Spiritofboz

Regards (Looks)

fred — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:25:11 +0000

Julien Friedler, Regards 1 and 2 (Looks)
Digital prints on canvas, 150 x 210

Exhibitions :

> In Quest, Galerie Seghers, Ostende (Belgium), August 2007.
> Art Studio Ann Jorissen, Mechelen, 2006
> Armory Show 05, Galerie Roger Pailhas, New York, 2005

Demoiselles

fred — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:20:33 +0000

Julien Friedler, Demoiselles
Fiberglass, 110×65x91

Exhibitions

> The Demoiselles Revisited, Francis Naumann Gallery, New York, 2007 (collective exhibition)
> In Quest, Galerie Boz 38, Ostende, August 2007

Arafat

fred — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:15:23 +0000

Julien Friedler, Arafat
Mixed Media

Exhibitions

> In Quest, Galerie Seghers, Ostende, August 2007.
> Art Basel, Galerie Pailhas, 2003
> Art Brussel, Galerie Damasquine, 2003.

The Innocents

fred — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:10:48 +0000

If you don’t see the video, you need a more recent version of "Flash Player". Download it from the Macromedia website.

This feature was shot in september 2005, documenting the performance "The End of Time", during the Festival of Flanders. This haunting performance was the meeting between Olivier Messiaen’s music (Quartet for the End of Time) , Primo Levi’s words (If this is a man) and Julien Friedler’s installation The Innocents.

The Innocents could be Julien Friedler’s most emblematic work. Created in 1999, it has been exposed in Milan (2003) and Paris (2004). It’s currently settled in Julien Friedler’s atelier.

Combining barbed wire, a cage, dolls and soft toys, skeletons, both stained and clean linen, photographs, quotations and various objects, the work evokes at once concentration camps, violated and abused childhood, school as a prison-like world, and the martyrdom of the Jews in starkly contrasting, macabre scenes and intense colours, constructed around the figure of Jack Balance, Julien Friedler’s clown-like double.

From Passepartout TV Show by and with Philippe Daverio (Rai 3, Italy), February 2003.

Jean-Paul Shintzu :

"Music and text come together here to evoke and describe the same subject - the universe of the concentration camp - and join each other in the same spirit : a certain uprising against barbarism. It was already a first to associate Olivier Messiaen’s music, performed for the first time in a labour camp in Poland, and the testimony written by Primo Levi upon his return from Auschwitz.
(…)
To make them co-exist in Julien Friedler’s installation is to provide them with the opportunity to escape from a certain abstraction in order to confront them with the work of a contemporary artist, who is reflecting upon this barbarism 60 years after the facts."

Says Julien Friedler :

"I created what I felt. The barbed wire, the stuffed dolls, the school benches… a tragic but a the same time playful setting. I used a langauge of extremes : childhood and death, that is the Shoah of course, but it’s also a metaphor for an imprisoned childhood… for all the children all over the world who have been killed or whose innocence has been injured."

Prof. Dr Joel Kotek (Director of training at the Memorial de la Shoah in Paris and Professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles) :

"Well, Julien Frieldler’s installation (but is it really an installation ?) confounded me, fascinated and even convinced me because of the power of its evocation and its accuracy. His work is powerful, intelligent, as well as useful. It will help (and I do sincerely hope it will) young people understand what the Shoah really represented : a generalised attack on life, specifically on the life of Jewish children. This is what Julien Friedler tries to show us, not smugly, but using tact and dignity.(…)"

Excerpt from a letter sent to Julien Friedler by Philippe Daverio, Professor of Aesthetics :

"Although your installation bears witness to abominable historic events and although it symbolizes the Shoah in a particularly poignant manner, your work goes beyond the mere illustration of the historic fact.

Its impact bears witness in a more expansive manner to the drama of human existence, which is already confronted with suffering, frustration and violence in childhood.

Your work also accentuates the anguishing presence of contemporary man in the world, of his destructive force toward his own species, but also man’s devastating impact on the world itself.

"The Innocents" is more than just a touching and moving symbol. This installation urges people to see things in a much broader context, which is only possible through the artist’s eyes."

More about this work :

> the "Innocents" Flickr photoset.

> the CGI animation version of the Innocents (video teaser).

Autoportrait 3

fred — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:07:44 +0000

Julien Friedler, Autoportrait 3, 1998
Mixed media on canvas, 150 x 200

Exhibitions

> In Quest, Galerie Box 38, Ostende, August 2007.
> De leur temps, French private collections, Musée des Beaux Arts, Tourcoing, 2004.
> L’infanzia dell’ Arte, Mudima Foundation, Milan, 2003

Codex (The Word of Angels)

fred — Fri, 30 May 2008 15:03:00 +0000

Julien Friedler, Codex, from La Parole des Anges (The Word of Angels) cycle
Acrylic on canvas

Exhibitions :

La Parole des Anges, Galerie Cazeau-Béraudière, Paris, 2005.

The Shaman

fred — Wed, 21 May 2008 08:49:41 +0000

Julien Friedler

The Shaman (2000)

Mixed Media
200 x 150

Exhibitions :

> In Quest, Galerie Box 38, Ostende (Belgium), August 2007
> Mudima Foundation , Milan (Italy), 2003

The logo of Spirit of Boz is derived from this painting.

Julien Friedler’s first exhibition in Munich

fred — Fri, 16 May 2008 08:13:12 +0000

On May 8th,2008, "BeBOZ : Rund Um Boz In 80 Jahren" opened, in the Heilig-Kreuz Church, in Munich. It’s the first art show about Julien Friedler’s "Around the Boz In 80 Years" art project. The interior of the church, waiting for restoration, is overrun with scaffoldings, offering a unusual place for an exhibition and deeply contrasting with the neo-Gothic exterior.

In this network of metal, the visitor finds 4 giant panels hanging above his head, describing the 4 continents covered by the project (Africa, America, Asia and Europe). Behind the altar, hangs a fifth panel with the 6 questions of the project). Above the choir hangs an helicoidal installation, "L’Envol", created with "Around the Boz" questionnaires. Finally, photos and questionnaires from all round the world are showcased. The sound designer Cornelia Faist created a sound installation for the occasion.

Alongside the show, in May and June the Sunday church services will refer to the above mentioned questions. In June there will be several evening lectures with different speakers, treating these themes : Art and Church, Art and Spirituality, Art and Mission, Art and Therapy. These lectures will be moderated by reverend Gereon Kühr and Erno Vroonen, the curator of the BeBOZ trilogy in Munich.

This show, the first one in the "BeBoz Trilogy in Munich" series, will end on June 29, 2008.

The installation "L’envol" and the panel with the 6 questions of the project, in the choir of the church.

The curator Erno Vroonen, presenting the show, during the opening.

The installation "L’envol", above the choir.

Engelbert Dirnberger, host of BeBOZ in the Heilig Kreuz church

The Heilig-Kreuz Kirche, Munich.

Spirit of Boz… on Bulgarian TV

fred — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:59:44 +0000

On March 4, 2008, Stella Rouskova was interviewed by Vladi Sevov, for "4+1", a TV show on the national Bulgarian network Eurocom. She presented Julien Friedler and his workl, with a focus on the "Around the Boz in 80 Years" art project. The interview includes images of the "Innocents" installation.

Read also :

> Around the Boz in Bulgaria

> "Around the Boz in 80 Years" : details and highlights

> The Innocents, une installation de Julien Friedler

Jack Balance in Plovdiv, Bulgaria

fred — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:48:24 +0000

When the biggest picture is not which it seems to be.

March 29-30, 2008. Jack BaIance, played by the actor Ivomir Ignatov (alias Kenny), was particpating to the first Be Boz discussion in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Produced and moderated by Stella Rouskova, the event took place at the Ethnographic Museum, in the Old Town. The program included a presentation of Julien Friedler’s "Around the Boz In 80 Years" art project, video projections, a Jack Balance performance, a small guitar concert by the students of the Music Academy in Plovdiv. The debates, around the theme of commitment in art, have gathered professors of art and music, artists and psychotherapists.

Jack Balance, during the debate, alongside Djidrov Krassimir (director of the Arts Academy of Sofia), Doctor Svetlozar Benchev (professor at the Arts Academy of Sofia and artist) and Stella Rouskova.

Kenny, as Jack Balance.

Poster by Stefan Chinov