DEAN DE COCKER
The Tide Begins to Turn presents a captivating showcase of Dean De Cocker’s latest artistic endeavors, meticulously crafted during his recent sabbatical. This exhibition not only highlights De Cocker’s newest works but also serves as an engaging platform for him to delve into themes that have profoundly shaped his esteemed career as a professional artist. Drawing inspiration from the indomitable spirit of the Victory Generation, De Cocker embarks on a journey to explore the juxtaposition of crisp, minimalist lines inspired by Dazzle camouflage and the alluring, curved forms reminiscent of WWII ships and fighter planes.
Through his work, De Cocker offers a poignant tribute to the monumental designs, engineering feats, and sacrifices of WWII. The intricately sculpted, often ribbed armature forms within his pieces evoke the spirit of the hulking remnants found amid the aircraft resting places of Southern California. They also evoke the joyfulness and optimism reminiscent of a brand-new bicycle with bright, clean finishes. In doing so, they serve as a testament not only to the heroism of veterans like his father but also to the cherished memories of a remarkable childhood.
When discussing De Cocker’s influences from WWII design, it is imperative to emphasize what must have been a profound connection to Southern California’s car culture. Growing up amidst the inception of this movement, with iconic figures like artists Ed Roth and Von Dutch, and automotive designer Caroll Shelby looming large, Dean was deeply immersed in the essence of car culture from a young age. His intimate knowledge of automobiles permeates his sculptural techniques, echoing the precision and craftsmanship of automotive construction and model building.
Furthermore, Dean belongs to the first generation of BMX enthusiasts during the early 1970s, a time when he and fellow enthusiasts pioneered bicycle racing on dirt tracks across southern California. Dean’s ownership of a customized Schwinn Sting-Ray, tailored for enhanced handling and performance, underscores his affinity for customization and innovation. These formative experiences profoundly influence Dean’s artistic methods, serving as a bridge to the cherished memories of his youth and the vibrant subcultures that shaped his upbringing.
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to the numerous colleagues and students who played instrumental roles in bringing this exhibition to life. Special thanks to Staci Scheiwiller for her exceptional work on the catalog, and to Brad Peatross, the designer behind its creation. I am also deeply grateful to the College of the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, as well as to the Provost and the President, for their unwavering support of our programs and exhibition spaces. Lastly, a sincere appreciation to Stan State Print Shop for their invaluable assistance in printing this catalog.
We would like to express our gratitude to the Instructionally Related Activities Fund of California State University, Stanislaus, along with anonymous donors, for their generous funding of the exhibition and catalog. We deeply appreciate their support.
Daniel Edwards Chair of Sculpture, Art Department California State University, Stanislaus
Why I don’t play for the Los Angeles Dodgers, installation, Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, CA, 2011
TIME TRAVELING: THE SCULPTURAL WORK OF DEAN DE COCKER
By Staci Gem Scheiwiller
Entering into the exhibitions of sculptor Dean De Cocker (b. 1961) is analogous to wandering into a shipyard, aircraft boneyard, or even an organized junkyard, surrounded by metal, cement, fiberglass, plexiglass, wood, and wire. Photographs of warships adorn the walls, and the shapes of cones, airplane propellers, and signs evocative of airport flags and obstacle warnings fill these spaces. His shows read like one of the environments by Allan Kaprow (1927-2006) but not as confrontative, consuming, or allover. De Cocker’s artwork certainly envelops a gallery space with its presence, transforming the space itself, instead of the gallery dictating how the work should be displayed and read by an audience. This reconfigured gallery space itself emits a masculine energy, much like how curator Darlene De Angelo describes De Cocker’s work as a boy’s dream of airplanes, racecars, and wrecking balls.1
The style of De Cocker’s sculpture has often been compared to the masculine aesthetic of the 1960s artistic movement Minimalism, and that assertion has merit, although artist David Olivant (b. 1958) pushes this interpretation further into the realm of memory.2 Minimalism as a Modern Art movement focused on isolated, confrontative interactions between the artwork and audience, whereas De Cocker’s work never engages or threatens the viewer head-on. They remain on the viewing sidelines to be contemplated by the gallery goer. His artwork is implicitly allegorical in the tradition of Postmodern messaging although he labors tirelessly on both the production and concept of each piece. Comparable to the sculpture of Jeff Koons (b.1955), De Cocker’s works emit deep resonances of patrilineage, nostalgia, loss, and longing. Certainly, one can also argue this about the work of Donald Judd (1928-94) or Carl Andre (b. 1935), but it was never the main point of their structures. In De Cocker’s work, however, the past is profoundly connected with the present, and I would argue that his work ignites memory on various levels: personal, familial, collective, and historical.
The specter of World War II (1939-45) casts a formidable shadow over De Cocker’s sculptural work, both in the textual and physical signage. De Cocker says in many of his artist statements that the titles of the works come from battles of the Pacific: “The titles of my works have no real meaning, but due to my interest in construction techniques of World War II aircraft, I take my titles from World War II battles in the South Pacific.”3 Although both the artist and Olivant instruct that these references should not be overread, in a culture and society that still memorializes this war in documentaries, films, educational displays, history books, and music revivals (at the time of writing this essay, the film Oppenheimer scored numerous accolades at the 2024 Golden Globes), it is difficult to unread WWII references in De Cocker’s artwork due to the collective memory of this war in mainstream American culture. It is also worth noting that artists’ choices are rarely without “real meaning,” and artists consciously or subconsciously assign meaning in their works, even if that was not the original or recognized intention.
A sculptural piece that activates WWII nostalgia is At Mindano (2016). In 1945, Mindano was a major battleground in the Pacific, where Filipino and American forces engaged Japanese ones. Thousands were killed or injured, or they went MIA. Even though the concept of the Pacific Theater is generally known to Americans, especially since the bombing of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii (1941) inaugurated our official entry into the war, Mindano as a specific site of action and bloodshed is often not discussed. The shapes that comprise De Cocker’s work are reminiscent of airplane propellers, but in a strange surrealist doubling, they are also similar to wooden ice cream spoons. But that is not too far-fetched—the shape of the ice cream spoon evokes a sense of Americana and popular culture that flourished during WWII (later leading to the birth of Pop Art in Great Britain where American GIs exposed the British to American pop culture), but also, wooden spoons are a traditional artform in the Philippines and an important utensil. Nonetheless, if the propeller reference seems ambiguous, the shapes of the red and white squares are unequivocally referencing airports, runways, and landing areas, because the red and white squares are signs that specifically indicate airports, as well as ramps with red and white squares demarcate runways for pilots. The reference is undeniable..
Returning to Postmodern parlance, this is where De Cocker’s work diverges from a literal or minimalist reading of the work. Clearly, the propeller is a synecdoche for an airplane, as well as the title of the work itself indexes the battle and war (a piece of a piece of a piece…); hence, the sculpture operates on the fragmentation of memory, split by trauma. As demonstrated by Lyotard, the postmoderns inherited the sublime and unrepresentable from the moderns, (re)arranging and (re)presenting these fragments that the moderns have left behind: the viewer can (re)imagine the pieces that are indexed, but these fragments always remain floating in the imaginary—unrealized, unrepresented, intangible, and longed for.4 Like a broken vase pieced back together, the postmodern reassembles the past but in a way that speaks of the present, not of the actual past, which is lost in time, and representation itself has a rupture that makes artwork not fully coherent yet also bursting with multiple readings.
At Mindano, acrylic paint, mdf, metal and powder coat, 22”x12”x12”, 2016
Yet what are these traumas that produce ruptures and fragmentation? Was it the trauma of the war, the loss of the United States’ global reputation, which deteriorated during the Vietnam War (1965-75), or the twentieth century in general that witnessed the Cold War (194791), nuclear proliferation, and assassinations of iconic figures, such as Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-68) and President John F. Kennedy (1917-63)? Or was it something closer to home? It appears that the personal connection of De Cocker’s father to WWII also plays a role in this fragmentation of memory and loss. If De Cocker’s work is allegorical, then it is not about WWII per se, which he says plainly in his artist statements, even though the references are there. His father Robert was in the Seabees during WWII, and De Cocker dedicated his 2016 exhibition “Welcome to the Pacific” to Robert. Again, Olivant cautions us not to overread this patrilineal connection,5 but why not? Memories overlap with the father, son, country, history, nostalgia, and childhood. All at once, the adult as a child is eating ice cream with a wooden spoon, playing wargames, dreaming of airplanes, and longing for the father. Hence, the shapes of De Cocker’s sculpture can rekindle various references at once, making them polysemic, but also can point vividly to one specific object, such as the airplane. Despite how oppressive, violent, and deadly the 1940s were to multiple groups of peoples, there is almost a universal excitement when one hears big band music, listens to the voice of Billie Holiday (1915-59), or sees a B-52 still flying in the twenty-first century sky. In this way, De Cocker’s work become lieux de mémoire—sites of memory6—because they activate feelings and memories on multiple levels, from multiple sources, and from multiple generations. He triggers memories that may not even be ours but from our collective unconscious that we share as a nation and culture.
Yet the motif of longing for the father and the father-and-son bond continues through the connection that De Cocker shares with his own son Henri (b. 2004). For example, in the installation Made in the Pacific (2011), a row of painted racing bicycles stand attention, while above them hang uniform jerseys. Of course, bicycle racing is a global phenomenon (e.g., Tour de France), but the allure of sunny California and its diverse terrain have become idealized as an idyllic Eden for racing. In fact, De Cocker’s installation resembles a common store display that could easily be seen in Santa Cruz or Newport Beach. The reference “Made in the Pacific” again becomes literal, referencing the bicycle racing culture that flourishes within the state. However, the bicycles in a row appear to be retired or stand as trophies with the empty jerseys indexing their missing riders. They await to be ridden again, but it is a yearning unfulfilled, like the antique toy placed on the display shelf. They are now seen, but not to be heard or used.
Bicycle racing was a sport that De Cocker engaged with his son; thus, the reference to bicycle racing is not only another boy’s desire enshrined, but also one passed down onto the son from the father and later to future generations. This is reminiscent of Koons’ attempt to stymie death and the passage of time by immobilizing the ephemera of both his own childhood and that of his son Ludwig (b. 1992), who was taken to Italy by his mother Illona Staller (b. 1951) when Staller and Koons separated. For a moment in time, these ephemera, such as Koons’ balloon dogs and inflatable rabbits, rekindle and stabilize the utter delight in a child without the balloon ever popping or the plastic bunny deteriorating. Likewise, De Cocker’s installation becomes a time capsule of love and bonding between father and son that is temporal and poignant but then made eternal. The bicycles and jerseys were once used in exhilarating times of adventure, but now they are transformed into motionless objects of contemplation. Yet the memories they created still call to the viewer who might relate to and remember the thrill and excitement these races elicit.
De Cocker has dedicated over 20 years of service to California State University, Stanislaus, and this latest exhibition of new work further elucidates years of experience and memory-making. These sculptural works narrate a loving tale of patrilineage of father to son to grandson, from one generation of men to the next, awaiting the next generation who has not been born yet. Within this male bonding evokes longing and nostalgia for the temporality of life, which is fetishized into physical objects to behold. De Cocker’s artworks arrest time for the viewer to reflect and to reminisce. As the artist presents these generational designs that connect him intimately within a family tree that continues to grow and to thrive, he also provides a space for the viewer to tap into something larger than oneself that is both historical and cultural. De Cocker is able to transport one to multiple times and dimensions and between multiple positionalities, emulating the elusive quality of memory, which is unstable, hazy, and vacillating but also mysterious, emotive, and beckoning.
1 Darlene De Angelo, “Dean De Cocker : Full Circle,” in Dean De Cocker: Point Luck (Pomona: Andi Campognone Projects, 2010), 5.
2 David Olivant, “Welcome to the Pacific,” in Dean De Cocker: Welcome to the Pacific (Turlock: California State University, Stanislaus, 2016), 5. See also Peter Frank, “Dean De Cocker: Neo-Modern Things,” in Dean De Cocker: Extended Orders (Turlock: California State University, Stanislaus, 2006), 5; and David Roth, “Dean De Cocker: Extensions and Dimensions,” in Dean De Cocker: Currents and Winds (San Bernardino: Robert V. Fullerton Art Museum, 2004), 6.
3 Dean De Cocker, “Artist Statement,” in in Dean De Cocker: Point Luck (Pomona: Andi Campognone Projects, 2010), 16.
4 Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 15.
5 Olivant, “Welcome to the Pacific,” 5.
6 See Pierre Nora, Lieux de Mémoire, David P. Jordan, trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
Opposite page: Strategy of Island Hopping, enamel paint, metal, nylon, plexiglass, and powder coat; 40” x 60” x 12”, 2024
Made in the Pacific, installation, Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, 2011
The Tide Begins to Turn, enamel paint, metal, mylar ,nylon and wood, 2024
The Tide Begins to Turn, installation, Stan State Art Space, 2024
Opposite page: Ford Island, enamel paint, leather belt, metal, plexiglass and powder coat, 12” x 60” x 12”, 2024
South West Pacific, mixed media, 15” x 19”, 2022
Clockwise from top left: Carolina Islands, Dawn South West Pacific, Sorin Islands, Out of Raboul, mixed media, 15” x 19”, 2022
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work is part of a continuing series, Blue Jackets Return. From the first winged-shaped structures to the current work, I have been exploring my interest in formal elements by transforming flat, two-dimensional surfaces into three-dimensional objects. I derive much of my inspiration from everyday objects such as mailboxes, aircraft structures, wings, propellers, heavy machinery and architectural works. These objects become conceptual elements, which I transform into drawings. Then, via different techniques of construction, I fabricate many objects of inner structures and outer coverings that create volumetric enclosures. In recent years, my interest in racecar fabrication and collecting vintage BMX bicycles from the 1970’s and 80’s has led to subtle changes to my work’s structure and color. My work of drawings, prints and photographs come from objects that inspire me and places that I have visited that make me think about time and space. Some of my newest work involves my interest in World War I and II military ship camouflage.
The titles of my works are a result of my interest in the construction techniques of World War II aircraft and the battles fought mainly in the South Pacific.
Opposite page: The Tide Begins to Turn, installation, Stan State Art Space, 2024
This catalog is dedicated to my son Henri for his help in keeping my inner child alive and well. Image: Frogtown Classic BMX Days, BMX Show, Angels Camp, CA, 2023
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, STANISLAUS
Dr. Susan E. Borrego, President
Dr. Richard Ogle, Provost/Vice President of Academic Affairs
Dr. James A. Tuedio, Dean, College of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
DEPARTMENT OF ART
Martin Azevedo, Associate Professor, Chair
Dean De Cocker, Professor
James Deitz, Lecturer
Daniel Edwards, Associate Professor
Jessica Gomula-Kruzic, Professor
Dr. Alice Heeren, Assistant Professor
Chad Hunter, Lecturer
Dr. Carmen Robbin, Professor
Ellen Roehne, Lecturer
Dr. Staci Scheiwiller, Associate Professor
Susan Stephenson, Associate Professor
Jake Weigel, Associate Professor
Mirabel Wigon, Assistant Professor
Alex Quinones, Instructional Tech II
Matt Hayes, Equipment Technician II
UNIVERSITY ART GALLERIES
Dean De Cocker, Director
Kory Twaddle, Gallery Assistant
SCHOOL OF THE ARTS
Brad Peatross, Graphic Specialist II
Dean DeCocker - The Tide Begins to Turn
February 7–March 23, 2024 | Stan State Art Space, California State University, Stanislaus | 226 N. First St., Turlock, CA 95380
200 copies printed. Copyright © 2024 California State University, Stanislaus • ISBN 978-1-940753-83-6
Photography by the artist and Christopher Rodriguez
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without the written permission of the publisher. This exhibition and catalog have been funded by Associated Students Instructionally Related Activities, California State University, Stanislaus.