„Rubens photographiques“ von Christian Lebrat
« Schmale, förderbreitlange Fotografiekompositionen – wie wenn der Breitwandfilm nochmals horizontal verlängert und in den Stillstand von Einzelbildern zurürckgezwungen wäre. « Rubans photographiques » nennt Christian Lebrat seine Experimentalgänge im Medium der Kunstfotografie. Landschaften und Stadtszenen hat er fragmentiert, aneinander und übereinander geschnitten, so dass in diesen Abfolgen di Bewegung des Orts und der Körper wie bei Muybridge berühmten Fotosequenzen der Körpermotorik lesbar, weil imagniierbar wird.
Dank Breitwandeffekt und Collagetechnik erscheinen Architekturen wie rundherum im Bild, urbanes Leben gerät in Schwung, und selbst Naturstudien sind aus verharrender Ruhelage erlöst. Hohe, den Sujets gemässe Ästhetik zeichnet diese Ablaufszenarien aus, die belegen, dass die experimentelle Fotografie nicht am Ende, sondern raumtheoretisch wie essentiell in Ausdehnung begriffen ist. Offenbar lassen sich so stimig filmische wie malerische Effekte in eine Kusntfotografie integrieren, di Fotosequenzen wir Geschichten aus dem Bewusstseinsstrom erzählen kann. »
Siegmar GASSERT, Dreiland-Zeitung (1995)
„Rubans photographiques“ by Christian Lebrat
“There is something cinematic about photography for Christian Lebrat: it moves through sequences, across spaces that are both closed and open, across overlapping lines that attract and repel each other, as if Lebrat were using several cameras all at once (but it is the accomplished flow of photographic film that produces the proliferation of images).
This gives a multiple vision of reality, as in a mirror that reflects more than one image at a time, but a mirror which in its own way is rational, logical, the product of deep thought, an architectural mirror. It would seem that Christian Lebrat prefers reality, but this reality dissolves into continued abstractions; it would seem that Lebrat’s world is essentially horizontal, but there is intellectual verticality to it, as if each line were being constantly reversed.
The sequence comes close to infinity: all interruption is forbidden. Lebrat always goes just a little beyond the last frame, also from time to time looking again at what has been left behind, going back, even leaving a little breathing space for what has snot been fully expressed. His photography always wavers a little between past and present, between present and future, between the imaginary and the real, between solidity and evanescence, between shadow and atmosphere. It is photography that becomes an abstraction, that dissolves into liquid drops, that shifts forms away from their original templates: trees become architecture, architecture becomes boats, the sky penetrates the earth or the sea, the outside infiltrates into the interior of things, cathedrals seem to explode, perhaps in search of a more intense spirituality, and amidst all these signs the camera gets lost and finds itself again, it loses its way in its own labyrinths, and emerges immediately into the light as if it too were made of glass or crystal. The depicted panorama almost appears to be hanging in midair, floating above an invisible lake, detached from the earth.
Photography too likes to take flight from time to time.”
JANUS, Christian Lebrat: the Multiplicity of the Camera, 1992