Internationally acclaimed Visiting Assistant Professor of Art Echo Eggebrecht is currently on display in this yearís Next Wave Art festival in Brooklyn, New York.
Hosted by Brooklyn Academy of Music, the annual event features twelve Brooklyn-based artists ñ and like many of them, Eggebrecht has been featured before. A few years back, the Nov. 12 2004 issue of the New York Times said she ìdistinguishes herself among the growing ranks of artists” and that her work ìis meticulously rendered and dotted with wry contradictions and bits of Americana.”
ìIt is very flattering. I am a huge fan of B.A.M. and the Next Wave Festival, and it was an honor to be a part of it,” said Eggebrecht.
Her work is currently on display in the B.A.M. Harvey Theater in Brooklyn. There are three paintings and one stop-motion animation using claymation.
The three paintings, called ìStopwatch,” ìPainting For Don DeLillo” and ìMilk,” were originally featured in a show in Belgium, titled Austrilitz. Eggebrecht mentioned she used Charlie Chaplinís ìThe Great Dictator” as a jumping off point for her work for the show.
ìIt was my first show in Europe,” said Eggebrecht, ìand it seemed fitting to do something that dealt with European history as a means to communicate a longing for escape and freedom encompassed in a larger sense of home.”
“Stopwatch” features Charles Lindbergh as a man in a portrait. ìMilk” similarly displays a poster of Buster Keaton, reminiscent of his ad campaign from the 70s. In the background of ìPainting For Don DeLillo” lies a map of flight patterns, flight times and conversations based on the morning of 9/11.
ìItís a painting about conspiracy theory, and the sort of paranoia that leads to a kind of personal entrapment,” said Eggebrecht.
The stop-motion animation, titled ìStudy For Rahm,” is a piece working towards a larger goal, ìRahm,” which will be featured in an upcoming solo show of Eggebrechtís in Manhattan. This event will take place in May.
The ìStudy for Rahm,” according to Eggebrecht, focuses on ìmen in power such as Rahm Emmanuel, Richard Feynman and Henry Kissinger, figures known both for having colorful personalities and existing in the public eye in a certain way. But theyíre also examples of people who made big decisions in history.
ìThe animation is largely about vulnerability and power,” said Eggebrecht.
For those interested, Eggebrechtís work will continue to be featured at the Next Wave festival until Dec. 20.
Eggebrecht received her BFA in 2000 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her MFA at Hunter College in 2006. Before the Next Wave Festival, she held exhibitions in Chicago, Ill.; Los Angeles, Calif.; Kortijk, Belgium and Basel, Switzerland.† Currently, she teaches seven courses at the College: three in drawing, three in printing and one in painting.
ìI tend to paint from sets,” said Eggebrecht. ìMy paintings tend to focus on personal history and more overarching history, and the intersection of those two things.”