CHRISTIAN ECKART

An Andachtsbild is a type of painting widely produced toward the end of the 18th century with the advent of a merchant class, the roots of the Bourgeoisie, and the beginnings of what we now refer to as capitalism. This emerging class was the first to have the capacity to commission works from artists who had, until then, been employed primarily by the Church and/or Aristocracy. An Andachtsbild was generally a painting depicting a biblical scene that a patron might feel resonated personally. Such paintings were often presented in the chapels of private family homes. Christian Eckart’s interest in the Andachtsbild comes from its position at the intersection of art, commerce and religion at this particular moment in history.

Eidolon means, denotatively, phantom or specter and derives from the ancient Greek root Eidos. This word is also, coincidentally, the root of words for both idea and icon. The primary concept with this series was to frame a void with a figurative reference. By presenting the works 12 inches or so in front of the wall the empty space within the frame obtains a kind of corporeality so that it has a palpable and tangible presence. The works in this series very clearly present concerns regarding a conflation of the material and the immaterial wherein the material part of the work is immaterial and merely a support for the immaterial but real and actual subject and object of works from this series – the void.

The White Paintings began as an exploration and interrogation of the tradition of the white monochrome as a trope in 20th c. art. The primary informing motivation driving the production of the White Paintings is to create a literal icon of a strategy and/or solution that has, over time and through repetition, become iconic and emblematic.

Zootrope can be defined as “cycle of life.” This series was inspired by a wish to address the implications of concepts of quantum space in much the same way that Cubism can be considered as a confrontation with the ramifications of theories of relativity and space-time. The actual subject of the works in these variations of the Zootrope Paintings is the holes while the physical object is intended to operate merely as a support for them. One might consider all of the holes to be expressions of one and the same hole, unfolded and opened out into the 2 dimensional space of the picture plane and/or the 3 dimensional space of our material existence.

Christian Eckart’s principle focus during the past decade has been with the works in these multiple and related series. To date he has produced the primary Curved and Small Curved Monochrome Paintings, 6 variations thereof with an additional 4 -5 other potential iterations yet to be realized. The pieces made within the framework of this title represent a distinct break with and departure from concerns with various notions of meta-painting that informed the development of much of his earlier work. The initial impulse that motivated the works in these series had to do with floating an articulated plane of color, presented itself as a physical object, in the shallow space in front of a wall – the site normally inhabited by paintings proper. It can be said, generally, that the generation of the various series of Curved Monochrome Paintings is motivated by interests in ideas such as emptiness, nothingness, fullness, presence, absence, materiality and immateriality as well as with a continuing inquiry into the emblematic properties and tropes of the Sublime as they pertain to Western painting.

Many of these works are manufactured utilizing the latest extreme-effect coating technologies applied to a shaped aluminum armature/support. As a result some of the “paintings” change colors contingent upon lighting conditions and the relative position of the viewer to the work, ultimately enhancing and exaggerating the works dynamism. Although such works are in fact multi-colored, Monochrome is applied in their title as a way of privileging the continuous and uniform material coating over the color effects of the material itself. The suggestion, therefore, is that that which constitutes a color today can be said to have evolved to a new level of complexity as has much of our understanding of the natural and man-made world.

Shortly after Christian Eckart emerged as a young artist in NY he found himself asking questions about his relationship to the tradition of the “Romantic Sublime.” Some of those questions were focused on understanding his entry point regarding expression of this nature and his instinctual/intuitive fascination with it. He determined that his initiation to the terrain of the Sublime had come about as a result of being obsessed with the heavy metal music of bands like Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Iron Butterfly, Procol Harem and Steppenwolf. Therefore he set about generating an installation piece that could operate, visually, as a matrix for representing and superimposing diverse notions regarding what one might characterize as a sex/death/lust nexus of heavy metal, the utopianism associated with early geometric abstraction as well as the miasma of the post-industrial landscape. The resultant Power-Chord Cycle is comprised of 24 panels of shaped steel surfaced wooden supports and breaks down into 4 suites of 6. It has been widely exhibited throughout Europe and North America and each installation has been unique and site specific incorporating variously; wall painting, sound and/or other installation components. 12 of the panels are in the collection of The Guggenheim Museum, NY while the other twelve panels are in the possession of a private collector.

The Sacra Conversazione (sacred conversation) Paintings came about after a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY to view the exhibition Corregio And The Carracci. Christian Eckart became very interested in the abstract properties of many of the proto-baroque works and most specifically a Sacra Conversazione by Corregio. It seemed to him then that much of the success of such a painting is contingent upon the colors and shapes of the robes of the communicants depicted. This series, as much or more than any other, began as a hypothesis regarding color and expression in relation to the Baroque as a period of extreme artistic self-consciousness. Related works include series such as Regular paintings, Square Monochrome Paintings, New O.D. Paintings and the forthcoming Polychrome Paintings. 

The Circuit Paintings are an expansion and extension of interest in the notions of inside and outside that were previously explored in works from both the Andachtsbild and Eidolon series. They are meant to be apprehended as a literal expression of the liminal - presented here as a kind of non-space that might exist at the threshold between the spaces of a dialectical construct (i.e.; matter/anti-matter, here/there, material/metaphysical, inside/outside, etc.) An intention embedded in the formal resolution of these works is the concept of literally turning the form we understand as a painting, and most specifically, the monochrome, inside out. 

The Endless-Line Paintings are an attempt at dealing with the iconic and ubiquitous nature and presence of the grid as well as attendant perspectival systems proceeding from it that are the armature of Western Painting since the Renaissance. They are intended to operate as a presentational disclosure of the skeleton and/or substrate of painterly constructions in general. As such they could potentially be considered infinitely configurable in the sense that any and all imagery might ultimately be supported upon them. It is important to note, however, that the grid implied by the works in this series is articulated utilizing negative relief. The contradiction inherent in the works is that the viewer is presented with 2 objects at once - the physical mechanism of the support and also the virtual object, described in negative relief. What is interesting, therefore, is that under certain circumstances the virtual object may seem more “real” and project more presence than the actual physical object.