Henning Bohl at Karin Guenther

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"Chappelle discussed the use of his image on Prince's single, admitt[ing], "That's a Prince judo move right there. … You make fun of Prince in a sketch and he'll just use you in his album cover. What am I going to do, sue him for using a picture of me dressed up like him? … That's checkmate right there."

The above image is actually from Bohl's last Balice Hertling exhibition, but the whole wrap up is summarized in the PR of this one if you wanna play along. It's hard to discern the knot when one is tangled in it. A brilliant tactic to ensnare the critic in the brambles they are ostensibly intended to disentangle, forcing seeing briers for the forest, grounded from the critic's usual ivory vantage, quagmired. Added to the "narrative." CAWD's attempts to remain deaf to artworld festivities like putting headphones on at Christmas and uncle Bohl's hearty and "dialectical" bearhug is impossible to discern as friendly or hostile so that when asked how you feel about Christmas your professional opinion always stated through a hostage's clenched and smiling teeth. Like, neutered. "not the social drama, but its modes of expression" and Bohl's hands proffering the original mugs.

AR: Henning Bohl at What Pipeline

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Originally Posted: December 11th, 2015

Note: This entry is part of August Review, our annual look back at this season’s key exhibitions. For more information, see the announcement here.

Henning Bohl at What Pipeline

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Use the magnifying glass to find him, "Knot guy," wishing for control, he wishes the world to be rational and organized, his wish, deep down, is that the world be sensible and ordered. Not being so, he rails against this. The knots being so, he asserts authority over them, his realm he seeks to control some small portion of, a symptom of most overly authoritative blogs on aesthetics. The inconsolable arbitrariness of the world is a scary cosmic horror, thus knot guy assuredly does not like the vast abyss of non-meaning that Bohl has been politely skipping across falling into for some time now. Bohl is the indeterminate horror that knot guy fears, of the possibility of arbitrariness, inconsequence. (This is why conservatism, tradition, fear-mongering and religion all go hand-in-hand.) Fearing a world where meanings and distinctions slip, erode and are horribly abused in dark concrete cells called studios.


See too: Adriana Lara at Algus Greenspon

Will Benedict at Bergen Kunsthall

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The new method of artistic identity production, vacant-token-products for the gallery leaving the unsaleable cultural-capital building for the museums. Benedict has always been, like Kanye, a wonderful producer woefully lacking in “content.” Instead the arrangements are based on the formal material massaged in the medium of the network, buoys in the flow. Though Yeezus was great.

And Benedict's turn towards video production gives the most interesting results, yet the temptation to connect Benedict’s passé part-outs to the subliminal-abjection of the anti-adverts - both creating a fragmented disgust - would miss how sick-sweet repulsiveness of Fried Chicken and KFC commercials is premised on their physiological allure set against a much deeper horror. Benedict’s are closer to the phenomenon of trypophobia, a socially spread internet “fear,” presenting a study of whether it actually premised off a biological response or a form of social inclusion

See too: Will Benedict at Balice Hertling