The small exhibition space on the first floor of the Vista Alegre Museum, in Ílhavo, dedicated to Serge Bloch’s work, is completely filled with red suitcases. In a exhibition apparatus that is somewhat superlative, as if the frame wanted to compete with the painting itself, we can see the suitcases opened and resting over metallic frames. Under a the strong lighting, the cases – that seem travel luggage – are wainting for someone to reclaim the content composed by book exemplars and original illustrations from the author. On the room walls are works that had a destiny other than book publication: institutional posters and bigger originals of editorial commissions. Guarding the asset there are two totems made with cardboard boxes that almost reach the ceiling. On the boring grey and brown surfaces of the boxes are disjointed figures painted in black. The totems impose a solemn respect to whom enters the space, as if the visitor was to disturb an ongoing conversation between them and the suitcases.
Born in 1956 in the region of Alsace, in France, Sege Bloch had no idea about what to do with his life after graduating from high school. He worked in several jobs that range from civil construction to assembling lines in factories, passing through painting arrows in roads, drilling holes in heavy industry or even emptying buckets of blood in surgery operation rooms. He dedicates himself to illustration after finding out that there is actually a profession called… illustrator! He enrolls at the École Supérieur de des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg and from then on his career progresses when he joins several design studios and newspapers, at the same time he works freelance. Beyond the publications for children his editorial and communication work can be found in newspapers like The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times, etc.
Among the books present are: La Grande Histoire d’un Petit Trait, definitely autobiographic, with the reference to influences and motivations of the will to produce a trace; Le Collectionneur, a suggestive title for a content that also fetches most of its substance at the author’s life; L’Ennemi, that tells the human drama inside the absurdity of war; Poémes et Chansons de Jacques Prévert and O Tigre na Rua (The Tiger in the Street, edited in portuguese), a good excuse to let a fine indian ink trace get entangled in poetry letters.
The work of Serge Bloch seems to completely usurp the notion of creativity and originality (in the most conventional meaning of the term) leaving nothing for whom might come next. His creative process reduces elaborate notions – read life – to its most elementary forms. It seems that from this author’s drawings one can only build complex things to represent more complex things. With this, this illustrator appeals to our capacity of identifying an idea, a concept or a notion from a minimum of elements. And we figure that he has done it well when we immediately identify in a single twisted trace on the paper any object or scene from the everyday. Well understood, one can maybe say the same about several other authors. Yet, Serge Bloch doesn’t limit himself to a purist attitude and resorts to anything that comes handy (graphically, that is) to urgently spew out the ideas on paper.
In primary school the child that draws wants to evolve towards the more complex forms in order to better represent the real, to better represent the world that surrounds him. Serge Bloch however, doesn’t shy away from freely getting back to primary school to show us what meanwhile has been lost with that ambition.
Exhibition “Serge Bloch” at the Museum of Vista Alegre, following “Ilustrarte 2016”. Integrated event in the Festa da Vista Alegre festivity program. To see until 31 august. Free entrance.
More information HERE
To know more about Serge Bloch: www.sergebloch.net
Note: photos by Rogério Guimarães.
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