FischGrätenMelkStand

curated by John Bock

2 jul 2010
31 aug 2010

For FischGrätenMelkStand – the final project at Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin – the artist John Bock has developed a masterful meta-structure within which he installs works by 63 artists. An eleven-meter-tall walk-in steel construction creates a range of spatial situations over four levels, linking the individual works into a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, or total artwork.

Vergroot

FischGrätenMelkStand - source

Unlike the classic white cube, this scenario offers the works on show anything but a neutral setting. Within a structure that is functional and grotesque in equal measure, the artworks fuse with the space that surrounds them. By this means, John Bock creates surprising poetic, formal, and thematic connections and contradictions that refer to pop culture, architecture, film, science, and everyday life, as well as to parapsychology, music, and fashion. Visitors to the show are invited to embark on their own voyage of discovery.

In his own works, John Bock deals with open structures for which he finds absurd forms with an inner logic that is both playful and compelling. By combining various media – sculpture, installation, film, performance – he creates a total artwork within which the artist himself often appears as a protagonist, explaining his cosmos in sprawling, surreal experimental set-ups. For FischGrätenMelkStand, John Bock reverses this principle, letting the viewer take his place in exploring the precarious structure with its bizarre installations and constellations.

With

Franz Ackermann, Pawel Althamer, And Also The Trees, Heike Aumüller, BARarchitekten, Matti Isan Blind, Anna und Bernhard Blume, Brandlhuber+, Björn Braun, Pavel Büchler, Andreas Bunte, Matthew Burbidge, Nina Canell, Franziska Cordes, Björn Dahlem, Discoteca Flaming Star, Sean Edwards, FAT KOEHL, Martin Fletcher, Saul Fletcher, Karsten Födinger, Heiner Franzen, Mathew Hale, Raimund Harmstorf, John Hejduk, Gregor Hildebrandt, Anuschka Hoevener, Sergej Jensen, Stefan Kern, Martin Kippenberger, Harald Klingelhöller, Lachenmann, Ludwig Leo, Sergio Leone, Klara Lidén, Adrian Lohmüller, Lone Haugaard Madsen, Paul McCarthy, Sandra Meisel, Isa Melsheimer, Meuser, Matt Mullican, Ascan Pinckernelle, Julian Rosefeldt, Jane Russell, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Michael Sailstorfer, Albrecht Schäfer, Christoph Schlingensief, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Armand Schulthess, Andreas Slominski, Sven Temper, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kara Uzelman, Edgar Varèse, Vinyl Terror & Horror, Johannes Wald, Franz West, Ingrid Wiener, Iannis Xenakis, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Heimo Zobernig.