ART:
Jan De Cock
Denkmal 11, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street NYC Thru 14 April 2008
For his first museum exhibition in the United States, artist Jan De Cock (Belgian, born 1976) will conceive a floor-to-ceiling installation mixing color and black-and-white photographs with a series of plywood sculptural modules that recall twentieth-century abstraction. Made in response to the particular site in which they are displayed, the pictures will be of specific objects and installation views of MoMA's collection that De Cock has previously photographed from different angles and at times combined with other images culled from the history of art, architecture, and film in an encyclopedic style. The German word Denkmal, which appears in the titles of all De Cock's works, signifies "monument." However, in Dutch (the artist's native language) the expression incorporates two meanings: denk (to think) and mal (mold). For De Cock, a Denkmal is a mold of thinking. The exhibition portrays the myriad photographic references and interdisciplinary links at the center of De Cock's work.
