Eternity is almost here.... don't miss it!

Debuting this Friday at 319 N. 11th Street, Philadelphia:

Opening in Philadelphia on June 4th: In No Time!

Mike Fleming and I are debuting our "Eternity" piece for one night only - next Friday in Philadelphia at Progressive Sharing, a gallery on the 6th floor of the warehouse building at 319 N. 11th Street in Philadelphia. The exhibition will last exactly 300 minutes. Eternity will last one split second. Come to see it fall into place at exactly 8PM!

a mountain of emotion

This one of those works of art that was able to move me to tears when I first encountered it in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's something I still think about when I'm feeling sad or frustrated. The piece is a diptych- two videos shown side by side on flat screen monitors mounted to the wall - and the other video is of a woman. They are both shown in a highly emotional state, which builds and eventually climaxes with simultaneous screams, all in silence and slow motion, separate but together. My favorite part of this one video is the look of relief on his face when he first stops screaming.

some progress on eternity

Mike and I have been working hard to finish Eternity before we move out of our studio (we are hoping to have an opening/closing party on May 14 or 16th). We used a piece of scrap wood leftover from the ceiling of our Grand Opening For Gravity installation to test the spacing and attachment of the clock motors (the real deal will be made of white plexiglas). We attached wires to all the battery terminals and are waiting for the power supplies to come in the mail. There will be four adapters that connect to 8-12 motors each (wired in series), and they will all plug in to a single power strip. Hopefully when we flip the switch all the clocks will start ticking at the exact same moment...which will scramble the word immediately, since some of those black lines forming the letters are made of second hands. We're keeping our fingers crossed that all goes as planned!
(click on the photos to enlarge them)

picking up what I put down

Remember how, a long time ago, I was going to mesh myself with the members of my community in the form of mixed-up puzzles? Well, I'm finally getting around to it....

These are only the first two. There will eventually be 12 puzzles in all. I'm not sure how I feel about them yet, but I thought I should try to finish them before I leave Alfred.

(((I got a job at Bowdoin College, so I'm moving to Maine this summer!)))

artist books

I was invited to write something for the audio component of the "Fit to be Bound" exhibition at the Everson Museum, which opens later this week. They asked me to answer the question of what artist books are for me - what do they look like, what comprises an artist book, etc. My response will be included as part of the cell phone audio tour system, so that any visitor who comes into the exhibition can dial in and listen to my thoughts. Here's what I submitted:

"For me, the artist book emphasizes the process of viewing rather than the product of making. The book represents a personal encounter - the importance of seeing, discovering, and understanding a work of art on your own terms, in your own time. The book is not an object that's meant to be understood from a distance. It is meant to be studied; it requires investigation. Contained within its volume is a story, an experience, which has been physically recorded by its maker. You are meant to sit with it, relate to it, to let the story unfold. This cannot be accomplished in an instant or at first glance, but slowly, over the course of time, with patience and persistence. Its form, its thickness and weight, can tell you how much of your time it will demand. A story can be one story tall, or one mile long, or as thick as one strand of hair. Nevertheless, it is up to you, the viewer, to read it."

props

(Images of work by Richard Serra and Charles Ray)

Opening on April 17th: Fit to be Bound

I will be showing my sculpture Extended Horizon at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY, in a juried exhibition called "Fit to be Bound." A bit about the show:

"In 2010, the Everson Museum of Art introduced The Edge of Art: New York State Artists Series as an alternative to the traditional Biennial Exhibition. Fit to Be Bound, the second exhibition in a series of four showcases a broad range of artist books created by artists currently living in New York State—the first survey of its kind at the Everson. The exhibition will be an exploration of the various means by which contemporary artists have expanded the notion of the book form, from the traditional to the sculptural, from paper to mixed-media, small-scale and oversized. Thirty-four artists from 12 counties are included in the exhibition." (read more about it on their website)

Extended Horizon, 2009
(photos by Mike Fleming)

Last Minute

by Jorge Macchi and Edgardo Rudnitzky
(found here)

sketch for eternity

I'm trying to wrap my brain around this word in so many ways. Is it the opposite of "now"? Or are they one and the same? It blows my mind!

(P.S. Those lines are clock hands that will line up this way once every 24 hours. Orange = hour hand, magenta = minute hand, silver = second hand, teal = 24 hour hand. They will all be black in real life but this drawing is helping me and my collaborator, Mr. Mike Fleming, map out all of the movements. Click on the image to see it bigger.)

This Too Shall Pass

I've always loved Fischli & Weiss's "The Way Things Go", but oh boy oh boy.... this is something else.

imagine the possibilities

There, I Fixed It

(it's my new favorite blog)

The Ecstasy of Influence, 2009

The Ecstasy of Influence from Alicia Eggert on Vimeo.

It's nice to meet you!, 2007-2008

It's nice to meet you! from Alicia Eggert on Vimeo.

Beautiful People

(photo by Mike Fleming)

Neither blue nor white collar

Red Collar Incorporated (photo by Mike Fleming)


My partner, Mike Fleming, and I moved into a new studio space back in November. The space is a pseudo-office/business/gallery called Red Collar Incorporated. It's located in a small strip mall storefront in rural Wellsville, NY, and sits between a Dollar General and an H+R Block. The front room is a sort of gallery space and the rear houses a large open work space, all of which are open to the public when we're there, providing us with a forum for interaction with the local community. The neon sign that hangs in the front window was custom made by an Alfred University student named Zachary Velkoff. We plan on having a grand opening for the space sometime in March, so stay tuned.


Mike and I have been keeping ourselves busy proposing projects to a number of places. We proposed another version of "A Grand Opening For Gravity" to Vox Populi in Philadelphia, for an exhibition in their guest artist gallery. We would like to take the installation a step further by creating an hourglass effect with two waist-high piles of the colorful pennant flags. The idea being that as one pile diminishes, slowly disappearing into a hole in the ceiling, the other grows, slowly unfurling onto the floor. Each day, the direction would be reversed, and the contents would transfer from one side of the room to the other. The horizontally scrolling wall-mounted unit would hang between them on the wall. Essentially, the installation would explore conventionally disparate definitions of time (my favorite subject, if you haven't noticed) - cyclical vs. linear, finite vs. infinite.

"A Grand Opening For Gravity" (proposal for Vox Populi)


Another proposal we just finished up is for a residency at Franconia Sculpture Park in Minnesota. We proposed to make a 16-foot tall replica of a "Nature Scent" aerosol air freshener. The monolithic can would mimmic the real deal by spraying mist (water) at regular intervals. It would hopefully act as "a catalyst for raising questions about man’s relationship with nature, and serve as an absurd and ironic monument to the chasm created as society continues to distance itself from its origins, preferring synthetic substitutions of nature rather than the real thing." Most of all, we just hope it would be a fun thing for people to visit during the hot months in the summer. We've been invited to raise additional funds for the project on kickstarter.com. We plan to launch our campaign really soon (we're in the process of making a video for the site now) so I will let you know when you can pledge your financial support and become a part of the project's realization.

"Air Freshener"
(rendering by Mike Fleming and CAD drawing by Stephen Rooney)


So that's the gist of what I've been up to, plus lots of other things... applying for teaching positions, attending the College Art Association conference in Chicago, and teaching 3 classes at Alfred University this semester. You can check out my student work and assignments here and here. Okay, time to go back to work....

Individual, 2009

Individual from Alicia Eggert on Vimeo.

The Length of Now, 2008

The Length of Now from Alicia Eggert on Vimeo.

One of my dreams is for everyone in my town to brush their teeth together in the park in their pajamas. Then we could say goodnight, head home and all go to bed at the same time.