John Bock (*1965) is a sculptor, filmmaker, action artist, author and maker of drawings, best known for his theatrical cosmos of genre-bending performances and installations. His works often converge in sprawling experimental setups that confound the senses. The Berlin-based artist’s material excesses, shock effects, soundscapes and systematic semantic irritations have been described as a “manic world theater” that explores the dark sides of the psyche and radically flaunts the breakdown of social and psychological taboos.
John Bock, COWWIDINOK, 2015 (video still)
© John Bock
© John Bock
Psychonauts
John Bock and Heiner Franzen
Berlinische Galerie, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Berlin
March 7–August 11, 2025
Who are we and what are we doing here? Ever since Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) founded psychoanalysis, we have been searching our own souls for answers to life’s great questions. Psychonaut comes from astronaut and literally means soul-sailor. These voyages lead not out into space but towards the infinite expanse within us. In that spirit artists John Bock (*1965) and Heiner Franzen (*1960) explore the human psyche and its depths in their enigmatic videos. They draw inspiration from the cinema with its rivers of imagery, a machinery of dream and myth that has often been compared with the human mind. Bock’s theatrical film COWWIDINOK, 2015, and Franzen’s installation Twin, 2009, are both in the collection of the Berlinische Galerie and will be screened on the museum’s premises for the first time.
Learn more
