Cinema Gallery 2007 / Meechfieber: Filmy Johna Bocka / Germany 2006
Craziness and an infantile imagination play a considerable role in the fictional worlds of contemporary German artist John Bock. “Part clown-magician, part mad scientist and part puppeteer” is how he was described in The New York Times. These three films (Meechfieber, Zezziminnegesang, Kid with Rocket Lettuce) are the first of Bock’s works to be screened in the CR.
John Bock is chiefly known for his spectacular, comic-grotesque performances which provide a unique blend of theatre, lectures, video, installations and sculpture. In recent years, video as a medium has moved to the foreground and become independent of the lecture-performances. From video shorts with rapid montage, Bock has worked his way towards longer and more narrative films which increasingly resemble features. He uses “real” actors and set designs which set off the fictional aspects of his imaginary worlds. Meechfieber is situated on the farm in North Germany where Bock grew up: he cast professional actors in the film. Li’l One with Arugula offers a taut combination of children’s playfulness and the magic ritual of voodoo: it’s a film which audiences might find shocking for its detailed images of cruelty. Zezziminnegesang, another film with a loose narrative feel, introduces us to a guy who lives with a ghost called Golden Man and a mummified corpse. Bock is sometimes compared with Matthew Barney, whose retrospective the KVIFF screened last year.
65 min / Color, BETA SP
Director John Bock
/ Screenplay John Bock
/ Contact Galerie Klosterfelde
John Bock (b. 1965, Gribbohm, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. This is about as much as you’ll find in the official bio of an artist who prefers not to divulge anything at all about himself. However, he couldn’t deny the fact that he is currently one of Germany’s most highly rated artists. His work has been shown at the Venice Biennial (1999 and 2005), in the prestigious exhibitions dokumenta 11 (Kassel, 2002), manifesta 5 (San Sebastian 2004) and at MoMA in New York (2007). In addition to his presentation in Karlovy Vary, Bock is being featured at the Schirn museum in Frankfurt, where the exhibition is dedicated entirely to his films. Film works include: Porzellan-Isoschizo-Küchentat des neurodermitischen Brockenfalls im Kaffeestrudel (2001), Boxer (2002), Gast (2004), Salon de Beton (2005), Dandy (2006), Palms (2007).
Galerie Klosterfelde
Zimmerstrasse 90/91, 10117, Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 30 283 5305
Fax: +49 30 283 5306
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