John Bock
born 1965 in Gribbohmlives and works in Berlin
The work of Berlin-based artist John Bock can be labelled action art in the broadest sense of the term, ranging from texts and collages to lectures and comically grotesque performances and their rendition in film shorts. The central focus of Bock’s work is always the actionist moment, live performances or film scenes for which he uses everyday materials like foods, and various discarded and used objects that he pieces together in a deliberately dilettante fashion.
The artist responds to the environment he has created with improvisation and tackles his actionist experiments like an alchemist. He resolutely refuses any attempt to objectify the performance, creating a peculiar atmosphere of the absurd and the comic. Sometimes slapstick, tragicomic and invariably aiming to confuse and irritate, John Bock drags his audience into the entrails of his very own, crazy world.