handiKraft
John Bock, Bjorn Dahlem, Rene Zeh
4 - 28 October 2000
Curated by Tobias Berger
Supported by IFA
Curator Tobias Berger invited German artists John Bock, Björn Dahlem and René Zeh, who all generate their own kinds of universe from do-it-yourself and second hand materials, to create exhibitions in situ. As if perfection were deceptive, they do not care for a smooth finish...
John Bock builds shanty environments from found materials creating stage-sets in which he performs idiosyncratic lectures. His "Abstract-Absurd Theatre" incorporates economic theories, personal experiences, common country platitudes... The works reference the Theatre of the Absurd, and the art performance of Joseph Beuys, the Vienna Aktionists and Paul McCarthy.
Björn Dahlem's installation Club Schrödinger's Katze draws on an Austrian physicist's fabulous idea. Erwin Schrödinger imagined a cat inside a closed box with a flask of poison, which it had a fifty per cent chance of overturning. Being impossible to observe whether the cat was dead or alive, Shrödinger argued it was both. His unfortunate cat has become a popular philosophical metaphor for the suspended and indecisive state of things.
René Zeh's work invokes virtual travel and mobility. Zeh selects indexes like maps, gallery invitations and timetables from a world wide range of possibilities and arranges them to create a model of personal links. This installation includes a computer animation of a virtual timetable, a "Transporter", and a poster for the film Westworld.
