Dennis Hoekstra: Remote Viewing Updates

Desert Casino is pleased to present a collection of artist Dennis Hoekstra’s recent work: 'Remote Viewing Updates', on view now through November 21, 2015.

In his recent work, Hoekstra mines a variety of text-based reference photos highlighting manifestations of ontological terror. The subject matter and reference materials include: animal rights activist vandalism, doomsday prepper websites, environmental activist interventions (Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd), Big Sur’s Esalen Institute, Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalog, Alan Watts lectures, cannabis culture and psychedelics (particularly set and setting), conspiracy theory radio (Art Bell’s Dark Matter, Coast to Coast AM, Caravan to Midnight), noetics and paranormal investigations.

The range of Hoekstra’s works include sculpture, works on canvas, panel, paper and large-scale installations; all of which are informed by the European artisanal tradition of faux-bois and faux-marbre (notably the Van der Kelen Institute), Hollywood set fabrication techniques, suburban backyard Halloween haunted houses and the vernacular of Disney theme parks. The artist’s father, “Dutch” Hoekstra, created cement rockwork at Disneyland in Orange County, CA from 1964 – 1979 and the young Hoekstra extensively toured the theme park’s fabrication facilities with his father during his formative years.

Through the Hoekstra Institute, he’s created numerous novel and original painting techniques and applications through an iterative process, woven through commissioned, collaborative, and solo works. These techniques rely on a vast repository of reference photos and are rooted in traditional decorative painting applications. The institute is modeled after the Van der Kelen Institute, the notable decorative painting institute located in Brussels, Belgium. Themes central to Hoekstra’s work include: the narrative of the guild-based artisan, spiritual longing, trauma and healing. His recent works have increasingly drawn from sound references and field recordings, altered and distorted by the artist.

Hoekstra has also created numerous projects with artists Jonah Freeman and Justin Lowe including Black Acid Co-op in 2009 at Deitch Projects, (NYC) which consisted of a twenty-three room, three story architectural intervention; Werewolf Karaoke/Matrix 159 at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum, (CT) a pseudo-lavatory, partly inspired by the restroom in CBGB, the defunct punk club in Manhattan; Bright White Underground commissioned by Country Club and installed in R.M. Schindler's Buck House, (LA), a reimagining of the history of this famous example of California modernism as the controversial site of psychedelic research; Stray Light Grey at Marlborough Chelsea (NYC), Artichoke Underground, Art Basel: Unlimited (Basel, CH); Panopticum at Robert Miller Gallery (NYC); Floating Chain (High-Res Toni) at Marlborough Chelsea (NYC) and Scenario in the Shade at Red Bull Studios (NYC). Additionally, Hoekstra’s commissioned work for Robert Lazzarini for (damage) at Marlborough Chelsea (NYC), charts a new American landscape, one that is fragmented, broken, disturbed and distorted.

Hoekstra has exhibited with ltd los angeles (LA), The Hole (NYC), The Clocktower Gallery (NYC, MIA), Wharton + Espinosa (LA), Revolver (SF), More Funner Projects (MIA) as well as exhibitions curated by Steven Bankhead and Bettina Hubby (LA) and is included in forthcoming exhibitions curated by Kristin Kahler.

Hoekstra’s most recent installation, Rodney’s English Disco, is on view through July 2016 at the ltd los angeles gallery.

Hoekstra’s solo work has been featured in W Magazine, Modern Painters Magazine, Purple Magazine, Blouin Artinfo and Domus Magazine.

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A.J. Hughes
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