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Record Archive on Videotape

New Edition

Record Archive on Videotape

Edition Block Nr. 100:
Claus Böhmler, Record Archive on Videotape
1987/2020

Claus Böhmler, Record Archive on Videotape, 1987 (excerpt)

Edition of 100
Video, digitalized in 2020
184:00 min. color, sound.
DVD in cardboard box, numbered
75 Euro

For further information, please click here.

… but it really hurts to just watch.

Group exhibition

… but it really hurts to just watch.

September 10 – November 21, 2020

Preview: Wednesday, September 9, 2020, 3 – 9 pm

New Editions by Claus Böhmler, Sunah Choi, Ayşe Erkmen, Ceal Floyer, Jarosław Kozłowski, Alicja Kwade, Olaf Metzel, Christine Moldrickx, Navid Nuur, Mariana Vassileva

Claus Böhmler’s (1939 – 2017) three-hour video work Record Archive on Videotape from 1987 is finally available as a DVD edition.

Claus Böhmler, Record Archive on Videotape, 1987/2020, 184:00 Min. (Nr. 100 der Edition Block)


Edition Block
Prager Str 5
10779 Berlin

Opening hours: Wed-Fr 12 – 5 pm, as well as by appointment

Smart Artist

Exhibtion

Smart Artist

July 4 – September 6, 2020

Opening July 4, 2020 11 a.m – 6p.m.

The German sound and media artist Claus Böhmler’s (1939-2017) work puts modern image-producing machines, algorithms and the relationship between man and technology into perspective and explores with humor, anarchism and poetic strain, the tension between the digital and the analogue. His art makes practical use of technologies such as typewriters, photocopiers, cassette recorders, record players, Super 8 films, cameras, radios, film or slide projectors and video, which he combines and juxtaposes with drawing, painting, sculpture, graphics and performance.

The exhibition presents selected pages from the publication “Smart Artist” conveying a large number of Böhmler’s works in print. Including illustrations and text works, as well as animated films, video and audio compositions, which can be activated by visitors by scanning QR codes on their smartphone or on a tablet borrowed in the exhibition. The musical, the rhythmic, the time of sounds appears when the book is accessed as a score – everything with Böhmler is capable of finally becoming sound, singing, noise, music or percussion.

Another work in the exhibition is the video “Schallplattenarchiv auf Video” (1987), which shows how a record is placed on a record player and how the tonearm moves inward until the next record is put on. With the video, Böhmler invites us to patiently observe the grooves in the record and watch the media work – something that most of us would probably not spend time on otherwise. It is concise and precise humor that takes the medium literally/present the medium in the simplest of ways.   The German art historian Michael Glasmeier has edited the publication “Smart Artist” as well as curated this exhibition. He has worked with sound and media art, here, especially the late work of Claus Böhmler, in a large number of publications.

Claus Böhmler studied in Stuttgart and Düsseldorf in the 1960ies and was a former student of Josef Beuys. In almost 30 years (until 2015) he was a professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. His last major solo exhibition was in 2001 at Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel and in 1999 at Kunsthalle Hamburg.

Center for Klangkunst

Kunsthal 44Møen
Fanefjordgade 44
4792 Askeby

…except perhaps a constellation

Group exhibition

… except perhaps a constellation

August 8 — September 12, 2020

Opening friday august 7, 2020 | 2 – 7 p.m.

Hommage à Giandomenico Tiepolo
kurated by Michael Glasmeier and Christian Schiebe

Francis Alÿs, Bernhard Blume, Claus Böhmler, Stanley Brouwn, Harald Falkenhagen, Nanne Meyer, Alexander Roob, Rrose Selavy, Giandomenico Tiepolo, Aby Warburg, Emmett Williams and many others

Galerie oqbo
raum für bild wort und ton
Brunnenstr. 63
13355 Berlin

Smart Artist

Claus Böhmler: Smart Artist, Textem Verlag, Hamburg 2019

Exhibition

Smart Artist

November 21, 2019 – Febuary 8, 2020

Opening and book presentation by Michael Glasmeier:
November 20, 2019 at 7 pm

An exhibition on the occasion of the publication of the book “Claus Böhmler – Smart Artist”
(edited by Michael Glasmeier, Naho Kawabe and Nora Sdun, Textem Verlag Hamburg, 2019)

Smart Artist is not only an artist’s book, but can also be understood as a handbook, which not only conveys the most diverse tasks of Böhmler as a media craftsman in pictures, but also – updated to the latest state of media achievment by QR code – mediates them in film and sound by simple scanning using a tablet or smartphone app.

Edition Block
Prager Str. 5
10779 Berlin

Book Presentation: Claus Böhmler – Smart Artist

Claus Böhmler: Smart Artist, Textem Verlag, Hamburg 2019

Book Presentation

Claus Böhmler – Smart Artist

October 24, 2019 at 7pm

Galerie Renate Kammer 
Münzplatz 11
20097 Hamburg 

Textem Verlag and Galerie Renate Kammer present the book Smart Artist by Claus Böhmler. The art historian Michael Glasmeier, who also wrote the catalogue text for the book, will talk about the contents of the book. In order to show the virulence of the Böhmler method, there will also be a “gift table” where former students of Böhmler will display materials, paperwork and tracks of all kinds – a mental scavenger hunt in honour of Claus Böhmler.

Smart Artist

Claus Böhmler: Smart Artist, Textem Verlag, Hamburg 2019

Claus Böhmler: Smart Artist, 2019

“Boehmler talks and drinks and eats and sounds and draws and thinks and hears and sees in the same moment.” (Michael Erlhoff)

The media artist Claus Böhmler was already “smart” when Steve Jobs was still working for Atari. Böhmler’s interests as an artist are not so much the development of algorithms as the practical use of typewriters, photocopiers, cassette recorders, record players, Super 8 films, cameras, radios, film or slide projectors, video, i.e. the media with which a maximum of art can be produced extremely economically and easily. Like drawing, painting, sculpture, graphics and performance, he uses them as a self-reflecting, intermedial, communicative invitation.

His work, including the acoustic and cinematic, is presented in this book, pushed into one another as it unfolded next to one another on his large computer screen. Thus it goes page by page: in the constant alternation of all the media possibilities, metamorphoses, repetitions and differences that only Böhmler is capable of in his specific simultaneity of humour, irony, observation and politics. An album materializes that Böhmler presents to us.
Böhmler’s works are not driven exclusively by seeing and showing, but also by language, by language play and language renewal in rhythmic space. Here the visual aspect is intensified once again in the expansion of a thought space, the vastness of which can be guessed at in this album. The infinite Böhmler cosmos – anarchic, comic and never closed. And it is poetic, i.e. melancholic, fragile and mysterious, as René Descartes says on the telephone in the Böhmler tradition: “I think it’s me”.
This publication was initiated by Textem Verlag and was produced in close cooperation with Claus Böhmler, who developed the unique design of the pages in countless sessions with the technical support of Naho Kawabe. The result is a splendid, extremely lively and visually powerful examination of the artist’s life’s work by the artist. Claus died in 2017 when the book was ready for printing. It is his legacy. (Michael Glasmeier)

Claus Böhmler: Smart Artist

Ed. Michael Glasmeier, Naho Kawabe, Nora Sdun
120 pages, 4-color, hardcover with numerous illustrations and QR codes for videos and moving images
Textem Verlag, Hamburg

ISBN 978-3-86485-179-7
35 €

Fuzzy Dark Spot

Exhibition + Catalogue

Fuzzy Dark Spot – Video art from Hamburg

April 13 – November 3, 2019

The exhibition FUZZY DARK SPOT at the Falckenberg Collection brings together 56 video works by over 30 mostly Hamburg-based artists ranging from the 1970s to the present day, featuring historical and contemporary productions in both thematic and monographic groups. The exhibition examines how video in art interprets social and media irritations and manipulations.

Participating artists: John Bock, Claus Böhmler, Öyvind Fahlström, Harun Farocki, Jeanne Faust, Britta Gröne/Peter Piller, Romeo Grünfelder, Christian Jankowski, Naho Kawabe, Paul McCarthy, Vanessa Nica Mueller, Wolfgang Oelze, Nam June Paik, …

Deichtorhallen Hamburg
Falckenberg Collection
Wilstorfer Str. 71
21073 Hamburg

Farbtesttafelnblütenfilm, 1985
Video, PAL, 4:3, Farbe, 4 Min. 57 Sek.

Fuzzy Dark Spot

Cat. Deichtorhallen / Falckenberg Collection Hamburg

Exhibition catalogue, edited by Dirk Luckow and Wolfgang Oelze
texts (German/English) by Friedrich Heubach, Dirk Luckow, Thomas Macho, Wolfgang Oelze, Claudia Reiche, Gerd Roscher, Siegfried Zielinski as well as introductory texts on the artists
324 p with 210 coloured illustrations
240 x 180 mm, softcover embossed

ISBN 978-3-86442-287-4
34,00 €

Artist Books The Collection

Exhibition + Catalogue

ARTISTS BOOKS
The Collection

Dec 1, 2017 – April 2, 2018

Press release: “Artists’ books tell stories, are manifestos, archives or political proclamations. They break with traditional forms of design, open up new spaces, are programmatic, narrative, playful or even abysmal. Discovered as an open and versatile medium through conceptual art and the Fluxus movement, the artist’s books have established themselves as an independent art genre since the 1960s.
With the exhibition “Künstlerbücher. Die Sammlung”, the Hamburger Kunsthalle presents for the first time a selection of the best-known publications from its collection of around 1,700 exhibits. […] Dieter Roth, the most important and most stubborn as well as uncompromising protagonist of the artist’s book, and the Hamburg artist Claus Böhmler, who died last year, each have their own rooms dedicated to them.”

hamburger-kunsthalle.de

Artists’ Books – The Collection’ with Claus Böhmler, Exhibition until April 2, 2018, http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de 

ARTIST´S BOOKS. The collection

Catalogue for presentation of the collection
166 Pages
german-english edition
2017

Second Nature

Exhibition

Second Nature

March 11 – April 17, 2017

Curated by Janet Fong

With David Altmejd, John Baldessari, Claus Böhmler, He Chi, Hua Mao First Floor (HMFF), Idris Khan, Lam Yau Sum, Lin Xin, Helen Marten, Kingsley Ng, Tony Oursler, Utopia Group, Yang Xinjia

Pressrelease: “Second Nature borrows from American philosopher John Mcdowell’s conceptualisation of a “second nature” in human beings. Second nature consists of conceptual capacities built upon instincts. Mcdowell contends that the development of these capabilities is facilitated by one’s society. Second nature involves the enhancement of one’s autonomy, and it requires accumulation of experiences. This feature sets second nature apart from first, primal nature. Artists, as highly autonomous individuals, appeal not only to collective experience but also intuition and nature in order to explore humans and their inner selves, and their relationship with the outside world. The creation of art requires the combination of human imagination and capability of thinking so as to engage in endless creation.

photocredit: Second Nature, curated by Janet Fong, chi art space Hong Kong, k11artfoundation.org


The exhibition is laid out in two exhibition halls. The first hall starts off the exposition by anchoring the content of display on nature and traces of civilisation. The second one exhibits the participating artists’ reflections upon the issues they take on through new media, interactive pieces, and creative modes through which the development of human civilisation can be manifested. Each exhibit is riddled with complexity. The exhibition also raises questions about the root of our nature: regardless of our nationalities and communities, the ultimate issue that all of us ponder upon remains the root of the whole human race. The rumination of our past, our history, and our expectations for the future are all built upon a shared nature. We reflect upon the intriguing relationship amongst humans, nature, and experiences on such common ground.”

chi art space
663 Clear Water Bay Road
Hong Kong

k11artfoundation.org

In-memoriam notice

Claus Böhmler presents: Pinocchio – A Linear Program. König Köln – New York 1969.

Claus Böhmler

*1939 † 2017

We’ll never forget him.

Julia Böhmler with Lilli Mittig
Elke Suhr
Rolf and Ingeborg Böhmler

The funeral took place on 17.03.2017 at the cemetery Hamburg-Olsdorf.

Memorial speech by Peter Lynen on 17.03 2017

Stop Motion

Stop Motion

On the death of the Hamburg artist Claus Böhmler

There is a video by Claus Böhmler, which simply shows how a record is placed on a plate and the tonearm moves inwards until the next record is put on. Who would stare so long into the groove at home? But you remain seated in front of the video and watch the medium at work. This is the laconic joke with which Böhmler took every technology at its word. Born in Heilbronn in 1939, Böhmler was one of the first German media artists. He was a master student of Joseph Beuys and was early exhibited by the gallery owner Alfred Schmela. He participated in the “Medien-Documenta” of 1977 and had solo exhibitions at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, the Fridericianum in Kassel and twice at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. From 1974 to 2005 he was a passionate professor in Hamburg, with students such as Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen. Nevertheless, his name is hardly known beyond his circle of companions. On the one hand, this is due to his lack of talent for self-marketing, and on the other, to the shape of his art. Böhmler was a master of the small form, for whom check paper and a children’s stamp with the Disney Pinocchio were sufficient to sound out the possibilities and limits of animated film. Someone who was so interested in the conditions of representability that it was all the more worthwhile to bring it back into the light. Last week Böhmler died in his apartment in Hamburg. kjr

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 27.02.2017, Nr. 49, S

Claus Böhmler presents his record archive on videotape, 1987. Photo: René Block, Drawing: Claus Böhmler

KULTUR & GESPENSTER 14 – RADIO

CLAUS BÖHMLER´s latest contribution to

KULTUR & GESPENSTER No. 14 – special issue RADIO

The magazine “Kultur & Gespenster” on the subject of radio will be available from autumn 2013.

The texts are dedicated to radio as a haunting medium, electronic presence from telegraphy to television and schizophrenia.

With texts by Ole Frahm, Klemens Gruber, John Mowitt, Patrick Primavesi, Milo Rau, Andreas Stuhlmann and many others, as well as picture series by Simon Logan, Peter Lynen and Claus Böhmler, Wibke Larink, Leonore Mau, Michaela Melián.

Textem Verlag Hamburg

Radioaktiv – Gelbe Musik | C-Print | 30 x 40 cm | 2011

Visual Music

Installation view, Visual Music, 2012, Warhus Rittershaus, Cologne

Exhibition

Visual Music

March 31 – May 19 2012

Press release: “We are particularly pleased that we were now able to put together the last works of Claus Böhmler in a single show. The works cover the years 2004 to today and include videos, installations and silkscreen prints.

Claus Böhmler (*1939) studied in Stuttgart and Düsseldorf in the 1960s and is a former student of Josef Beuys. For almost 30 years (until 2005) he was professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. His last major solo exhibitions were in 2001 at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel and in 1999 at the Kunsthalle Hamburg.

Böhmler was one of the first artists in Germany to be interested in the possibilities of image reproduction and its technique. Using simple and everyday materials, as well as a simple ironic questioning of technical mechanisms and a playful approach to the possibilities of a medium, he creates functions and references that are full of effects within their simplicity. He makes many media his own: He draws, writes, sets to music, collages, films and animates. His installations, readymades, drawings and animations are all about the diversity of an object that grows beyond its traditional function. Kritsch questions Böhmler’s relationship between appearance and existence, original and copy, reality and image.

Gallery Warhus Ritterhaus Cologne

En vogue ist in!

Exhibition

Claus Boehmler: En vogue is in!

November 19 – December 19, 2009

From screen tower to flat screen – a installation.

Press release: “Claus Boehmler’s current exhibition “en vogue ist in!” opens at 8 p.m. on November 19, 2009 in the Galerie Renate Kammer. From 1974 to 2005, Claus Boehmler taught at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, thus shaping an entire generation of artists. A student of Beuys himself, Claus Boehmler is still associated with Fluxus today. He associates freely and hopes that the viewer will do the same: “The title of the exhibition itself is the program – en vogue is in! The artist asks: Can this language game, like the nonsense in the Kōans of the Zen masters, trigger a flash of inspiration? But even if he builds thematically and consistently on what occupied him early on, in his mind he is again rushing ahead of his time – perhaps only to look back on us stumbling behind with the ironic wink that is so typical of him – “en vogue is in!

Galerie Renate Kammer
Münzplatz 11
20097 Hamburg