portraits, in which he uses oil paint to color his previously made analog black-and-white photographs by hand.
His working method had remained unchanged since the '80s, and this new series showed that his imagination was still as vivid as ever. At the same time, an overview of his work, from his earliest pieces to his recent work, was on display in From Early to Late, at Stedelijk Museum Breda.
Hocks is one of the founders and defining artists of staged photography in the Netherlands. Although he began as a performance and video artist, he soon found his place among a group of photographers who theatrically reinvented photography in the '80s.
Since then, Hocks has created works that sit between photography and painting, and between self-portrait and performance. In his studio, he builds a set with a painted background. He takes his place in it and uses a self-timer to make a black-and-white photograph of the scene. Hocks then colors the final gelatin silver print himself using oil paint. The result is an uncanny convergence of techniques that gives the works a timeless quality atypical of the medium.
...there are a few rare works in which the artist does not appear...
Although Hocks is almost always the subject of his own work—there are a few rare works in which the artist does not appear—the images are more about humanity in general. Hocks assumes the role of a rather hapless everyman. This 'little man'—with all the outward characteristics of the powerless bourgeois (a gray suit, a worn briefcase, and a hat that is always blowing away)—repeatedly lands in magical-realist dilemmas.
With a rueful expression, this bungler endures impossible trials and thus implicitly tells stories about global issues on a human scale. Through his little man, Hocks also refers to the curious fundamentals of art: the illusions and assumptions needed to understand Western art history.
Teun Hocks (1947, Leiden) lives and works in France. His work is represented by galleries including TORCH in Amsterdam. His work has been exhibited worldwide and forms part of many important institutional and private collections.
Concurrent with the solo exhibition at Stedelijk Museum Breda: From Early to Late – The Performances of Teun Hocks, February 19–June 10, 2019.
Text: © TORCH Gallery
Day In, Day Out – Teun Hocks
TORCH Gallery
February 23–March 30, 2019
