Palms

John Bock grew up in a divided Germany, in the aftermath of World War II, against the background of the ideological confrontations and social transformations spurred by the Cold War. While in Germany the economy was recovering once the war was over, central Europe was home to emerging movements that challenged academicism and the seriousness of modern art. Collectives like Fluxus and Viennese Actionism, and artists like Joseph Beuys set out to defy traditional standards, moving art to the fields of action and performance, with the body as medium.

Bock began his career as an artist in the late 1980s, as Germany undertook its reconstruction following reunification. Influenced by the performative practices of previous decades, he began giving crazy lectures while he was still studying Business Administration in Hamburg. He then earned a degree in Art, and his work became more complex, merging a number of disciplines, such as sculpture, theater, philosophy, and music. His proposals materialized in theatrical actions that he himself starred in, performed in makeshift stages populated with all kinds of objects: found items, food, drugs—that acquire new meanings in these seemingly chaotic environments. Often using tangled diagrams and fuzzy drawings, his excentric speeches bewildered audiences with an incomprehensible language that thwarted all kinds of dialogue. With time, Bock expanded his creative universe with video, which drove him to produce films that served as backdrop to his exuberant installations.