Thursday January 18, 2007

Mo’ Logo

Our friend Heidi Cody will have some work in a group show that opens tomorrow at the Front Room gallery in Williamsburg. Her offerings will include a poster of the brilliant “American Alphabet”—all 26 letters of the alphabet swiped from corporate logos—the letter “I” from the same series, and editions of her “Ads on TP,” which is exactly what it sounds like—ads on toilet paper. I won’t be able to make the opening reception (A. will likely be there), but it gives me an excuse to talk about Heidi’s work. We visited her studio in Bushwick a few months ago, and she’s got some great things cooking.

On the logo front, she’s been creating giant (6’ x 6’) plexiglass details of corporate logos. As with “American Alphabet,” each panel strikes a familiar chord, but in this case the allusions are pushed to the point of abstraction. Heidi has also done some clever (as opposed to, say, ham-fisted) projects about the intersection of industry and the environment. She’s replaced birds with spray bottles for her “Audobon Series” and she’s created visual haiku out of cleaning supplies.

More recently (and most whimsically), she’s sent the Eskimo Pie eskimo on an expedition to visit landscapes depicted in the packaging of other well-known brands, like Poland Springs (pictured) and Swiss Miss. It’s sharp, amusing stuff that kind of reminds me of the title story in George Saunders’ In Persusion Nation, in which he rips a band of spokes-things out of their natural environments. Go click around on her website.