FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Regen Projects II
9016 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90069
Tel. (310) 276-5424
Fax. (310) 276-7430
www.regenprojects.com

JOHN BOCK
February 5 - March 5, 2011
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 am - 6:00 pm
Opening Reception: Saturday, February 5, 6:00 - 8:00 pm



Regen Projects is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptural objects, drawings, collages, and films by German artist John Bock. The two films depict distinct and related environments in which Bock transforms his idiosyncratic objects through the use of ice and air. The ice-space was created for a lecture at the Julia Stotschek Collection in which spaghetti, a light bulb, pizza, a sneaker, and the artist's sculptural objects, among others were frozen with ice in a laboratory-like setting with Bock presiding in a silver space suit. In the air-space created in the artist's studio, the ice melts from the works and fans are used to transform the ice objects into air objects. Related objects, drawings, and collages will be displayed alongside the films in an artist-designed environment. Also on view is a new metal sculpture that acts as an armature in which various elements and artist-made objects are suspended and embedded.

John Bock's unique work eludes classification. His interdisciplinary fusion of language, theatre, economics, fashion, film, politics, philosophy, music, happening, performance, sculpture, and installation creates a unique artistic vocabulary that expands and challenges the limits of art. His work is a unique blend of fantasy and rationality, subjective reflection and objective visual process, emotional challenge and sensual proposition. Bock's exploration of open structures and the forms that can develop gives rise to a complex oeuvre driven entirely from his own imagination, where no traditional rules or logic seem to apply. Through Bock's lens, the viewer experiences an avalanche of visual impressions in which unexpected spaces, materials, objects, and their combinations reinvents the traditionally static boundaries between artistic disciplines.


John Bock's oeuvre seems to be a sort of interdisciplinary network in which work on the installation of material for a particular action triggers off a chain of interlinked and succeeding ideas for the script of a performance, in which the handling of an object gives rise to an idea for the costumes, or in which an objects suggests a text. In other words, we encounter a loop of activities that crystallize into others, a circulation of knowledge that re-nourishes the overall body of his work and locates it in a seemingly boundless space.
(Francisco Javier San Martín. "La Tragicommedia dell'Arte" in John Bock: Nöle, published by CAC Málaga Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Málaga, 2010, p. 136)


Bock's work has been the subject of numerous exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. Recent solo exhibitions include Arko Art Center, Seoul, Korea; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany; State Opera, Berlin, Germany; FRAC, Marseille, France; ICA, London; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bock has participated in the Venice Biennial (1999 and 2005), the Lyon Biennial (2005), the Biennale of Sydney (2010), the Carnegie International (2004), Documenta 11 (2002), and the Yokohama Triennale (2001).


An opening reception for John Bock will take place on Saturday, February 5, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. For further information please contact Jennifer Loh, Heather Harmon, or Stacy Bengtson at (310) 276-5424.