art – The Art Magazine | July 2014

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Radar >> Topics of the month
by Ralf Schlüter

„Art out of the OFF“

As a frequent air traveler you think to know how the world look like from window seat. The photographic art from the pilot Christian Block however shows a spectacular view and makes you wonder. There seems to be much more and his art work is captivating.

This art is Off-prospective and will push your view of the world beyond your visible boundaries. It is originated above the clouds, at the edge of our tangible world and from the corner of the world we are able to travel.
We haven’t recognized Christian Blocks artwork through a gallery or an art community. He approached us with his unique photographic artwork. That’s how he definitely caught our attention.
“My works develop from inside and outside of a Boeing747 cockpit”, he wrote, “they are produced in the dimensions of 22cm x 15cm up to 360cm x 240cm, produced on Dibond/Acryl or Dibond/UV-Filter”.

If we say, the artist has a privileged position of perception, so most of the time we refer to his ideas and visual strategies. In Blocks case, we can understand it literally. He is sitting in the cockpit a huge airplane. Not too many people have a place to work with sceneries like this. Blocks pictures allow us to be part of his travels and artistic view of the word.
“We come close to a thunderstorm cloud; see a China Airlines Jumbo passing by in 300 meter distance above Munich or the shadow of our own airplane in the desert sands in Baku”.

In a text Block writes about the experience of flying, which seems to have lost its magic since the era of cheap ticket airlines has emerged.

„To fly away from day, towards night. Passing over airy, weightless clouds and fogbanks into the ink black darkness, around kilometer-high storm clouds filled with unknown energy, straight into the sunrise.
To recognize the first glimpse of the sunlight, a glowing red reflected by the Himalayan peaks. A night flight over the pitch black Atlantic … but no, it is never completely dark: you always can see the horizon. The stars and sometimes the moon are my companions on the way over the water.“

The attitude and expression of Christians pictures are rather in a good way naive.  Their origin is the curiosity about phenomena which can be described in physical science, their sight but generates a feeling of incomprehensibility. Block omits the concept of superelevation. His photos have their power through the reduction to only a few important motives, included are the depictions of indicators and signs from inside the cockpit.

Images:
Bottom: Normally this gentleman sits inside the cockpit of an 747. Christian Block, pilot and photographer.
Top, left to right: an Airbus, passing Block’s airplane on its way to Hong Kong; a thunderstorm cloud above India;  Cockpit view on the runway 24 in Luxembourg.

Source and copyright: art – Das Kunstmagazin | July 2014 | Radar >> Topics of the month | page 18/19

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