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| postmedia.net | John Bock Lombardi Bängli, 1999 Kunsthalle Basel Photo: Knut Klassen |
John Bock ApproximationRezipientenbedurfniscomaUrUltraUseMaterialMiniMaxi, 1999 Venice Biennale Courtesy: Galerie Klosterfelde, Berlin |
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John Bock's "ArtemisiaSogJod Mechwimper"at Klosterfelde My translation of the show's title goes something like this: Artemisia-suctioned-iodine yields mech[anical] eyelash. Tomfoolery rules at the reconstructed Klosterfelde gallery. John Bock has worked his wonders, making an architectural wedge in the gallery that had the many guests on St. Patrick's day opening night creeping to a crawl, forced through one rabbit hole to another, leading to more imaginary spaces that held the remnants of a "Bockanalia" video performance taped the night before. In the blue-lit attic, a ballerina turned upside-down and positioned in a hand-made orange padded chair is instructed by Bock. The black mark tracks of her steps on the wall mark points on the graph of Bock's "existo-form" equation, punning on Heidegger's Being and Time for one ... I think. The fun is in the vaguery of not-knowing. |
In another part of the room, plastic finger puppets made of brown tape protect the hands of the mad scientist pouring colored potions onto the topless giggling girl captured below the Plexiglas cage. As the music crescendos, a cake-mixer machine blends the comical mess Bock the scientist has made of her bouncing boobs. In the "basement" room is a video of Bock projecting his head through a pot of white beans and tomatoes muttering something unintelligible -- like "Get me out of here!" in jibberjabber. The monster of the bean swamp, Bock is a man of many talents. He's almost as strange as the young Turkish men I've seen recently around town donning platform tennis shoes. Do these rocket shoes elevate them to a higher plane than that of the shiny gold necklaces, or winged mustaches of their more traditional fathers? You'll have to judge for yourself. BERLIN ART DIARY by April Lamm 6/7/00 http://www.artnet.com/ Courtesy: Artnet.com |
