Christian Freudenberger

Christian Freudenberger’s exhibition, Zeitmaschiene (Time Machine), opened at the Locker Plant during Open House weekend and remained on view through the end of October. The work was a series of floor-to-ceiling wall paintings, filling the entire front room of the Locker Plant, which he based on images isolated and refined from a range of popular-culture sources, including comic books, advertisements, and science textbooks. Viewed from left to right, the nine panels depicted an oil spurt erupting in an otherwise empty room; a spinning globe juxtaposed against a wall map; a skyscraper rising above a deserted freeway; a dust ball suspended in mid-air; a falling coconut; a suspension bridge arcing over a body of water; the top of a staircase; a windmill; and a hazy, brilliantly colored sunset.

Taken in sequence, the nine panels suggested a large-scale, non-linear comic strip, or a random shuffling of images in a viewfinder. Freudenberger’s use of bold outlines and large areas of flat color accentuated a sense of stillness and arrested movement in the series. The images, reduced to their essential outlines then enlarged, became stark, ominous, and comical—nine blunt vignettes retaining a sense of the cryptic.

Freudenberger has exhibited extensively throughout Europe. In 2004 his work was included in exhibitions at the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen, Germany, and at Franche-Comté/Museum Dole, France. In 2002 he was a resident artist at Schloss Ringenberg in Germany. Freudenberger holds a Master’s degree in fine arts from Kunstakadamie in Düsseldorf, where he continues to live.