Schock's 'A Persistent Perspective' examines power of icons

Sculptures of headless bodies in flesh-colored business suits stand among 5-by-8-foot oil paintings depicting such icons as the smiling Kool-Aid pitcher and Sailor Jack and his dog, Bingo, who appear on the Cracker Jack box. Another painting includes a party of people who appear to be recognizable entertainers.

The 16 paintings are mounted on standing frames from which hang plastic bags that each contain a single goldfish.

This is not your isn't-that-pretty art exhibit.

Paul Schock's new installation titled "A Persistent Perspective" opens today at the University Museum.

Schock is interested in how we take in information, how information is expressed by icons and how we are controlled by the information we become used to.

The power of this control, exemplified by something as mundane as a business suit, deserves to be examined, he says.

The show seeks to open eyes to invisible walls, to "how we are subconsciously directed into different paths or areas we might not normally go into."

Suits serve as an outer skin for people in the business world, Schock says. "A suit personifies something that is no longer you.

"... People have dreams and ambitions they forget when they are forced into another role," he says.

The bodies in the suits aren't completely headless. One is topped by an exit sign, suggesting there is a way to escape.

If this installation relates directly to a single icon it's "The Wizard of Oz," Schock says. Its message is to look behind the curtain.

Advertising and the media have established what Schock describes as "almost in a hypnotic trance."

"We are controlled to do things we're not aware of and not questioning," he said.

The goldfish float freely, but that freedom is absolutely contained within the walls of the bags.

In one painting, two men look pensive and two babies float in midair between them, one of a number of dream-like images.

"In dreams we are trying to digest things," Schock says.

As the singing figure on a pogo stick or the man in the trailer looking at his wife with X-ray specs suggest, Schock explores his subject with humor.

Humor allows people to relax a bit "and to realize that we're all human," he says. "At the same time we're all able to make mistakes or see the charm in things around us, to see how amazing and beautiful things are around us."

Schock doesn't think of his paintings as political but says, "There is a very visual language with us on a day-to-day basis. A lot of times those things do become political whether we like it or not."

The point is not to be for or against something but to understand it, he says.

Schock's own basic uniform is a black leather motorcycle jacket. He has had to wear suits and ties at times. "But people laughed at me because I wouldn't wear socks," he said.

Schock is an assistant professor in the Department of Art at Southeast Missouri State University. A graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute who received his MFA in sculpture and mixed media from the University of Arizona, Schock began teaching at the university in August 2001.

Among the locales he has exhibited work are Tokyo, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Tucson and Kansas City. One installation in downtown Kansas City was in a cave. Other shows have consisted of performances with titles like "The Flying Eggs" and The Number 0."

Art is not necessarily something you surround with a frame, Schock says. "Art is all around you."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

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