Spiritofboz

Read the rest of this entry »

BeBOZ: AROUND THE BOZ IN 80 YEARS

The BeBOZ Trilogy 

Julien Friedler, an artist, writer and psychoanalyst is the ancestor of THE SPIRIT OF BOZ. His work comprises paintings, installations and performances.

By means of one performance, three exhibitions and a symposium the curator Erno Vroonen will introduce BeBOZ of Julien Friedler in selected locations to the city of Munich opening the door to enter the world of BOZ. This series of Munich events has been called "The BeBOZ Trilogy".

BeBOZ: AROUND THE BOZ IN 80 YEARS

 
Thurs., 2008/05/08, 19:00 – 23:00, Hl. Kreuz-Kirche, Ichostr. 1, München-Giesing
BeBOZ: AROUND THE BOZ IN 80 YEARS, Vernissage in the manse, Gietlstr. 2
Exhibition until 2008/06/29, Tue. – Sun. 13:00 – 18:00, Wed. 10:00 – 18:00

This is the first event of the Trilogy, after a kind of prelude, a video-performance featuring Jack Balance, which took place on March 1st 2008. The theme of this first exhibition will be Julien Friedler’s "Around the Boz In 80 Years" project.

With this project, Friedler invites people to get part of the world of BOZ by filling out a questionnaire. While answering the questionnaire everybody breaks through the secular course of the world and pauses for a little while to get into the six existential questions :

 
DOES GOD EXIST?

HOW DO YOU CHARACTERIZE THIS PERIOD?

HOW DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE?

ARE YOU HAPPY?

IS SEXUALITY IMPORTANT?

WHO AM I?

 
The questionaires are being collected around the world for 80 years, i.e. until 2086 – mind the title of the exhibition AROUND THE BOZ IN 80 YEARS.

The answers on these questions are going to build the fundament of the artwork "Forest of Souls” and constitute the materialized animus of the world during a certain age.

Friedler wants to create new icons for a better future world. Therefore the artist aims a long term, idealistic strategy supposed to overlast his own lifetime. Art should be more than an object of prestige. Given the fact that art nowadays often is reduced to its market value, one tends to miss the original surplus value of it. Isn’t art supposed to touch people deep down inside and to excavate the inner spirit and soul?

According to this a sacred room is ideal to present the first exhibition because, as religion, Julien Friedler’s work is engaged in existential questions.

The Catholic Parrish Hl. Kreuz in Giesing, as patron of this exhibition, also raises these questions. During the Sunday church services and several evening receptions, with changing speakers, there will be searched for answers.

In the church the searching for answers while the exhibition will be underlined by a sound installation of Cornelia Faist. In the entrance of the church the visitors will have the possibilty to fill out the questionnaires and get part of BeBOZ.

In May and June the Sunday church services at 10 o’clock will refer to the above mentioned questions of BeBOZ.

 In June there will be several evening lectures with different speakers who treat following items.

 On Sunday at 18.30 PM.

• 01.06.: Art and Church/ Is there any need for?: Pastor Rainer Hepler, artist-referent

• 08.06.: Art and Spirituality: Abt Odilo Lechner
• 15.06.: Art and Mission: Dr. Petra Giloy-Hirtz, independent curator & Bo Christian Larsson, artist
• 22.06.: Art and Therapy: Prof. Dr. Gertraud Schottenloher, Director of Postgraduate Studies Art and Therapy at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich &  Stefanie Höll, artist and therapist
• 29.06.: Concert: Musica Ritmica, composed by Thomas Renner

 The evening lectures will be moderated by pastoral reverend Gereon Kühr and curator Erno Vroonen BeBOZ, Munich 2008.

 
Initiative by: Julien Friedler, www.beboz.org
Hosted by: Catholic Parrish Hl. Kreuz, München-Giesing
Soundinstallation: Cornelia Faist
Curator: Erno Vroonen

Organisation: Britta Hölzer
Design:  Schmid+Widmaier Design
PR :  Goldmann PR                 

Next exhibitions of BeBOZ by Julien Friedler:

 
Wed., 2008/06/18, 18:00 – 21:00, Sotheby’s, Odeonsplatz 16
BeBOZ: LE CLOCHARD CELESTE, Vernissage
Exhibition until 2008/06/29, Tue. – Sun. 13:00 – 18:00, Wed. 10:00 – 18:00

 
Fri., 2008/10/24, 18:00 – 21:00, Galerie der Künstler, Maximilianstr. 42
BeBOZ: GIVE UP, Vernissage
BeBOZ: Symposium 15:00 – 18:00 h
Exhibition until 2008/11/23, Wed. – Sun. 11:00-18:00

Imprint:
 

Initiative by:                 Julien Friedler   Curator:                      Erno Vroonen       

Organisation:              Britta Hölzer

Design:                       Schmid+Widmaier Design

PR:                             Goldmann PR                                   

Munich, March 1st, 2008.

On this first day of March, the Muenchner Kammerspiele theater is the setting for the videoperformance "Spirit of Boz-Around the Boz in 80 Years", as part of  the Toy Void/Doing Identity festivals (curated by Bo Christian Larsson) and the first of a series of BeBoz  events in Munich all along the year 2008.

Curated by Erno Vroonen, a "kurator" and art historian, this event was focused on Jack Balance and  Julien Friedler’s "Around the Boz In 80 Years" questionnaire. The metaphysical clown (and main character of The Book of Boz) was omnipresent : in video, first, in a movie directed by Yves Anchar, and "live", through about fifty incarnations of the clown character, of different ages, sexes, or races, (contrasting  with the simple "clones" in the Ostende performance) who have invited the public and the people in the street to participate in the "Around the Boz In 80 Years" project by answering the questionnaire.

Read also :

> Jack Balance’s gallery (on www.spiritofboz.org)

> The Scribe meets Jack Balance (in Julien Friedler’s Book of Boz, chapter 1 and Audiobook of Boz, episode 1)

> Jack Balance in a beach performance in Ostende, Belgium (August 2007)

> Jack Balance in Buenos Aires (Argentina), December  2007

Jack Balance has different representations : main character from Julien Friedler’s Book of Boz, sculpture or painting, comics character, he appears also on merchandising as for example T-shirts. Metaphysical clown, forced by his creator to be only a character, he seeks to act like a real man.

This picture shows a detail of the installation named The Innocents, exposed in 2002 at the Mudima Foundation in Milan, in 2003 at Espace de Retz in Paris and in 2004 during the Flanders Festival.

Jack Balance in action, performances, installations and works…

Read the rest of this entry »

The Boz is a universe full of enchanters, created by Julien Friedler. It results of a singular experience of the divine, enhanced by a string of artworks (videos, paintings, performances, installations, etc.). Interacting with each other, these works are also connected to a core book : “The Book of Boz”. Three characters will explore it from side to side : Jack Balance (a metaphysical clown revolting against his creator); Me (an hyperbolically narcissic clown covered by mirrors); and its Scribe (a third clown, responsible of the others’ destiny). The lattest will be held up to public obloquy by his readers.

The Boz will be conceived as an always expanding universe, which spearhead will a new art form, designed by and for the masses, on a minimal support (a questionnaire, any object, a sketch,..) : BE ART.

Eventually, the main stake of this plan will be to give an answer to the moral misery so important in our societies.
In this purpose, we’ll imagine a village of boz, thought as an ideal to reach.
In an article published in Gynaika, Julien Friedler will even define the Boz as a modern myth.

With his article "The Artist and his Universe", Philipp Württemberg introduces the readers of Sotheby’s magazine Preview (January issue) to "the eclectic and iconoclastic work of Julien Friedler". He writes about the course and the influences of the artist, the Book of Boz and "Around the Boz in 80 Years".

"It is not easy to draw Julien Friedler’s portrait in a few words. A complex, intellectual, creative mind, and artist and writer, a psychoanalyst, ethnologist and philosopher, he has created a rich body of works. Deploying highly diverse media from paintings and sculpture to installations and photography, Friedler has exhibited works all over Europe, culminating in his current project, an entire imaginary universe entitled The Spirit of Boz.

This project has two elements : the first, a 600-page book The Book of Boz, which features a complex discussion between three clowns and their epic metaphysical journey. Visual works interact within the book, transforming it so that, as Friedler says, ‘it consists of many things you can’t see of feel, which are important for our entire history and development.’ To my questions of where the title ‘BOZ’ originates, he answers : ‘I do not know. The principle idea is that different thoughts can construct a greater ‘BOZ World’ across cultural borders, languages, religions and creeds.’
Involvement is an essential aspect of Friedler’s artistic world. Everyone is invited to participate at www.spiritofboz.org, not to simply add comments, but to interact. Friedler recently enlarged his world with a vast collective project based on responses from across the world to six questions, offering insight, in the words of the artist, into ‘the soul of the world’. Printed copies of the questionnaires will be sealed, 500 at a time, into metal boxes, which, when stacked in columns of ten, will create a ‘forest of souls’.
With an 80-year lifespan, this ambitious project will no doubt develop other, currently unforeseen, initiatives, expanding and adapting Friedler’s universe. The artist has created a foundation - Friedler for Contemporary Art - to supervise its conclusion, preserving all works of arts created around the World of Boz. The foundation will organise exhibitions, promote artistic research and, working on Marcel Duchamp’s theory that "all is art’, follow the objective to accept all works by both artists and non-artists.
The art of Duchamp, Wassily Kandinsky, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Joseph Beuys have inspired The Spirit of Boz as they are the works that Friedler has in his own collection. In taking these influences and combining his own particular vision, Julien Friedler is indeed an artistic entrepreneur."

Philipp Württemberg is vice chairman, Sotheby’s Europe.

Julien Friedler and his "Demoiselle" (from Picasso’s world famous painting) headlined in this article of New York magazine(www.nymag.com,  Entertainment section), alongside some other "Demoiselles d’Avignon" "covers",  as seen during the "Demoiselles Revisited" art show( Francis Naumann Gallery, New York), which ended at the end of December.

"Spirit of Boz : Les voyages imaginaires de Julien Friedler" (The imaginary travels of Julien Friedler) is an article by Frederic Giet published in "La Célibataire" (number 15, winter 2007). This issue of the French journal of Lacanian psychoanalysis, directed par Charles Melman, is the first one in a trilogy about the three religions of the Book ("Les Trois religions du Livre") and is titled "Le bonheur juif" (The Jewish Happiness).

The first part of the article is about the Book of Boz and its connections with the Ancient Testament and Julien Friedler’s own visual art works. The second part details the art project "Around the Boz In 80 Years", which has just finished its first year.

La première partie de l’article ("de la lettre à l’esprit") est consacrée au Livre du Boz, analysant à la fois les liens tissés avec l’Ancien Testament et la dialectique établie avec les oeuvres plastiques.  "De l’esprit à l’être", la deuxième partie, glisse du "singulier vers l’universel" en détaillant le projet "Le Tour du Boz en 80 ans", qui vient de boucler sa première année.

Read also :

• Le summary of Célibataire, on the website of the publisher, Edk.
• Testimonies about the Book of Boz (Denise Lachaud, psychoanalyst; Sandrine Rochez)
• Around the Boz In 80 Years : presentation of the project.

The 4th Be Art Show in Latin America had something special. It took place on December 5, 2007, during the "noche de la exposicion" (Gallery Night), DacilArt Gallery, in Buenos Aires (Argentina). The star of the show was obviously Jack Balance, the famous character from Julien Friedler’s Book of Boz.

This colorful character was in the object of an auction sale, which would provide the buyer the right to bring him back home for 3 days and draw, paint, picture him,… Julien Friedler describes this process as "collector’s art", according this Be Art proposition : "To seek art in unexpected places." Besides, a lottery was organized, with this prize : a 10 minutes date with Jack Balance during the night.

Read the rest of this entry »

Didi Wagner, a well-known Brazilian TV journalist, has interviewed Julien Friedler, just before the opening of "Demoiselles Revisited", - an art show celebrating the centennial of Picasso’s famous painting, The Demoiselles d’Avignon, - at Francis Naumann Gallery, in New York, on November 16, 2007. Didi’s show, Lugar Incomum, was broadcasted on the Multishow channel of the Globo network, for a Brazilian audience, on December 12, 2007.

Julien Friedler spoke about the subversive aspect of Picasso’s painting, about his own contribution to the art show, about his career of psychoanalyst, about "art as space of liberty" and, last but not least, about his large scale project, "The Forest of Souls".

Read/see also :

• The Demoiselles Revisited : details and artists.
• The Demoiselles Revisited : photos.
• The Forest Of Souls / Around The Boz In 80 Years