Performance | Long Evening
Herrmann S. 1 + 1
With John Bock
John Bock, Dünnhäutig in New York, lecture, courtesy: Anton Kern Gallery
As part of the second iteration of the Gropius Bau’s Long Evenings, artist John Bock will present his performance Hermann S. 1+1 on Rirkrit Tiravanija’s demo station. A parody of scientific presentations, Bock’s performative lectures create absurd worlds, often involving the audience.
“I saw him from a distance. He took the path now. Not the other one. He took the one across the paddock, across the yard, past the big rusty-brown barrel. The barrel measured ten metres and had a diameter of three metres. It had a circular access hatch, which Hermann S. peered into. He took a deep drag on the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth and blew the smoke through the hatch. He stuck his head into the hatch and watched the mountain of smoke as it built up and dissolved in the rusty cavity. He looked up at the sky and pursued his goal. His thoughts immersed themselves in unordered cotton wool fields. Juicy and sweet, the cotton wool hills and valleys absorbed his crumbling thoughts. He was lost in thought and recreated himself as a NO-YOU-DON’T kind of being of an undefined nature. A man stepped out of nowhere. He asked him what he thought of the liquid mutation plans. He replied, ‘ER’.”
— John Bock
John Bock is an artist living in Berlin. He is best known for his grenre-bending lectures and installations. Material excesses and shock effects often form the basis for his unbounded, experimental setups.