FischGrätenMelkStand


In the end of August 2010 I went to the last exhibition at Temporäre Kunsthalle in Berlin, curated by the artist John Bock.
He did an amazing group show called FischGrätenMelkStand (herringbone milking parlor). A huge installation composed by artworks from 62 artists.

"Besides installations, films, models, and sculptures, there are also historical film props, music scores, books, and fan items. The herringbone in the title refers to the symmetrical design of this type of automated device used in dairy farming."

This exhibition was not to be clean and beautiful. It was a very chaotic composition of completely different artworks connected by the same structure. 
What I found really interesting in this project is that Bock changes completely the conventional meaning of exhibition. Here, the works are not to be seen individually but each piece is to be considered as part of the whole. Its like a machine where each piece is essential for its functioning. The complete structure cant exist without each component in a concrete place. You can only see the complete image of the puzzle when all the pieces are together. 

"An eleven-meter-tall walk-in steel construction creates a range of spatial situations over four levels, linking the individual works into a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, or total artwork.
Unlike the classic white cube, this scenario offers the works on show anything but a neutral setting. Within a structure that is functional and grotesque in equal measure, the artworks fuse with the space that surrounds them.
By this means, John Bock creates surprising poetic, formal, and thematic connections and contradictions that refer to pop culture, architecture, film, science, and everyday life, as well as to parapsychology, music, and fashion."

I think that an artwork is much more rich in terms of significance as much diversity it contains inside. The mixture of different personalities and ways of thinking made it enthusiastic and surprising. This was for sure not a boring exhibition. 

"The makeshift-looking architecture of the rooms fitted into this framework consists of jumbled materials like corrugated iron, wood, car tires, blankets, socks, or burnt pizzas."

I loved the way I could get lost in this exhibition. It was a kind of labyrinth full of objects of all kinds. For me it was like a junkyard of useless objects in a positive sense. I have to admit that art is useless unless for the soul. And my soul was thankful for this all scenery. 

"In his own artistic practice, John Bock deals with open structures that he transfers to absurd forms, thus presenting new possible orders. 
By combining various media  sculpture, installation, film, performance  he creates a total artwork within which the artist himself often appears as a protagonist, explaining his cosmos in sprawling, surreal experimental set-ups.
For FischGrätenMelkStand, John Bock reverses this principle, letting the viewer take his place in exploring the precarious structure with its bizarre installations and constellations."

What was fantastic was that I could walk inside the piece and I felt I was in my own dreams apartment. I think that its important that you fell comfortable when you go to an exhibition. It doesnt mean necessarily that you loose the respect for the works but that you can be really engaged with them like in a friendship relation. 
The audience was not stuck in front of the work but moving inside of it. 
I think that what Bock did was not a curatorial project but a gigantic artwork composed by artworks from other artists. He found a way to express himself selecting works with witch he identified. This project is the image of his vision made up of different visions. 
Once we cant be an excellent designer, musician, performer and architect at the same time because life is short and we are limited by the condition of living in one body, why not invite people that we admire to extend our ideas together with their ideas and realize the impossible?
This was maybe one of the best group exhibitions I saw because it puts in question the meaning of a group exhibition and subverts the rules of the game to create an amazing museum. He really found a new possible order for this game. Art is about changing orders to create new orders.
As the German opera composer Richard Wagner, that invented the term Gesamtkunstwerk, Bock constructed his own theatre to compose the scenery he imagined. 


Participating artists:
Franz Ackermann, Pawel Althamer, And Also The Trees, Heike Aumüller, BARarchitekten, Matti Isan Blind, Anna und Bernhard Blume, Brandlhuber+, Björn Braun, Pavel Büchler, Andreas Bunte, Matthew Burbidge, Nina Canell, Franziska Cordes, Björn Dahlem, Discoteca Flaming Star, Sean Edwards, FAT KOEHL, Martin Fletcher, Saul Fletcher, Karsten Födinger, Heiner Franzen, Mathew Hale, Raimund Harmstorf, John Hejduk, Gregor Hildebrandt, Anuschka Hoevener, Sergej Jensen, Stefan Kern, Martin Kippenberger, Harald Klingelhöller, Lachenmann, Ludwig Leo, Sergio Leone, Klara Lidén, Adrian Lohmüller, Lone Haugaard Madsen, Paul McCarthy, Sandra Meisel, Isa Melsheimer, Meuser, Matt Mullican, Ascan Pinckernelle, Julian Rosefeldt, Jane Russell, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Michael Sailstorfer, Albrecht Schäfer, Christoph Schlingensief, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Armand Schulthess, Andreas Slominski, Sven Temper, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Kara Uzelman, Edgar Varèse, Vinyl Terror & Horror, Johannes Wald, Franz West, Ingrid Wiener, Iannis Xenakis, Bernd Alois Zimmermann, Heimo Zobernig