Spirit of Boz

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.

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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.

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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

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

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.

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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…

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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.