Christian Blanck

Christian Blanck was born in 1975 in Germany. Originally a strategy consultant, he decided to give photography a go when he saw his two sons playing with his old childhood toys. This gave rise to the ‘Childhood heroes’ Series.

This series of photographs shows old car toys arranged in colourful and geometric patterns. What the works truly are about however is more an evocation of what childhood truly means. The ‘childhood heroes’ as he calls the cars, have missing doors, their paint is peeling, they are dented and scratched - but it doesn’t matter. All these alterations stand for the time that elapsed since Blanck’s own childhood, all the hours of self absorption spent playing with the cars when he was a kid. As he says it himself, the cars ‘were often our first significant possessions’, they tell the history of their owner and offer a journey through time. The cars are not only symbols of Blanck’s own childhood, but also of that of his children, to whom he can hand down the toys, the object thus creating a strong intergenerational bond. It would be too simple to view his work as mere toy-photography when it is so much more than this.

Christian Blanck is characterised by his appetite for new projects and his ability to multitask. This aspect of his personality is visible in the unconventional methods he uses to take his pictures, sometimes even involving his kids in the process by asking them to alter the cars. The pictures reflect this, they bubble with colours and playfulness. ?Welcome to your childhood.