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The sprawling installation Denkmal 11, Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53 Street, New York, 2008 by the young Belgian artist Jan De Cock (b. 1976) bends in on itself like a guy studying the lint in his belly button. It's a self-reflexive, mirroring sort of artwork, which, as its title suggests, takes art and the art museum that houses it for its subject—almost as if it were a documentary film directed by, say, Jean-Luc Godard in one of his less linear moods. And, in fact, avant-garde cinema has exerted a formative influence on De Cock. In an interview with curator Roxana Marcoci on the MOMA website, he claims: " In time we will come to consider Godard's 260-minute Histoire(s) du cinéma . . . to be more important in the formulation of twentieth-century culture than Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon," the latter being, of course, one of MOMA's key holdings. Despite his avowal of film, De Cock chooses to work in photography and sculpture.
Still, the installation does resemble a sort of fractured storyboard. A series of black picture frames of varying sizes hold photographs—some individual, some in diptychs, others in groups—that take us through most areas of the museum: the conservation labs, library, theater, and the collection itself. This presentation, the frames and matte windows cropping many of the photos, cleverly mimics the geometric apertures, such as the interior windows, of the museum's architecture. De Cock also takes a filmic approach to photography, employing tight close-ups, multiple perspectives on the same subject, shots from several angles, and montage. Together, these photos amount to a sort of archival trove that exposes different aspects of the museum over the time the show takes to digest. " Duration factors significantly in my work," he says, a comment reinforced by the times of day printed like wall texts next to each of his " modules," or sets of pictures and sculptural objects.