A brief aerial study

« Axel Crettenand presents less the concrete paths than the abstract path networks in « A Brief Aerial Study » (2020). The photographic images were taken with the help of Google Earth technology and serve as a comparison. They contrast the almost undescribed expanse of Siberia with the grid-like U.S. urban landscape including its agricultural areas. Now it would be obvious to romanticize the deserted natural landscape and to turn away with a shudder from the rationalized earth. In fact, artists have done exactly that since the beginning of modernism in order to base a somewhat tolerable business model on this clumsy contrast (it cannot be a coincidence that factory owners love to collect impressionists). In fact, however, both visions belong together like pitch and brimstone. The idea of the «blank page» cannot be separated from the idea of «writing» or more ecologically spun, man cannot easily get rid of his own presence on the planet. » – Text by Roger M. Buergel