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Teun Hocks
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Teun Hocks Hardcover – April 1, 2006

by Janet Koplos (Author), Teun Hocks (Photographer)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 8 ratings
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Though Dutch artist Teun Hocks--performer, photographer, painter--is widely known and shown around the world, this will be his first English-language book. In it, Hocks plays his signature role, which Janet Koplos describes as "an innocent Everyman in an always strange and often funny world", in scenes that range from burlesque to tragicomic. His lonely Buster Keaton-like persona perseveres through odd and unforgiving environments, struggling to find stable ground in an unstable, even absurd, universe. Life's complications and challenges take the form of impossible Rube Goldbergian contraptions fraught with psychological implications. Each engaging image captures one moment of an implied narrative, triggering questions about how the protagonist ever got himself into such a fix and what in the world will happen next. Hocks begins by sketching out various one-man narratives, and then poses himself in a carefully plotted setup against his own painted backdrop. After photographing the scene, he paints in oil on top of the resulting oversize gelatin silver print. In addition to his painted photographs,Teun Hocks includes drawings, Polaroids and studio shots that illuminate the artist's creative process. The wit, elaborate technique and rich colors of Hocks's images combine to form an irrepressibly original oeuvre.
Previous page
  1. Print length
    96 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Aperture
  4. Publication date
    April 1, 2006
  5. Dimensions
    9.5 x 0.25 x 10.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1931788782
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1931788786
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The elaborately staged self-portrait photographs of Dutch artist Hocks mine the same deep vein of poker-faced humor one finds in the films of Buster Keaton or the plays of Samuel Beckett, where the indifference of the universe and the insufficiency of human effort are made bearable by elaborately pointless jokes and pratfalls. The effect is not only deeply funny but strangely comforting, what essayist Koplos calls "the salve of humor." Somehow the adventures of Hocks's hapless everyman make our own lives slightly more bearable. In one image he walks with a little house strapped to his back, in another he cries while his tears pool into a waterfall. Demons fly around his desk at night; he stands on a chair and inserts his head into a picture frame. The pictures are as visually rich as they are tongue-in-cheek; working from drawings and constructing backgrounds, Hock makes the photograph and then paints over the result with oils. If fellow lowlander Magritte is a clear point of reference—not least in his puckish disrespect for Newtonian reality—the richness of the background landscapes reference several centuries of Dutch landscape art. This book, which also includes a number of the artist's drawings, is the first monograph on his work to be published in North America. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Images that make you think and smile at the same time." --AG

"The pictures are as visually rich as they are tongue-in-cheek; working from drawing and constructing backgrounds, Hocks makes the photograph and then paints over the result with oils." -- Publisher's Weekly

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Aperture; First Edition (April 1, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 96 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1931788782
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1931788786
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.5 x 0.25 x 10.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 8 ratings

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Teun Hocks

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
8 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

rohit loomba
5.0 out of 5 stars great!
Reviewed in the United States on February 28, 2011
Verified Purchase
good book! i'm a huge fan of teun hocks and this is a must have for all his fans. it has plenty of full page color images of his work for all to enjoy!
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Lars
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2006
Verified Purchase
A long overdue collection of photographs by Teun Hocks. These photographs are playful, witty, and insightful and linger in the imagination for a long time afterwards. Highly recommended!
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Kay L. Campbell
5.0 out of 5 stars Hocks rocks
Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2006
Verified Purchase
This store got me the book on Teun Hocks very quickly and in perfect condition. I'd definitely use them again.
One person found this helpful
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Suat Guler
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best albums I purchased lately
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2009
I have been studying on "deconstructivism" for some time. This book is a good example of how it works in visual arts. Questioning the system human created and trapped himself into dualities. Teun Hocks in his work creates a synthetic world of his own and selects very carefully which objects to put in and which objects to keep out. The language used in this world is "irony". You can develop your own scenario from each and every frame. The story is usually open ended for you to complete. Common theme is the tragedy of the ordinary man in daily life. Pressed from all sides and he is too week to question the resources of all this pressure. Often helpless. And he takes it very natural to surrender.

As the whole story is told in an artificial world created by the artist, each and every object in the works has a symbolic meaning. And that makes the album very valuable. You can spend quite a lot of time looking at each work one by one and think about the possible scenarios.

Although each frame represents a frozen moment, there is suspense and tension in almost all of them. That makes the frame "moving" and "dynamic". Especially in some pictures, you can feel the tension very deeply.

In summary, if you are into contemporary arts, this is an album you must have for sure, not only to have it in your library for referance, but to keep it on the table in your living room to refer from time to time.
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Top reviews from other countries

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Ben
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 4, 2017
Verified Purchase
some damage on the cover but good & fine nice book for that price
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ぽい
5.0 out of 5 stars 孤独を楽しむ人
Reviewed in Japan on October 28, 2008
Verified Purchase
ＴeunHocks・・・彼の出版されている唯一の画集。写真と油絵を組み合わせた不思議な世界。主人公は作者で、部屋に一人だったり、荒野に一人だったり、夜の街に一人だったり。
とてもさびしいはずなのに、描かれている主人公は一人が嫌いではないらしい。むしろ楽しんでいるようにも見える。
リアルな描写、ありえない設定、箱の中に作られた世界のような絵の数々。
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