This show was selected as part of Berlin Oomph powered by Hallen 05—a curated roundup of the best contemporary art exhibitions and events held by galleries, museums, and institutions in town during Hallen 05, September 2024.
The exhibition “JOHN S. BOSKOVICH I appreciate my uniqueness” retrospectively presents the work of the LA-based post-conceptual artist John Boskovich, who passed away in 2006, for the first time in Europe.
Over his twenty-year career, Boskovich critically engaged with popular and visual culture, religion, psychology, romance, and consumer behavior through the appropriation of images and ritual objects. In the mid-1980s, Boskovich emerged as one of the most prominent and provocative artists engaging with the legacy of conceptual art in Los Angeles. Together with other artists of his generation—such as Mike Kelley, Larry Johnson, Richard Hawkins, and Kathe Burkhart—he questioned mainstream culture and societal norms. Boskovich’s work, which was self-reflective and autobiographical, drew on his life as a gay man and radically blurred the boundaries between art and life.
Boskovich’s early work was characterized by an ironic and sharp combination of text and image, viewed from a queer perspective against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis. In the 1990s, his sculptures and installations deeply explored self-help culture and religion. In the late 1990s, Boskovich transformed his 1920s Los Angeles apartment into what he called the “Boskostudio,” which served as both his residence and a comprehensive total work of art until his death. The Boskostudio literally took over the entire apartment, incorporating walls, floors, and ceilings. Each room was theatrically transformed into a distinctive staging full of eerie references to consumerism. Boskovich himself described the Boskostudio as “a [Rainer Werner] Fassbinder set where no film was ever shot,” but where “drama thrives in abundance.” Boskovich’s cinematic work was also remarkable and ahead of its time—his extraordinary film North (2001), featuring artist and writer Gary Indiana reading from Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s novel of the same name, is a captivating portrait of its subject.
The exhibition “JOHN S. BOSKOVICH I appreciate my uniqueness” shows Boskovich’s work from the late 80s to the early 2000s and draws attention to the many valuable aspects of his work and sublime political severeness which, it seems, could not be more topical.
at Scherben, Berlin
until October 20, 2024