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Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Something for Everyone
Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Something for Everyone
Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Something for Everyone
Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Something for Everyone
Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Something for Everyone
Richard Hoeck & John Miller, Something for Everyone

Something for Everyone

Anna Meliksetian and Michael Briggs are pleased to present a collaboration by Richard Hoeck and John Miller, Something for Everyone.

 

The installation features a 30-minute narrative film and three sculptural objects. The film is a series of vignettes, a picaresque journey of UPS deliveryman Ken Kenwood. Following Kenwood through a frustrating day, beginning with Kenwood’s rude awaking after dreams of a luxury life of mansions and champagne, to the news that he has to make his rounds on foot with a hand truck rather than his usual UPS van, the narrative map’s the delivery man’s route, and his encounters with his girlfriend and his various customers. The banality of the day-to-day routine is contrasted with meetings with his customers, some erotically charged but ultimately unfulfilled, some adversarial and difficult, leading to frustration and ennui. Referencing numerous styles and genres, from the 70’s soft core film trope of the “pizza delivery boy” and Love American Style to Wenders, Fassbinder, and Tati via Benny Hill and Philip K. Dick, the film has a soundtrack featuring glam rock band The Sweet and strings composed by Miller using a simple, now-outdated software program. Filmed in the working class districts of Vienna, and featuring cameos by Vienna based artists such as Hans Weigand and Heimo Zobernig among others, the work is a study of consumer society, and the intersection between corporate brands, consumer products and the individual’s identity.

 

Hoeck and Miller have had a 20 year long history of collaborations including an exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wein, Vienna and one at KW/Kunstwerke, Berlin as well being included in various group shows in Europe and New York. This is the first time that one of their collaborative installations has been shown on the West Coast and it is their first solo collaborative show in the US. Something for Everyone is the result of a 4-year collaboration between Hoeck, Miller, and producer Bernhard Riff.

Richard Hoeck (b. 1965, Hall, Tirol, Austria) currently lives and works in Vienna and New York and studied at Universität für angewandte Kunst, Vienna. Hoeck has exhibited widely in Europe and most recently in China. Solo exhibitions include Kunsthalle Krems, Austria and the Galerie für Zeitgenoessiche Kunst, Leipzig, Germany. Upcoming shows in 2013 include a solo show at Johann Widauer Gallery in Innsbruck and a group show tribute to Franz West at Konzett Wien gallery, Vienna. Hoeck was a participant in the artist in residence program at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles in 2001/2.

 

John Miller (b. 1954, Cleveland, OH) currently lives and works in New York and Berlin. He got his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, 1977, attended the Whitney Museum of American Art Independent Study Program, New York, 1978, and received his MFA from the California Institute for the Arts/CalArts, 1979. Miller has exhibited widely and recent major exhibitions include a solo exhibition at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne as the winner of the 2011 Wolfgang Hahn Prize, as well as a mid career survey at the Kunsthalle Zurich, curated by Beatrix Ruf. Miller’s latest collection of writings ad criticism The Ruin of Exchange published by JRP|Ringier will be released in January 2013.