Amsel, Drossel, Funk und Star

The experimental artistic practice of Claus Böhmler, a member of Fluxus from the early 1960s onwards, explores the intersections among text, sound, performance, and conceptual art. In the various mediums in which the artist worked, such as performance, drawing, sound, sculpture and installation, Böhmler explores the relationships between reality and the image, as well as the original and facsimile. By disassembling and playing with the way devices such as radios, televisions, photocopiers and instruments of mass media are used, he renders visible the unseen cogs and wheels of media mechanisms, and combines them with objects not directly related to the media. Word games play a central role in his works that incorporate grammatical strings of connected words and concepts. For example, for "Amsel, Drossel, Funk und Star" (Blackbird, Thrush, Radio and Starling), which consists of a nest box made from a tree trunk wearing headphones, he playfully alters the title and lyrics of a German children’s song, changing the word Fink, which means finch, to Funk, or radio. With the change of a single letter and the headphones positioned on the nest box, Böhmler creates a humorous parable on the act of listening. Both with its title and unusual combination of objects, the work transforms familiar images, and gives way to a new structural integrity.