Richard Hoeck :
Eggenburg Waldviertel Psychosomatic Centre

Artifice in the form of stage sets meet socio-critical commentaries, and set pieces of international design meet genre film, in particular the codex of the Western, in the work of Richard Hoeck. The project that Hoeck developed for Eggenburg Psychosomatic Centre can be viewed as the computer-supported mediatisation of areas of life in the clinic, while also providing mediation work in the space. The artist concentrates on the glass surfaces of the different doors, to which he adheres semi-transparent sand-blasting foils. Taking an over-sized human figure as the point of departure Hoeck redistributes the pixel structure as "breaks of generations" and abstracts his motif increasingly by zooming into different scales. In the cafeteria, the therapy spaces and the swimming pool he softens the light in this way and increases the sense of privacy without impeding the amount of available light or the perspective. On a level of theories of perception the work engages with the loss and gain of structure; in practical terms Hoeck makes himself useful with a service by providing a guidance system. In addition, as a discrete colleague of theirs, he takes the formal design by Christine and Irene Hohenbüchler into consideration. Hoeck's modus operandi has on occasion been recognised as an exit strategy. His objects evade the art codex and nest themselves in the everyday, docking onto what is there and flouting rules of any kind.
(Brigitte Huck)