Louis Hock

Louis Hock (born 1948) is an American artist and independent filmmaker who works in film, video, installation and interventions in public space. His work has been exhibited both internationally and nationally including most notably at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles as part of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980. Several of his films are in the collection of Video Data Bank. He has additionally collaborated on several public art projects with Elizabeth Sisco and David Avalos.

His most notable grants and awards include an American Film Institute Independent Film Maker Grant, The first graduate student in film to graduate from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Hock cites two early influences in Stan Brakhage and Nam June Paik. where he is currently professor emeritus.

Works

THE MEXICAN TAPES: A Chronicle of Life Outside the Law Started in 1978,THE MEXICAN TAPES: A Chronicle of Life Outside the Law is a four-hour-long video in four parts documenting the lives and experiences of his undocumented working class Mexican immigrant neighbors in the Los Analos community in San Diego, California. Upon completion in 1986, the eight year film project has since been broadcast internationally on television stations including PBS, the BBC and Televisa. The film premiered on the west coast at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego on May 11, 2013.

Southern California

In 1979, this three screen cinemural was finished as a 70-minute film, "a single thread of 16mm film runs through three side-by-side projectors. " As an extension of Hock's decade of experimental film practice, ). In 2004 the film was digitized and screened for the first time in 20 years on the walls of the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

Welcome to America’s Finest Tourist Plantation (with Elizabeth Sisco and David Avalos) The first collaborative project between Elizabeth Sisco, Louis Hock and David Avalos was Welcome to America's Finest Tourist Plantation (1988). The project included a bus poster "depicting a pair of hands Washing dirty dishes, a pair of hands being hand-cuffed, and a pair of hands delivering clean towels to a hotel room. "

Art Rebate / Arte Reembolso (with Elizabeth Sisco and David Avalos) The collaborative public media art project, “Art Rebate (1993)" refunded 10 dollar bills to as many as 450 undocumented workers in the California and Mexico border near San Diego. The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego and Centro Cultural de la Raza commissioned the project for the "La Frontera/The Border" art exhibition in 1993. " The project received a grant from the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and a grant from National Endowment for the Arts. Josh Dare, a spokesperson for the National Endowment for the Arts said of the project "Those three artists are very good at, and I give them credit for, choosing art to create public dialogues. If art is supposed to create discussion and dialogue about the issues of the day, then touche. "