John Bock

Gallery Klosterfelde is very happy to announce a solo exhibition with John Bock who in the past years became well known for his varied lectures, performances, fashion shows, theater plays, and films. It is the first show since 3 years in the city where the 38 year-old lives and works.

The title of the show belongs to the piece installed in the main space of the gallery. Considering the abundance of materials and the space-occupying installations Bock usually presents, it is a surprisingly reduced work. The only intervention in the empty gallery space is a large metal pipe coming down from the ceiling. It is turned into the optical instrument of a periscope, thus pinpointing to two fundamental interests of Bock, the act of viewing and the integration of the spectator in the work. Like in a peep-show, a hole in the pipe is the only access to the scene carefully installed in a box underneath the roof and reflected with the help of mirrors down to the viewer. Used in submarines to compensate the differences in altitude, the periscope here functions as an object of fragmenting and distancing the spectator`s gaze. The trick with the mirrors suspends the usual perspective and disintegrates the viewer from the object, making aware of his or her own position in the space. An installation appears on the two-dimensional surface of the mirror which can never be grasped in whole but only in sequences when turning the periscope 360 degrees around its own axis.

There are different practices for John Bock to investigate the relationship between the ephemeral performance and the remaining installation. The medium film got emancipated from its documentary function and is scrutinized in how it can adopt performative elements and how the performance can actually appropriate the film. Different techniques of sound and editing are means to emphasize the factor of time inherent to film, for instance when in extreme speed or slowness the experience of viewing is challenged. "The guest" is the title of the new film presented in the second exhibition room. Pressetext

John Bock
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