LONDON, ENGLAND.- The Institute of Contemporary Arts presents Klutterkammer An Exhibition by John Bock, through November 7, 2004. For his first major exhibition in the UK, the German artist John Bock has approached the traditional format of the solo show in a highly idiosyncratic way. He has conceived an exhibition and events programme, which reviews his major interests and influences. The title, Klutterkammer, translates as an area that is used as a storage or working environment. In a similar fashion, Bock has treated the ICA galleries as an enormous thinking and play space.
In his practice Bock samples a diverse range of artistic and non-artistic disciplines resulting in disordered and often absurd connections. Mixing art references with theatre, economics and fashion, Bock has realised for the ICA a vast and often anarchic collage. Within the Lower Gallery four seemingly haphazard buildings, connected by a series of crawl spaces, ladders and walkways, have been constructed with everyday materials from hay bales to scaffolding. Into these structures, Bock has assembled a surreal collection of artworks, appropriating sculptures, paintings, films and artefacts. In the Upper Gallery, Bock has created his own version of the black box cinema (showing the infamous Theater of Blood, 1973 by Douglas Hickox, starring Vincent Price), a tree house and a more ethereal maze of washing lines.
Klutterkammer is an appraisal of the modern age; a promiscuous and mysterious scenario that will give the audience the chance to witness how, in his exceptional cosmos Bock assembles a wide range of disciplines and unites economics, theatre, visual art, performance, fashion design, farming and popular culture. Bringing together the strange and the curious Klutterkammer continues the artist’s frantic investigation into the possibilities into how we experience and make sense of the world. Avoiding a single position that attempts to rationalise contemporary art or thinking, Bock has created an unrestricted installation full of intentional inconsistencies that never aims at reaching any form of conclusion but rather resembles the often confusing realities of contemporary society.
Klutterkammer will feature: Vito Acconci, Bas Jan Ader, Marc Aschenbrenner, Matthew Barney, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Blackmail, Anna and Berhard Blume, Boyd, Gunther Brus, Maurizio Cattelan, PunchDrunk, Buckminster Fuller, Gelatin, Bendix Harms, Georg Herold, Douglas Hickox, Mike Kelley, John Maynard Keynes, Martin Kippenberger, Eley Kishimoto, Kurt Kren, Elke Krystufek, Sarah Lucas, George Mallory, Paul McCarthy, John McCracken, Otto Muehl, Jessica Ogden, Manfred Pernice, Ascan Pinckernelle, Sigmar Polke, Chris Pounds, Rasputin, Dr. Jane Rendell, Pipilotti Rist, Raymond Roussel, Christoph Schlingensief, Rudolf Schwarzkogler, Robert Falcon Scott, Cindy Sherman, Andreas Slominski, Robert Smith, Paul Thek, Franz Erhard Walther, Robert Cary-Williams, Daniel Zizzo and Heimo Zobernig.
While John Bock’s work is relatively unknown in the UK it has been presented in exhibitions around the world including solo presentations at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2000) and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2003).
Among his countless group-exhibitions are The Carnegie International, Pittsburgh (2004), Manifesta 5, San Sebastian (2004), Documenta 11, Kassel (2002) and the 48th and 50th Venice Biennial, Venice (1998 and 2003).
