Baby Shoes, Never Worn

2013 - Photography (Photography)

John Houck

year born: 1977
gender: male
nationality: American
home town: South Dakota

Baby Shoes, Never Worn is part of photographer John Houck’s series of restrained still-life photographs capturing objects from his childhood. The image depicts a box, addressed to the artist’s mother, that once contained—it can be assumed—baby shoes. Houck layers the photograph with multiple exposures, lending an uneasy tripling effect to the static object. Borrowing his title from Ernest Hemingway’s enigmatic, apocryphal six-word novel (“For Sale: Baby Shoes, Never Worn”), Houck’s photograph engages the ideal and image of childhood from the distanced point of view of the camera’s lens.


An MFA graduate from UCLA, John Houck works primarily in the medium of photography and specializes in still-life vignettes. To make his works, Houck arranges an object on a sheet of paper, photographs, and prints it, then places that print back into a new composition, repeating the process again and again until arriving at an aggregate image. The layers appear to be digitally altered, but he does not utilize any postproduction interventions. But Houck is not a purist by any means; he is significantly influenced by his professional experience as a computer programmer, and his artistic methodology mirrors a kind of algorithmic code. By referencing a conventional artistic genre through an iterative and contingent process, Houck offers up photography as a mode of thought.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Abstract Versus Figurative Art, » Color Photography, » Figurative Art, » Language, » American  
» see more

Untitled 6/10 i-xxii
© » KADIST

Nathaniel Dorsky

2010

Dorsky’s pieces included in the Kadist Collection are small still photographs from twelve of his most important films...

Swimming in Rivers of Glue
© » KADIST

Julieta Aranda

2016

The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...

Blockbuster
© » KADIST

Conrad Ruiz

2011

Conrad Ruiz loves to paint subjects related to the “boy zone”: video games, weapons, games, science fiction, fantasy, and special effects...

Memory: Record/Erase
© » KADIST

Nalini Malani

1996

Memory: Record/Erase is a stop-motion animation by Nalini Malani based on ‘The Job,’ a short story by celebrated German poet and playwright Bertolt Brecht...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Peg and Jon
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Houck’s Peg and John was made as part of a series of photographic works that capture objects from the artist’s childhood...

Untitled 6/10 i-xxii
© » KADIST

Nathaniel Dorsky

2010

Dorsky’s pieces included in the Kadist Collection are small still photographs from twelve of his most important films...

Swimming in Rivers of Glue
© » KADIST

Julieta Aranda

2016

The video Swimming in rivers of Glue is composed of various images of nature, exploring the themes of exploration of space and its colonization...

Argument
© » KADIST

Firenze Lai

2013

Central Station, Alignment, and Argument are “situation portraits” that present whimsical characters within distorted and troubling worlds...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Defunct Mnemonics
© » KADIST

Peter Robinson

2012

Defunct Mnemonics (2012) plays off woodworking traditions found in indigenous art in order to create a body of formally minimal objects that are both beautiful in their restraint and profoundly moving in their associations with the totemic...

Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs
© » SLASH PARIS

Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs — Dutko / Quai Voltaire Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs — Dutko / Quai Voltaire Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Guy Leclercq — Épures et couleurs Exhibition Painting View of the artist’s studio Guy Leclercq Épures et couleurs Ends in 27 days: December 7, 2023 → January 13, 2024 Dutko Gallery is pleased to present from December 7th until January 13th a selection of the most recent works by Belgian artist Guy Leclercq...

Dragoș Bădiță – Light Falls
© » THE RE:ART

Dragoș Bădiță - Light Falls - The re:art Dragoș Bădiță – Light Falls From February 3rd to March 17th, 2017, Anca Poterașu Gallery presented the solo show Light Falls by Cluj-Napoca based artist Dragoș Bădiță, who is also co-coordinator of Lateral ArtSpace ...

Gary Gilpatrick, Insulator
© » KADIST

Sharon Lockhart

2008

Lockhart’s film Lunch Break investigates the present state of American labor through a close look at the everyday life of the workers at the Bath Iron Works shipyard—a private sector of the U...

Other works by: » John Houck  
» see more

Untitled #242, 104, 975 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 18 colors
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Untitled #242 is part of Houck’s Aggregates Series, which uses digital tools to manipulate chosen sets and pairs of colors, creating colorful index sheets, bathed in colors and lines...

Peg and Jon
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

Houck’s Peg and John was made as part of a series of photographic works that capture objects from the artist’s childhood...

Untitled #185, 65, 535 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 16 colors
© » KADIST

John Houck

2013

John Houck’s brown- , sienna- and golden-toned composition, Untitled #185, 65, 535 combinations of a 2×2 grid, 16 colors , features densely packed lines of color moving diagonally across the creased page...

Related artist(s) to: John Houck » Walead Beshty  
» see more

Fedex® 10kg Box 2006 FedEx 149801 REV 9/06 MP, Standard Overnight, Los Angeles-San Francisco, trk#800983717740, December 18-19, 2012, International Priority, San Francisco-Beijing, trk# 775046700145, October 27-November 5, 2021
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2012

Constructed out of metal or glass to mirror the size of FedEx shipping boxes, and to fit securely inside, Walead Beshty’s FedEx works are then shipped, accruing cracks, chips, scrapes, and bruises along the way to their destination...

Black Curl (CMY/Five Magnet: Irvine, California, March 25, 2010, Fujicolor Cyrstal Archive Super Type C, EM No 165-021, 05910)
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2010

Black Curl (CMY/Five Magnet: Irvine, California, March 25, 2010, Fujicolor Cyrstal Archive Super Type C, EM No 165-021, 05910) is a visually compelling photogram...

Office Work
© » KADIST

Walead Beshty

2018

Office Work by Walead Beshty consists of a partially deconstructed desktop monitor screen, cleanly speared through its center onto a metal pole...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Pair of shoes / Shoes with eggs
© » KADIST

Hans-Peter Feldmann

The types of objects Feldmann is interested in collecting into serial photographic grids or artist’s books are often also found in three dimensional installations...

Back images
© » KADIST

Sarah Lai Cheuk Wah

2015

Back images is a series of six photographs by Sarah Lei Cheuk Wah that explore the semiotics of power and their intersection with representations of masculinity...

Land Mark (Foot Prints) #12
© » KADIST

Allora & Calzadilla

2004

This series of photographs is part of the body of work Allora & Calzadilla made regarding the situation in Vieques, an island off the mainland of Puerto Rico used for the 60 years by the U...

Jardin
© » KADIST

Benvenuto Chavajay Gonzalez

2013

Jardín (2013) refers to environmental destruction, specifically the preponderance of disposable plastics, as well as Medellín’s long history of dangerous conflict; it was once considered the most violent city in the world because of the drug trafficking there...