JAN DE COCK INSTALLATION TO OPEN AT MUSEUM OF MODERN ART  JAN. 23

AVV 11-26 #720515

NEW YORK CITY — The Museum of Modern Art will present the exhibition “Jan De Cock,” on view January 23–April 21.

For his first museum exhibition in the United States, artist Jan De Cock (Belgian, b 1976) will conceive a floor-to-ceiling installation mixing color and black and white photographs with a series of plywood sculptural components that are rooted in early Twentieth Century Constructivism and the Minimalist aesthetic of the 1960s.

De Cock came to New York this summer to photograph specific works from MoMA’s collection focusing on the artists Eadweard J. Muybridge, Eugène Atget, Josef Albers, Kazimir Malevich, Lyubov Popova, Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian, Kurk Schwitters, Edward Hopper and Donald Judd as well as on the museum’s state-of-the-art conservation labs, frame shop, library and The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1.

De Cock shot the pictures with two cameras — a large-format Swiss Sinar and a Hasselblad — from different angles, favoring a sequential format. After processing the film, he digitally combined these with other images culled from the history of art, architecture and film in his signature, encyclopedic style.

The German word Denkmal, which appears in the titles of De Cock’s installations, signifies “monument.” However, in the artist’s native Dutch, 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. 

The Museum of Modern Art is at 11 West 53rd Street. For information, www.moma.org or 212-708-9400.