Lisa Hoke

Hoke gained early recognition for acrobatic, unwelded wire and metal suspensions of cast objects that explored balance, gravity, aerodynamics and the activation of voids in space.[29][8][18] Critic Lucy Lippard wrote that these pieces sketched barely visible energy patterns and posed weighty questions about physical reality using minimal means (e.g., Magnet, 1989),[22] a quality she likened to Eva Hesse works that "endow[ed] formal austerity with subtle emotional resonance."[30][31] The sculptures Eclipse and Levee (both 1987) cradled fruit forms made from green sand castings in small wire slings held mid-air in taut, uncertain balance by stretched cables and simple steel forms; for Equilibrium (1990), Hoke created a ceiling-bound, tangled cloud of wire that was hoisted by a hand-shaped counterweight across the room.[32][33][29] Reviews in Arts and Art International related the gestural effect and graphic presence of such work to the concept of drawing in space associated with modernist sculptors Julio González and David Smith, among others.[34][29]

In the 1990s, critics such as Eleanor Heartney noted Hoke's shift toward denser, more playful hanging pieces that reworked the low-brow, recycled junk aesthetic of Pop assemblage and Arte Povera through a process-oriented, feminist sensibility.[11][10][35][36] These sculptures and installations utilized unmistakable household and auto-part detritus conveying usage and the chaos of real life.[8][11][37] The random color of the new materials reoriented Hoke toward chroma and texture; their status as functional objects introduced new, open-ended social and psychological shadings in her work: a sense of folly and the conditionality of existence, intimations of emotional stress, and commentary on domestic work that mixed obsessiveness with undercurrents of danger and disorder.[28][38][7][39]

Lisa Hoke, Manifold Destiny, mufflers and pink and yellow webbing, 10' x 5', 1991.

The sculpture Manifold Destiny (1991) was a notable example—a hanging assemblage of yellow and pink plastic patio furniture stripping increasingly entangled in rusted car mufflers and snaking exhaust pipes that suggested entropy.[11] Tema Celeste described it as a funny and frightening "Medusa in curlers … at once vulnerable and threatening, delicate and Herculean."[8] In shows at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (1992), Horodner Romley (1993, 1994) and Serpentine Gallery (London, 1998), domestic materials—thread, buttons, zippers, totems of colorful, stiff shirt sleeves, and shower curtains—predominated in works that employed an abstract sensibility and more airy, intuitive forms of weaving.[40][10][41][7][42] Heirloom (1994) consisted of skeins of colored thread that were tossed, fixed and installed in vertical fans of dense, lacy patterning across two corner walls, then connected by single threads to cast wax detergent bottle and household forms on the floor.[7] Critics likened the 12-foot work's appearance to "a grandmother's unraveled afghan,"[41] sea corals or tangled hair and its calligraphic patterns and process to Abstract Expressionism, a debt referenced in the double meaning of its title.[7][10][43][39]

Beginning in the late 1990s, Hoke increasingly focused on abstract installations of hanging forms, mosaic-like panels, and sculptural murals, using consumer detritus and commercial packaging as raw materials.[3][44][45][21] These were often site-specific, temporary works—many larger than Hoke's studio space—which she executed without pre-drawings or knowledge of outcomes, giving them a performative aspect.[1][14]

For Ricochet (Holly Solomon, 1999), Hoke filled the gallery with kite-like polyester sheets embedded with multi-colored neon drinking straws; they were suspended within a network of colored string that ran far across ceilings, walls and floors before converging on and attaching to a set of cast-iron vegetable counterweights on the floor.[3][19][27] Reviews in the New York Times and New Art Examiner compared the sheets to stained glass, stage sets and fantastical tapestries, their absurdity tempered by the Rube Goldberg-like intricacy of the installation and formal tension between playful sculptural forms and gallery architecture.[3][12]

In a series of subsequent installations Hoke explored color chromatics and surface sensations to a greater degree, using colored paper and beverage cups as her materials. Light My Fire (Aldrich Museum, 2001; Rice University, 2006) consisted of short, variously cropped red, pink, yellow and white paper scrolls adhered to five adjacent windows; it exploited shifting sunlight to create a lace-like effect dappling the space with spots of light and color that changed (and faded in intensity) over time.[6][21] For the mural-like Gravity of Color (Elizabeth Harris, 2004), Hoke employed protruding paper cups and plastic beakers partially filled with paint to create jewel-like, serpentine forms of rich color that critics related to the encrusted walls of Gaudi and the swirling patterns of Seurat and Klimt paintings.[13][46] Hoke reworked the piece at the Katonah Museum of Art (2005)[47] and in a two-story, six-year installation at the New Britain Museum (2008).[46][4]

Lisa Hoke, Come On Down, site-specific installation, cardboard packaging, cups, glue and hardware, 16' x 110' x 2', 2013, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, OK.

In the 2010s, Hoke began working with repurposed cardboard—much of it collected from her multi-unit SoHo apartment building—drawing on the rich color, patterning and appeal of commercial packaging. In her studio, she arranged the cardboard in bins sorted by color, then created hundreds of roughly 2' x 2' collages, which were edited and assembled on-site into large-scale, undulating wall installations. After exhibition, they were disassembled and sometimes reworked in new pieces.[5][24][14] Critics such as Stephen Westfall related the abstract "tidal pulls and arabesques of color and fanning forms" of this work in formal terms to artists like Klimt and contemporaries Polly Apfelbaum, Judy Pfaff and Tony Feher, while noting its commentary on the simultaneous pleasures and horrors of marketing, material excess and mass consumption.[14][9][48]

Hoke created four versions (of up to 75 feet long) of her first-such work, Love, American Style (2011–2), at MASS MoCA, Elizabeth Harris, J. Johnson Gallery and D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts.[5][48][26] Related installations in the same vein included: The future ain't what it used to be (McNay Art Museum, 2012), a sprawling, roughly triangular work that also incorporated playing cards and paper plates; the 16-by-110-foot Come on Down (Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 2013), whose The Price Is Right-derived title signaled its double-edged celebration of excess; and Swept Away (Sarasota Museum of Art, 2014).[24][20][14][49] In 2018, the Italian coffee company Lavazza commissioned Hoke to create the site-specific Dolce Croma for the showroom and lobby of its new headquarters in Turin, Italy. The flora and fauna-like forms of the 51-foot installation were formed out of bright packaging materials from throughout the company's history.[2]

During this later period, Hoke also created discrete sculptural works, for group and solo exhibitions, such as "Attention Shoppers" (2015) at Pavel Zoubok Gallery. That show featured wall and freestanding works that resembled eccentric, color-keyed, parade floats or monuments (e.g., Coming Attractions or Aisle 3).[50][1]