Jessica Erichsen

Jessica Erichsen is an independent arts and cultural project manager and Professor of art history based in Paris and NYC. Originally born and raised in the scenic Hudson Valley region in upstate New York, she has had a connection to the world of aesthetics from an early age. While a fine arts major in 2005, her ambitious nature fueled her decision to study abroad in Paris. It was during her summer in France that she realized her passion for art criticism and connoisseurship. During her continued undergraduate studies at the State University of New York in New Paltz, she worked with the curator of the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art on the research, and preparation of the 2008 exhibition Intimacies of Distant War, which featured the work of many politically driven artists such as Leon Golub, An-My Lê, Yoko Ono, and Carolee Schneemann. After receiving her BA in art history in 2008, she relocated to Philadelphia, where she worked at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until 2010. Her interest in the investigation of political issues in art propelled her to pursue her graduate studies at Brooklyn College, where she narrowed her focus on race, gender, and feminist studies in modern and contemporary visual culture. While there, she worked with a group of co-curators to organize and implement the MFA Dean of Fine and Performing Art Bi-annual Exhibition Program, the first show of which was titled Double Spaced: An Exhibition in Pairs in 2011. After her studies, and while living in Europe, Jessica worked on a research project at the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Poland in preparation for the Fall 2013 exhibition, In God We Trust, which explored the current dynamics and presence of religion in the art and culture of the United States through the work of many contemporary American artists such as Angela Ellsworth, David LaChapelle, Martha Rosler, Andres Serrano, Jim Shaw, and Bill Viola. Having pursued her own research on images of Native Americans in 19th and 20th century visual culture, her curiosity on the subject led to the completion of her first extensive essay and MA thesis in 2014 entitled, “This Land is Your Brand. This Land is My Brand: Interpreting the Development of the Land O’ Lakes Indian Maiden in American Advertising of the Twentieth Century.” In 2017, she moved to France to pursue her MBA in arts and cultural management at the Institut d'Etudes Supérieures des Artes in Paris and co-founded Arkollectiv, an independent collaborative initiative aimed at exploring global experiences through socially engaged arts and culture projects. Beginning in 2019, she began teaching art history at Wagner College in New York City. Reflecting her academic experience, personal interests, and extensive travel abroad, her work integrates the issues she is most passionate about and she is committed to following her belief that in order to be successful, contemporary art should embody one of three qualities: transference of a political/social message, expression of aesthetic beauty, or a well-balanced combination of both. Links: http://brooklyn-cuny.academia.edu/JessicaErichsen http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/newsletter-spring08.pdf http://galleryell.com/tag/brooklyn-college/ http://www.zacheta.art.pl/en/article/view/1453/in-god-we-trustZacheta/

She enjoys a variety of cultural interests and activities, such as world traveling, art museum and gallery hopping, music, vintage clothing shopping, dancing, Karaoke, and watching independent films. :)