“Weil ich es sage” (Because I say so) is an installation by the German artist Erika Hock. The title of the work reminds one of the conceptual writing piece by Robert Rauschenberg ( This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so). But ,looking at the other works and their titles in the series (how to love a bomb, gebeugt, es musste sein), Hock links more to the fact that she is challenging the resistance of a “strong, seemingly unmovable obstacle or barrier”,physical as well as mental. She increases the pressure with a belt on a “virtual” solid wall or block to a point where it  bends and breaks, she drops a large solid cube so it damages by the impact but also under its own weight. The rigidness object reveals its weakness, its smooth skin cracks, it’s authority flows away and it becomes fragile. The clean and sharp geometry gets affected, distorted and damaged. Forged by pressure, a concept which also can be seen in and linked to the Imploded Sculptures by Ewerdt Hilgemann. In these sculptures Hilgemann used also external pressure, in his case created by a vacuum inside the object, to reshape large stainless steel geometric bodies.  But where Hilgemann uses these real rigid materials for his objects, Hock basically creates the illusion of a rigid objects by using wood, gypsum cardboard, latex foam and adhesive polishing plaster. This fact adds yet another layer to the conceptual content and meaning of her works.

Hock has made a strong statement with this series of interesting conceptual pieces.

Photos: Erika Hock | Conceptual Installations

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