Erika Hock:
Second Home – at Philara Collection, Dusseldorf
The second home is the mark of a generation of restless commuters and urban nomads. An almost paradoxical contrast to the notion of a native home, the term describes a temporary residence for dynamic agents in the flexible stages of their lives. Erika Hock’s sculptural works are the results of figures who ultimately refuse to become sedentary. Erika Hock’s hybrids of design, architecture, and fashion evoke the permanent visitors of our everyday worlds.
In her series Elbows & Knees, powder-coated steel tube constructions cavort in slapstick fashion. The anthropomorphized, object-like inter-agents test the architectonic limits of the surrounding space. While they seem to be exploring the possibilities of their own construction, they also resonate with your own body, animating you to do the same. One of design’s fundamental ideas—replicating the form of the body—is conceptualized backwards here. The results are character-objects that we recognize as partners, familiar allies with whom we can enter playful relationships. Here, Hock’s interest in interaction becomes apparent.
In another series of works, she collaborated with fellow artists to create displays for their works and described them in terms of the sociological concept of ‘hosting.’ She investigates the extent to which objects are integrated into our lifeworlds and asks what kind of individual traces can still be inscribed in a society organized around flexible working methods and the poles of mobility and permanence.
On the occasion of this exhibition, Erika Hock also presents a permanent work made for the new 550 square meter sculpture terrace on the roof of the Philara Collection.
Erika Hock
Second Home
28 April – 25 July 2017
Birkenstraße 47
Düsseldorf
Courtesy of the artist and Philara Collection
Photography: Paul Schöpfer