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Claus Böhmler

The German illustrator, poet and media artist Claus Böhmler (1939 - 2017) was a media poet in the true sense of the word. He worked with the media, took them apart, examined them, and eventually reassembled them.

Claus Böhmler attended the Werkschule Pforzheim from 1961. From 1963 to 1968 he studied art at the art academies in Stuttgart and in Düsseldorf, where he was a student of Joseph Beuys. His first known work, Pinocchio, dates from 1969. From 1974 to 2005 he taught as a professor at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg. Among his students were Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen. Together with Jörg Schlick and others, they had founded the Lord Jim Lodge, an association of several artists, of which Claus Böhmler was also a member.

Böhmler was interested in the possibilities of image reproduction and its technology. His use of photocopiers, radios, cassette recorders, cameras, and film and video cameras was ironic. He drew, wrote, set to music, collaged, filmed, and animated. In his installations, readymades, drawings, or animations, the focus was on the multiplicity of an object that outgrows its traditional function. Böhmler critically questioned the relationship between appearance and reality, original and copy, reality and image. In his paintings and objects, the use of language as commentary, explanation, or wordplay took on a central role. His experimental investigations referred to the actual meaning of words, sentences and concepts.

His oeuvre includes action readings, artist books, artist records and CDs, graphics and copy art, media packages and video editions ranging from language games to language objects, from typefaces to sound installations.

Claus Böhmler has published several recordings: Fernsehen Nächste Woche (cassette) 1982, Materialien Zur Postmoderne In Bild Und Ton (LP) 1986, Der Maler P. Par Claude Boehmler (CDR) 1999, Über Das Ablesen Von Farben (CDR) 1999, Live At The Lightbulb (CD) 2003 and Klangundkrach (1996) 2014.

Works for listening