When you first step into the storefront gallery you are greeted with an animation playing on a small white TV. In the animation the penguin is a metaphor for the forces of nature we can not always understand. The image of a penguin is appropriated from a Werner Herzog's movie dealing with the force of nature of a penguin running from the sea to the mountains and committing suicide. A force of nature that can not be explained. Herzog is the voice over in his movie, describing the act as it happens in nature without man intervening in the events of nature taking place. Heckman's dad is the voice over in her animation. In Heckman's animation the penguin is also a metaphor for her own brothers suicide and the laws of nature we can not explain. The penguin is carried through the theme of the exhibition. Next, entering to the right, Annie Heckman's exhibition continues through dark black drapery, the viewer enters a room of nature with constructed icebergs, sea urchins on the floor and jelly fish floating from the ceiling. Inconspicuous is a hand crafted penguin on the floor. The room is lit with black lights which charges the sculpture pieces made of glow in the dark paint, then shuts off so they glow. The project space is sweltering hot, contradicting the environment of icebergs, one of which you can sit on. The environment is one that can not physically exist, a confusion of nature, with the freezing Antarctica, jelly fish and sea urchins. The walls are painted black in chalk board paint and after your eyes adjust you can see the outline of mountains surrounding the sea. Small geometric drawings in chalk explode from the mountains, like an abstract chemistry equation of solid, fluid and gas or perhaps the visible wave lengths of light refracted from a prism in a room that is black and absent of light.
In the back project room Lorien Jordan's exquisite renderings capture the melancholy of nature, the void and absence in the Antarctica and analogous moments with the peculiar. Well drafted her drawings depict men on an expedition, in one a man is being lowered in the crevice of a large crack in the snow, or deep abyss. Another drawing depicts men in their fur clothing pulling a sled in the distance as dogs lie in a hurdle and watch. The penguin continues its theme in the story as a group of penguins gather around and stare with intrigue at a Victorian record player in the snow. A true event, from Jordan's research on the Victorian explorers bringing their wealth of odd treasury with them.
The Swimming Pool Project Space is one of Chicago leading alternative galleries taking extreme risk with each of its exhibitions. Located at 2858 N. Montrose, Love Letters to Antarctica Annie Heckman & Lorien Jordan will be on view through September 12th, 2010. Gallery hours are Tuesdays and Sundays 1-5pm.
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