A Monkey Mountain Kronikle

Tom Hück is a satirical printmaker whose intricately carved, bawdy, politically biting woodcuts follow in the tradition of Albrecht Dürer, Jorge Posada, and Honore Daumier. This large woodcut of Gluttony took the artist four years to complete, Monkey Mountain Kronikle is the fourth in a series of triptychs that address, in the artist's words, the downfall of society. Here he follows in the footsteps of the sixteenth-century Netherlandish artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder whose engraved series of the Seven Deadly Sins included an image of Gluttony. In 8 jam-packed scenes, he intertwines comments on racism and the obsession with food in this country.

Hück creates a modern version of the Medieval triptych in this large, rowdy piece that comments on our food obsessed contemporary society and racist ideology. On the closed wings of the triptych Lord Aporkalyptus stands on a chocolate chip cookie facing Sister Marge, a donut around her waist, who stands in a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. An acolyte prays before her, a steak hanging on a rope from her neck. In the center of the open triptych, Lord Aporkalyptus holds out a sign that states "All you can eat" as he descends from food sprinkled heavens. A hellish scene of gluttony set in a shopping mall food court takes place below him. His minions shove sausages, chicken legs and other foods down the throats of the people. On the right inner panel, a scene takes place at Big OT's Burger Barn, a drive in where nazis are served by hooded waitresses on roller skates and the sign at the top states that everything is "100% pure". On the left inner panel, a ravenous family cuts into a Bicentennial cake in the shape of George Washington. The family look like zombies waiting to eat Washington's brains. A snake winds around the remains of the cake. On the verso of the print Mr. Wiener-McPicklehead, himself made out of food, prepares to dive into a monstrous bowl of banana split in front of him.His kat bats fly aruond him and feed slices of pizza to the snake-bodied guardian girls on either side. The triptych's predella, the traditional bottom panel, entitled "Glutton's Lament", condense into a sentence the meaning of this complex work: "We eat, we sleep, we hate, we repeat." The verso of this piece entitled "Memorial for a Fallen Tomato", refers to the artist's friend Billy Boyer who raised tomatoes and committed suicide in 2021. His dates are inscribed on the flame behind the tomato. The Monkey Mountain of the title is located in a conservation area in Missouri. While many of the references in the print are local and particular to the artist's hometown of St. Louis, he created the work at a printshop in Aberdeen, Scotland and worked in references from his experience there, including a font that was inspired by a tombstone in a local cemetery.