CRITICAL REFLECTION
Lauren oLiver: ice Station QueLLette
PhiLSPace 1410 Second Street, Santa fe
It was a century ago, in 2051, that the ISQ team of scientists and adventurers arrived here—from another earth, just like ours, from another universe. Secretly setting up another outpost at the freezing end of our planet, they managed to do for ours what they could not do for their own—save our world, and then, infinite others. Their tragic story is now part of our story. —Lauren Oliver, text from her installation Ice Station Quellette
SO BEGINS THE PIECING TOGETHER OF A HISTORY OF ARCTIC EXPLORATION on planet Earth that quickly jogs around a corner to a planet
penguins, and ships devastated by pack ice were in fact
of-the-last-century explorer first meets a polar bear
that exists somewhere in a future not too distant from
aspects of science fiction as opposed to scientific fact.
by luring it with food; in the second image we see the
where we are now. It would be accurate to say that Lauren
Such is the nature of Oliver’s fusion of conceptual thinking
bear dead in the snow. But some of the photographs of
Oliver, the artist and designer of Ice Station Quellette, is an
and historical artifacts—she bends all the information to
polar exploration, taken out of their original context, are
explorer and an adventurer herself, weaving elements of
her will, elegantly compresses it, and then centers it on
extremely beautiful, as in The science team enters the
the real and the fictional into a carefully orchestrated and
the realities of our spinning planet-at-risk with its melting
terrifying ice cave for the first time.
complex whole. Her installation could be thought of as a
glaciers, shrinking ice sheets, rising sea levels, and the
pyramid scheme for the expansion of wealth—not wealth
intimations of immanent disaster for humanity. However,
was never held in check by its encounters with the
in terms of money, but of eco-consciousness. Building
if the artist’s prognosis for the future of our world seems
planetary sublime, meaning that exploration would
upon a base of vintage photographs from the early days
severe, one can always get lost in her fabulous wealth
never leave well enough alone. And here we are, at the
of Arctic exploration, Oliver has erected her conceptual
of images that touch upon not only what can be seen at
threshold of Oliver’s Ice Station Ouellette, pondering
pyramid so its peak reaches into the vastness of both
the poles with the naked eye—whales, birds, clouds, fog,
first encounters, treacherous weather, and gorgeous
actual and virtual space. If the viewer finds him or herself
ice—but what lurks under the surface of the water—
cloudbanks, and toying with the various figments of the
projected onto an imaginary planet, it is in fact replete
zooplankton and phytoplankton, another kind of organic
artist’s imagination—a complex taxonomy of time, place,
with all-too-familiar environmental concerns and a terrain
formal beauty, and part of a delicate balance in the food
and human interventions. What has been done cannot
that is instantly recognizable. Only Oliver’s creation of the
chain rapidly going awry.
be undone, only acknowledged and judiciously wrestled
Exploration,
and
subsequent
development,
Space Owl, in both two and three dimensions, is an alien
Experiencing the fictional Ice Station Quellette,
to another plateau of meaning. Or, as another line in
being—a strange attractor that broods over the visual
established somewhere on another planet after our own
Oliver’s text states, “We had no idea we were living in
proceedings and dispenses a compelling yet telepathic
history has imploded, the viewer has to contemplate
the past tense.”
wisdom about what must be done to produce an uptick in
the edges of disaster, but Oliver doesn’t quite push us
Post Script: Ice Station Quellette will become a
our collective consciousness.
over into an abyss of apocalyptic ice and snow. This is
permanent installation in the new space dedicated to
Most of the work in this installation is in the form
a what-if situation, and the artist implies that we have
work of the Meow Wolf collective.
of two-dimensional images—some of them original
the choice to act and that there is still time to do so.
—diane armitage
pieces by Oliver, such as the five-part painted mural The
Oliver’s intricate conceptual terrain has its own magnetic
intricate, interconnected polar web, depicted in bright colors
north compelling us, for example, to savor her archive
to dissuade one from concluding that the world is crumbling
of vintage images—some subtly heart wrenching, as in
as we carry on laughing. Not all of the individual pieces in
the photograph The Violent and Troubling History of the
this show have such long titles, but the one belonging to
Conquest of the North Pole—a diptych where a turn-
Lauren Oliver, Explorer imports “civilized” hierarchy to befuddled penguin population, archival digital print of found image, 6” x 6”, 2015 Lauren Oliver, The elusive Aptenodytes Fiori flies the coop, archival digital print, 32” x 42”, 2015
the mural is a kind of summary statement concerning the artist’s overarching theme. Many of the other images are appropriated from the history of polar exploration and, in Oliver’s hands, their new incarnation extends their fascinating origins, giving them an intensely mysterious aura—as if some of the first encounters with polar bears,
august
2015
the magazine | 63