Brigitt Egloff _ Choice of work

out of the grid - a memory map

Installation 2,5 / 5 m

2008

100 Perlenwebreien, Bindfaden, Stecknadeln

"out of the grid - a memory map" ist eine subjektive Stadtansicht, welche sich über die topografischen Realitäten Chicagos legt. Dabei verhilft die traditionelle Technik der indianischen Perlenweberei zu einer eigenen, zeitgenössischen digitalen Bildästhetik.

Nicht die legendären Chicagoer Architekturmonumente interessierten mich dabei. Vielmehr sind es die tausendfachen Hausfassaden, welche das pragmatische, unzimperliche, zuweilen auch vulgäre Bild dieser Stadt in der Fläche prägen: der rohe, vitale Urbanismus dieser Grossstadt. Und all die von mir ausgewählten Häuser stehen ausserhalb des strengen architektonischen Rasters von Chicago. Ich suchte und fand die Fassaden entlang der einstigen "indian trails", der traditionellen Indianerpfade, die heute als diagonal laufende, breite Strassenzüge sich nicht an das dominierende, rechtwinklige Strassenmuster halten.

“I have imagined it bright like this”

LAMBDA digital photo on aluminium, 130/100 cm, six pieces, 1999/00

This room installation was created in an empty, still partly furnished old building apartment. The rooms full of tracks seem to be abandoned only recently by its inhabitants. With filigreed interventions the room situation is superimposed with pictures and text. New realities are created that are charged with suspense.

Soon after the completion of the installation and the photographic documentation the house was demolished.

Wall hangings

Drawings with sewing machine on used printed sheets of fabric, 2004/05/06, six pieces

Used printed sheets of fabric are are taken as a background for new drawings. The already existing patina and the new reworking create a new multi effect to which the patina of the ground fabric is very important.

The drawings are made with the darning stitch of the sewing-machine. The result is a picture of spontaneous imprecise effect as it can happen by sketching an idea.

The large size "wall hangings" show a tension between the used printed sheets of fabric and the new stitched drawings, therefore creating a new draftsman ship. The interconnection of these two aspects shows a pictoral quality of breaking up and offering a suggestion that stimulates the imagination.

Ideal nature

Inkjet prints on paper, 2002/03, fourteen pieces

In 2002 I have been granted a half year scholarship in a studio in Berlin. During this time I created a series o fourteen pieces. I was working on the base of a photographic picture to continue and change artistically the surface, the artificiality and limitedness of the reflected nature. These photographs have been taken in and around Berlin. They show an apparent ideal nature or a nature brought into a tamed state.

With the technique of scratching I opened, interpreted and commented the photographs. Even when the nature looks completely chaotic there is a mathematical plan behind it. With my drawings I was more interested to create new spaces between reality and artificiality. The framework and grid laid onto the photographs may create irritation. This crystalline net may seem like a displaced architecture getting into competition with the nature, an announcement of urbanity. As an optical impression (scaffolding, barrier and sidewalk paving stones) it traverses the picture of this city in radical change.

On the other hand these grids have also a threatening effect. They enclose and exclude and give an idea of the wall between east and west, which is noticeable as a shadow. But finally they help to bring nature into a new form, create new spaces - an ideal nature.

Recovered files

Inkjetprints on aluminium, 110/110 cm, 1998, thirteen pieces

In the centre of the series "Recovered files" are patterns, palettes of color, figure and code of the picture.

These pictures are chosen from my collection of photographs taken during my stay in New York. They are distanced by computer and are only recognizable on behalf of their color or their atmosphere.