MAG is one of four Rochester cultural institutions exhibiting work by Rick McKee Hock (1947–2015), a noted educator and longtime director of exhibitions and program design at George Eastman Museum who passed away earlier this year. MAG, the Visual Studies Workshop, the George Eastman Museum, and the Rochester Contemporary Arts Center have all joined to celebrate Hock’s life and achievements.
The three works at MAG are part of Hock’s series of Codices, in which the artist combined Polaroid transfers of images from books, magazines, posters, advertisements, how-to manuals, and other printed matter. The series’s title refers both to the format of such sources as collections of paper, as well as to the artist’s gridded compositions, with photographs laid out side by side like a book unbound. Though absent of written text, the images still betray the artist’s hand, or, rather, his spoon: to make the transfers, Hock would interrupt the developing process of his peel-apart Polaroids and place each negative down on paper, rubbing it with a utensil to transfer the positive onto the surface.
Most of the subjects in each of the Codices are unknown, and even recognizable portraits, such as the Mona Lisa, appear manifestly mediated. White negative space indicates where the dye failed to take, giving the burnt red and brown display of images the appearance of Martian rock.