ANNIE HECKMAN

There are a few pieces of news I haven’t posted in detail here, waiting for bits of logistical dust to settle. Here are the big good facts:

- In 2008, Lorien Jordan asked me to join her in making work about Antarctica, a topic with which she had become appropriately obsessed.

- In 2009, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs awarded me a Community Arts Assistance Program Grant to make glow-in-the-dark iceberg sculptures for that project

- Realizing that the icebergs needed quite a bit of company to create a full installation and animation, I applied for the Individual Artist Support Initiative Artist Project grant with the Illinois Arts Council in spring of 2010.

- In May 2010, I received this award!

- With this generous assistance from the Illinois Arts Council and the enthusiastic support of owner and curator Liz Nielsen I’m able to present this project together with Lorien’s works at Swimming Pool Project Space in Chicago, a fantastic space less than a mile from my home.

Save these dates to celebrate with us in person this summer!

LOVE LETTERS TO ANTARCTICA
Annie Heckman + Lorien Jordan
(August 21-September 12)

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 21, 2010, 7-10pm
Artist Talk with Annie Heckman: Sunday, August 22, 2010, 2pm
Swimming Pool Project Space, 2858 W. Montrose, Chicago, IL 60618

— In addition to wanting lots of friends in the art world to enjoy this with me, I’m also working to make this project available to young people nearby, as well as Antarctic researchers and enthusiasts. Please pass on this information and get in touch with me if you have suggestions or requests!

Annie Heckman, Green stars, 2006, colored pencil and graphite on paper, 9 x 12 inches, Collection Lorien Jordan (appears in Airline to Heaven, Part II animation)

Writing from the road: the opening last night was beautiful. Everyone at the gallery (Mae, Zeina, Mark, Louis) was so helpful and kind throughout the installation, and cared as much about this piece as I did. It means a lot to me when someone notices that a piece is off by an inch and hops on a ladder up to the ceiling to fix it without hesitation. The show runs through July 3 (details below) and I’ll be updating with more photos, stills, and clips shortly. If you do get a chance to stop by the gallery, please drop me a line in the guest book and/or call me up to tell me about it!

In the midst of wrapping up this project I was asked to write a statement about the piece, and have put together what reads more like a compact essay. This piece, Part II of a three-part series of works, is complex in that it bridges a set of works, neither introducing nor completing an idea, and writing about it helped me to create my own window onto the development of the project. With the recent death of Louise Bourgeois, I’ve been considering how much her approach to the reality of family relationships and the visual resonances of psychoanalysis have influenced my thinking.

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Artist Statement : Airline to Heaven, Part II

I made Airline to Heaven, Part II to narrate a transition: the placement of a set of dead characters into an airplane so that they could fly to heaven. Part I of this series visually introduced the characters, Part III will reveal what they find in the sky, and Part II needed to get them on the plane. I solve the classic narrative problem of moving a character from one room to another by making the human and animals explode out of the picture plane into the aircraft, and by showing you that they have arrived at their seats with a shot of the bunny at the window as the airplane takes off at the end of the short animation.

Woody Guthrie wrote out the lyrics to Airline to Heaven with a nod to the conventions of air travel, including tickets and seating. Years later, Jeff Mangum again envisioned air travel as a metaphor for the afterlife, setting out the notion that our ashes would circle the earth in the lyrics of In an Aeroplane Over the Sea. Every time I imagine these possibilities I feel a tug of transcendent potential and a simultaneous grounding in the deniability of such a concrete metaphor: there is no physical place in the sky, no airplane waiting for me, no reunion.

Drawing from this conflicted response to the hope of a heaven airline, I create a feverish layering of imagery, regenerative movements, indicators of magic, and an acknowledgment of certain physical accompaniments to death: blood, the blue diamond pattern on a hospital gown, the dirt of a grave. The metaphor of an Airline to Heaven becomes the entry point for a mode of imagination that allows us to create scenarios beyond our own experience, a mental space where shared affections and loss are given full expression with the symbolic renderings of death and regeneration. I constructed the animation piece at the center of a spatially layered, drawn hell-mouth, and made it the most life-giving hell-mouth I could imagine in order to capture the cyclical nature of any afterlife construction.

As I told my father when I decided to dedicate this piece to him, the animation would be a bloodbath, almost from start to finish. This is fulfilled in the piece, but the blood flits in and out as red water, as a transition, and as a frame through which images are viewed. In a similar way, the limit point of death serves as a framework for retracing attachment, loss, and affection. I dedicated this piece to my father because he has been my closest partner in trying to prevent and confront a particular loss.

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Airline to Heaven, Part II will be on view this month as part of

MISC Video and Performance
June 3 - July 3

NY Studio Gallery
154 Stanton St @ Suffolk in the LES New York, NY 10002
JMZ or F trains to Delancey / Essex
www.nystudiogallery.com 212.627.3276 info [at] nystudiogallery.com
Hours: Thurs - Sat, noon - 6 pm or by appointment

The gallery has extended the reception to 11.30 tonight! Here’s a photo of the installation.

Airline to Heaven, Part II, 2010, animation projection, screen fabric, wood, paper, tacks, gouache, graphite, marker, 120 x 84 x 144 inches, animation duration: 3 minutes, 54 seconds, installed at NY Studio Gallery

MISC Video and Performance
June 3 - July 3

Performances and Reception June 4; 7-11:30pm

NY Studio Gallery
154 Stanton St @ Suffolk in the LES New York, NY 10002
JMZ or F trains to Delancey / Essex
www.nystudiogallery.com 212.627.3276 info [at] nystudiogallery.com
Hours: Thurs - Sat, noon - 6 pm or by appointment

Annie Heckman, Airline to Heaven, Part II, 2010, animation still

Four years ago, shortly after finishing my master’s degree, I was honored and excited to see my first animation, Airline to Heaven, Part I, screen at NY Studio Gallery as part of their MISC Performance & Video series. This year gallery owner Kristen Copham and director Zeina Assaf (both amazing) are adding installation work to the mix, and including the second part of my series, Airline to Heaven, Part II — a long-worked but brand new animation installation that has never been shown before. There will be rabbits, hell-mouths, kittens, the works.

Find the details below and please join us at the opening June 4 if you’re in NYC!
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June 3 - July 3, 2010

Reception and Performances: June 4, 7-10pm

NY Studio Gallery is pleased to present the 5th Annual MISC Video and Performance. A multi-media experience featuring a variety of emerging, mid-career and established artists working in diverse genres ranging from video, animation, live performance, or video installation. Video loops and installations will be accessible during gallery hours, while performances are scheduled during reception night.

Video Installations include:

Ron Diorio extends his documentary practices through What I did during the war. Peter Dobill presents his riveting Bloodbreather video. Interaction and attempted manipulation of natural landscapes makes up Murray Dwertman’s Upper Buttermilk Falls. Airline to Heaven, Part II is Annie Heckman’s animation projection at the end of a long tunnel of drawn dirt and bones. Lynn Herring’s Man’s Inner Reflections is a sculpture that is created with mirrors and video. In Mutes I-V Ryan Kuo dramatically slows down TV footage highlighting unnoticed glitches. Yuliya Lanina creates and exhibits racy animatronic characters in Mishka. In the intimate video Sex-Ed, Matthew de Leon attempts to fill in for an X-rated adult actress. Jennie Thwing creates a miniature diorama of forest with fields, tents and celestial projections. Undulating corner projections by Naho Tariushi come back for their second time at MISC. Ina Yun creates animation projections on made and found objects.

Projected Animation Loop: Jonathan Monaghan, Kanako Okazaki, Ben Pederson, Lai-Chung Poon, Elise Roedenbeck, Devlin Shea, Carmen Tiffany.

Video Loop: Arielle Falk, Jason Head, Morrisa Maltz, Liz Rodda, Bradly Dever Treadaway, Traci Tullius, Joy Whalen.

Rooftop projection: Weather permitting Kyung Woo Han projects two videos reconstructing well-known 2-D imagery from 3-D spaces.

Performances: Hector Canonge presents MALATTIA a multimedia performance using hospital screens and silhouettes to address the AIDS issue. Genevieve White performs Loss using a sculptural cocoon. Mike Richison improvises acoustic inventions on his vacuum-based instrument.

MISC images: French Penguin by Jonathan Monaghan is an animation of an emperor penguin fused with Gothic architecture. Morrisa Maltz creates her own world in Weird Marching Army.

About NY Studio Gallery

NY Studio Gallery combines exhibition and workspace to create an atmosphere of interaction, collaboration and integration of media, styles and artistic genres for US and international artists.

NY Studio Gallery

154 Stanton Street @ Suffolk, New York, NY 10002

info@nystudiogallery.com l 212.627.3276l www.nystudiogallery.com

Thursday - Saturday 12 - 6pm or by appointment

Annie Heckman, Cellar door (still), 2010

Annie Heckman
Cellar door
an animation installation at The Op Shop

Opening April 17, 2010 5-8pm, running through May 1

Cellar door is an animation installation built up from fragments of imagery found in the former Hollywood Video space. Tucked into a corner of the basement, the work consists of a fluid series of movements collaged together in the spirit of surrealist games. The title refers both to the surprising door we found in the basement of the building and to ongoing discussion, dating back to the late 19th century, of the phonic elegance and associative potential of the phrase “cellar door” in literary and linguistic analysis.

In the meantime visit the Op Shop in Hyde Park to see the fabulous projects Laura Shaeffer has put together, everything from visual art to plant and thrift exchanges.

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The Opportunity Shop is temporarily located at
1530 E. 53rd Street
Chicago, Illinois 60615

Friday, March 26th through Saturday, May 1st
Open Thursday - Sunday from 11am - 7pm
Also open coinciding with events on other evenings

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Want your smart thoughts to become blended into this piece? Comment or contact me with your associations with the words “Cellar door.”

Thank you so much to everyone who visited, helped me prepare, and attended the talk with such thoughtful questions. And a special thank you to Lindsey Thieman (and the rest of the amazingly helpful staff) at the International Museum of Surgical Science for making it all possible, and to my husband Peter Clark for boundless patience and helpfulness. I had a *beautiful* weekend immersed in the exhibit and am returning to the studio to make the next thing. Below is one of the photos of this installation.

Annie Heckman, You thought that you were alone but I caught your bullet just in time (installation detail), 2009, paper, graphite, phosphorescent paint, thread, wire, lighting system, 120 x 200 x 276 inches, installed at the International Museum of Surgical Science, 2010

The exhibit opens tonight! Thanks to Julia Thiel at the Chicago Reader for listing it with a huge beautiful image.

Here’s an image I took while installing. If you’re really tall and have a small camera you may be able to swing something similar:

Annie Heckman, installation process at the International Museum of Surgical Science, 2010

And down the hall, a trepanned skull:

Annie Heckman, International Museum of Surgical Science, photo of trepanning display, 2010

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You thought that you were alone but I caught your bullet just in time

March 5 – May 21, 2010

1524 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60610

opening together with Lauren Kalman’s exhibit, “Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments”

Free, public reception: FRIDAY, MARCH 5 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Artists’ talk (free with Museum admission): SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 2:00 p.m.

Annie Heckman, installation progress shot, International Museum of Surgical Science

I’m in the process of installing this exhibit and thought you might enjoy seeing the blurry photos I take to remind myself of where things are and how they look. Since I’m working with a blacklight to charge the glow paints, there’s a deep violet glow in these shots.

Information about the exhibit is below and I hope you can make it out for the opening this Friday, and/or the artist talk this Saturday, or contact me if you would like to meet some other time to talk about the exhibit.

Annie Heckman, Installation progress shot, International Museum of Surgical Science

Annie Heckman, Installation progress shot, International Museum of Surgical Science

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You thought that you were alone but I caught your bullet just in time

March 5 – May 21, 2010

1524 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60610

opening together with Lauren Kalman’s exhibit, “Blooms, Efflorescence, and Other Dermatological Embellishments”

Free, public reception: FRIDAY, MARCH 5 from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Artists’ talk (free with Museum admission): SATURDAY, MARCH 6, 2:00 p.m.

From curator Lindsey Thieman’s beautiful writing on the show on the International Museum of Surgical Science site:

“You thought that you were alone but I caught your bullet just in time” comprises glow-in-the-dark house-of-cards structures built of interlocking cut paper pieces, each drawn upon in graphite and coated with phosphorescent paint to resemble a human or animal bone. Heckman’s intricate and tenuous skeletal structures have the potential to be broken down and rebuilt during the course of the exhibition and, due to the nature of the glow-in-the-dark paint, must be recharged on a programmed lighting cycle in order to remain visible, creating a self-enclosed system of decay, disappearance, regeneration, and re-emergence. Heckman contextualizes this installation in the tradition of European bones churches such as the Kostnice Sedlec in the Czech Republic and the Capuchin Chapel in Rome, saying, “The imagery created by the collections of carefully arranged human bones in these tremendously sad, hallucinatory burial grounds flits black and forth between flowery, ornate flourishes and gruesome, brittle remains.” As in these churches, the skeletal imagery of Heckman’s installation evokes awe at the paradoxical beauty of human mortality.

Yet the installation’s title—an earnest but impossible wish the artist dedicated to her brother shortly after his death—and the work’s specific grounding in Heckman’s personal experience of loss collapses this grand symbolism down to the mourning of a single life passing, to the level of an individual body, once animated and now reduced to pile of bones. From this singular, specific foundation, the installation is rebuilt as a memorial for the multiplicity of lives past and present that together provide a brief glimpse into the wonder of life itself. Heckman explains, “Faced with the impossibility of characterizing mortality, I look back to moments of awe to formulate a language for approaching death and loss. Looking deeply into anything with wonder is a form of re-generation and of self-abuse. I want my viewers to remake these encounters with me, to become my companions in brief confrontations with the unknown.”

You ate my year, but I love you.

Annie Heckman, iceberg installation, 2009, foam, winterstone, gesso, phosphorescent paint

Annie Heckman, iceberg installation, 2009, foam, winterstone, gesso, phosphorescent paint (detail)

initial proposal sketch of iceberg installation

This project is supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the
City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.

Iceberg sculptures, in progress, August 2009

Here are the first results I had from using the hot wire carving tool. Some day soon I’ll have the guts to post photos of what the iceberg before this looked like. The sculpting tool is very handy for making these organic slices along the sides of the foam, and the router takes out deeper slices and can be shaped according to the cut, so it’s been a fun process to see it evolve into an iceberg-like shape fairly naturally. More photos soon with some finished carving and the beginnings of coatings on these pieces. Thanks as always to the City of Chicago’s CAAP Grant for supporting this process.