John G. Boehme (Vancouver)

"Yours as always in perpetual service" John G. Boehme

What interests me, as an artist is the ongoing reformulation of a set of key interests. These interests are drawn from my observations of some of Western society’s less considered compulsions. Looking into the performance of gender, specifically masculinity, the valorization of labour, the pursuit of leisure, and the marshalling of amity, I explore language and paralanguage, that is, both the spoken and gestural aspects of human communication.

Live artwork presents a direct relationship with material, with action and process, with human interaction. As I understand it, physical involvement is the most embodied way in which to create meaning. Through durational works both the artist and the audience gain access to an experience uniquely available through such commitment. This is of course the archetypal modality of ‘performance art’, an experience that unfolds through an extended period of time. Although there is no alternative to the durational aspect of performance per se, I do remain interested in the question of representation of performance, the very clear and obvious problem of making the ephemeral available to a larger audience at a different time. Using video to “reconstruct” an event makes publication and therefore discourse possible. Despite its material concerns I believe that art is rendered ultimately in a social domain.

With regard to multi-disciplinary works, I prefer the alternative term “trans-disciplinary”, as it refers to integration between media, as opposed to, say, a sequential use of different forms. For instance, I employ performance, video, audio and objects simultaneously in a number of my pieces. I am not constrained to any particular mode; rather, I utilize integrated approaches within my practice.
“Yours as always in perpetual service”
John G. Boehme
johngboehme@shaw.ca
http://people.finearts.uvic.ca/~jgboehme/