Marwencol on My Mind
By Mark Hogancamp
In April 2000, Mark Hogancamp was brutally attacked by five men in a Kingston, NY, parking lot. When he emerged from a coma nine days later, he could barely speak, eat, or walk due to brain damage. To help regain his physical and cognitive abilities, he decided to build by hand a fictional town in his backyard, then populate it with dolls standing in for himself, his friends and his family. We feature Hogancamp’s extraordinary photos of the town and its inhabitants here for the first time.
RELATED EVENT: ”Other People’s Projects: Mark Hogancamp” at White Columns
A carpenter, ex-navy man, and former showroom designer, Mark Hogancamp is an artist based in Kingston, NY. His work was first shown to the public in Esopus 5 and reached a broader audience with Esopus subscriber Jeff Malmberg's award-winning 2010 documentary Marwencol. Hogancamp has been featured in many one-person exhibitions, including three curated by Esopus editor Tod Lippy at White Columns, NY (2006), Esopus Space, NY (2010), and Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2014). A feature film about Hogancamp starring Steve Carell and directed by Robert Zemeckis was released in the fall of 2018.
