Michael Glasmeier
Claus Böhmler – Smart Artist
“The media artist Claus Böhmler was already “smart” when Steve Jobs was still working for Atari. Böhmler’s interests as an artist are not so much the development of algorithms as the practical use of typewriters, photocopiers, cassette recorders, record players, Super 8 films, cameras, radios, film or slide projectors, video, i.e. the media with which a maximum of art can be produced extremely economically and easily. Like drawing, painting, sculpture, graphics and performance, he uses them as a self-reflecting, intermedial, communicative invitation.”
In: Claus Böhmler: Smart Artist, Textem Verlag, Hamburg 2019
Susanne Weiß
Claus Böhmler – Denkzettel
“The work of professors with their students is not a private matter, but it is usually not a matter in which the public participates. Unless it is published. Many a lecture, many a lecture by a famous scholar has been handed down only because there was a student who diligently wrote down what he had heard and learned. The fact that it is not the work of one individual that is reproduced by a second, but no less the learning of this very listener, becomes clear when there were third, fourth and fifth who took notes. A lecture day becomes as many lectures as there were writing listeners. The transcript becomes a document of exchange, and in this it differs greatly from the manuscripts of the lecturer, who documents the work of an individual – in advance and to the point of hindsight.”
In: Gesprächszeichungen. DVD HFBK Hamburg. Exhibition in the gallery of the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg. Opening Monday, 9 May 2005
Ludwig Seyfarth
Blechschaden auf dem Papier.
“The fact that many people remain unconscious of the changes caused by technology is, as it were, the mental damage to the body that artists like Claus Böhmler can help avoid.”
In: Automobil. Handzeichnungen 1967-69. Kreis Stromarn. Bad Oldesloe 2003.
Regina Bärtel
Claus Böhmler. In: 40 years fluxus and its influence
In Böhmler’s pictures and objects, the use of language as commentary, explanation or play on words plays a central role. For him, language as the basis of communication is the medium of highest authenticity. But here, too, his research repeatedly focuses on the actual meaning of words, sentences and concepts.
The manipulation through and in the images, the relationship between being and appearance, which is clearly opposed here, the relationship between image and world as well as between original and copy, is thus addressed in Böhmler’s works in a variety of ways: writing, speaking, acting, drawing and constructing. The drawings, installations and objects show the things as they really are or how they can be seen outside their traditional use. With a smile, the viewer of the works becomes aware of how the electronic media determine our perception, blur the relationship to reality, and finally superimpose the real…”
In: 40 years fluxus and its influence. Wiesbaden 2002.
René Block
Zwischen Rechenschieber und (Haus)Traum.
“A seemingly spunky, but in reality alert lateral thinker of this art business who prefers to produce rather than reproduce”.
René Block: Zwischen Rechenschieber und (Haus)Traum. In: Instant, aber sofort! Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel 2001.
Susanne Weiß
Analysen des Alltags
“Claus Böhmler uses the time a computer takes to process data while its user is waiting in front of the screen to invent his own data – and immediately!”
Susanne Weiß: Analysen des Alltags. In: Instant, aber sofort! Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel 2001.
Susanne Weiß
Shadowing Dreamtime Double
“With this material at hand, Böhmler sees his task as an artist to challenge the imagination of the viewers, to rouse their fantasies and intellect. He does not aim for a quick, brash impact but prefers to work through the depth of silence. The same can be said for his technique of presentation, which he used with great passion and virtuosity, namely photocopying. By replacing the traditional craft of an artist with a machine that has long conquered the workday world can be literally be used by everyone, the artist disappears behind his work.”
Susanne Weiß: Shadowing Dreamtime Double. Böhmler, Beuys and the Images. Achilla Press. Hamburg 1998.
Hanna Hohl
Standpunkte
“Böhmler has Picasso’s well-known saying “I’m not searching, I’m finding”, varies, he says: “I’m not searching, I’m investigating”! For discovering, finding, awakens in him an almost addiction to new searching. In his own consequence, his work is therefore not only processual, but for the time being in the double sense of the word. Their energy lies in the idea, in the sketch as “prima idea”, in the incunabulum as the core of the idea. Boehmler undermines the concept of the completed work of art, and that with all the means of art at his disposal, in a playful and at the same time enigmatic way.”
In: Claus Böhmler: Standpunkte. Hamburger Kunsthalle 1985.