Alexander Blank: Reduced to Jimmy

Artist list

Alexander Blank

We live in the age of the image. Arrows and symbols guide us through our daily life and assist us on our computers. From the abundance of visual information some images become icons: recognized by all, used by everybody. It would seem that our face, the most specific part of a human, is exempt from the universal urge for a standardized iconography. Yet, stars hire out their features in advertising for financial gain. Is it the addiction to attention, or just a simple way out of dire straits? Strangely enough there seems to be no need for a connection between the goal and the means: just look at Brat Pitt advertising a woman's perfume.

Our relation with icons is a subject that interests Alexander Blank immensely. Already during his studies at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts he made jewellery pieces that played with the mechanics of visual language. His dented and bruised 'Smiley' is a fine example. For his new work, he once more turned to the way we communicate visually. On both traditional and contemporary jewellery pieces, faces are often prominently shown. In Roman times the cameo showed the portraits of emperors or other rulers - at the time not used as jewellery - and in later ages, these were reproduced into brooches, the cut stones conveying a message of wealth and good taste. By wearing 'buttons' people nowadays can communicate their ideals with depictions of Che Guevrra, Martin Luther King or Barack Obama.

Blank has now invented another, new model. As a starting point he picked images of 'quasi-important' - as he puts it - people. He retained their silhouettes, but erased their traits. By adding each one with a rather surrealistic feature, he turned his portraits into images which are hard to interpret. Is something promoted or denied, hidden or commented?
Each piece is cut from one block of high density foam, which is later on coated with a sensuously soft, black-grey coating. By choosing an almost classical template, Blank produced the cameo brooch for the twenty-first century. To be worn as an intriguing decoration, or, who knows, for the promotion of a conviction dear to the wearer.

Ward Schrijver
(© Galerie Rob Koudijs)