__________.
Robin Cameron & Sebastian Black
April 5 - May 19
Opening April 5, 7pm - 9pm
A baker's dozen things I know or might speculate about the upcoming exhibition by Robin Cameron and Sebastian Black opening at Bodega on April 5th:
- Cameron and Black began an email correspondence regarding the nature of the exhibition a few months ago. The conversation forms the core of the exhibition and will be
- reproduced in a small book.
- They discussed language and art, stating that the former is the predominant theme of the exhibition. Four examples they used to elaborate their points include:
- Seth Siegelaub
- Lattes
- Marcel Duchamp
- New York City
- Cameron's side of the conversation has been more earnest and direct.
- Black's side of the conversation has been more oblique and humorous.
- Some of Cameron and Black's discussion took place in person and over the phone and will not be reproduced in the catalog. It is unclear whether the absent portions of their conversation will be evident in the exhibition.
- The conversation does not make any grand pronouncements about language, and - here I speculate - the artists appear to perform language through an interpersonal exchange of ideas and values.
- The artists decided to represent their conversation with a large wooden table at the center of the gallery, two chairs at either end, and a very large bouquet of flowers resting in a vase at its center.
- Other works in the exhibition will include sculptures, paintings, and photographs that contain or are related to elements of written language including:
- letters
- numbers
- punctuation
- logograms
- Cameron and Black have had difficulty agreeing on a title. Several proposals include:
- Marge, let's "went." I await news telegram.
- Language Arts
- Language and the Spanglish Anglers
- Laymen's Terms for the Cayman Islands
- The Language Problem
- The Shower of Babel
- Figures of Speech
- \'lan-gwij, -wij\
- Words for Art
- yadda yadda
- During the correspondence, Cameron and Black sent each other three line poems, which utilize colloquialisms and word play to invert the poems' subjects.
- It could be assumed that they will be exhibiting the conversation as a kind of poem whose structure is connected by the tenuous ligatures between two voices, separated when language refuses direct communication, but whose misunderstandings, obviations, humor, and revelations underscore the particular linguistic and aesthetic experience proffered by the exhibition.
- The flowers will be beautiful.
-Sam Korman
Broken Windows
Robin Cameron / Mathieu Carmona / Stephane Devidal / Philippe Fernandez / Ryan Gander / Camille Henrot / Lauren Huret / Valentina Liernur
organized by Benoît Maire
Opening Reception: March 2, 6-8pm
Exhibition March 2 - April 27
New York Gallery
Film Center Building
630, 9th Avenue (btwn 44 and 45 St)
Suite 308
New York, NY 10036
Tuesday – Saturday 11 – 6
(or by appointment)
info@newyorkgallery.us
Opening: Sunday 28 October, 6-8pm
28 OCTOBER - 9 DECEMBER
Robin Cameron’s practice examines concepts of truth, process, language, and often includes letterpress texts displayed in conjunction with her artworks. “P-R-O-C-E-S-S-E-S”, her first solo exhibition in New York City, will open at Room East on Sunday 28 October with a reception for the artist from 6-8pm. The exhibition will include a diverse array of media from a slideshow entitled Still Life with Triple Process Hair to large, multi-panel chine collé prints made from torn pieces of Japanese paper. She has created a publication of short stories that in part relate to her experience of making the work that will feature in “P-R-O-C-E-S-S-E-S.” The artist has also invited Angie Keefer to write a story on the occasion of the exhibition:
This summer, I spent a week driving from New York to Alabama to visit the birthplace of Helen Keller, whose autobiography I had been reading. On the way down, my car broke. I had to stay a night in Harrisonburg, Virginia, waiting for an auto repair shop to re-open the next morning. This incident, in itself, is unremarkable, as is the fact that while mechanics were installing new spark plugs the next day, I walked to a strip mall where I ordered a cup of coffee from a small café. I sat outside with my coffee at a table under an awning, facing an ordinary, almost empty parking lot. A single car idled nearby. After a few minutes, the idling disturbed me. Why sit in limbo so long, wasting fuel? Why not park the car, or else drive off? I noticed the vehicle’s front plate read G-R-8 T-R-I-X, and I could see through to the rear window where a transparent sticker above the brake light read Got Magic? like those notorious milk ads. There was a man in the driver's seat. He was wearing dark glasses. I supposed he must be a magician.
For anyone inclined to assign meaning to slightly unusual occurrences, a magician sitting idly and inexplicably in the parking lot of a tiny, unremarkable town in Virginia is remarkable. But for the stubbornly superstitious, a magician sitting idly and inexplicably in the parking lot of a tiny, unremarkable town in Virginia practically screams cosmic significance. As I happened to be writing a script for a magician that very day, I found the din unbearable. I finished my coffee, approached the oracle, and knocked on the window. After a moment's hesitation, during which the driver must’ve assessed odds that I planned to remind him of the rate at which the planet’s glaciers and ice caps are becoming the planet’s rivers and oceans, he lowered the glass an inch. I asked, "Are you a magician?" His shoulders dropped ever so slightly. He half-smiled, lowered the glass further and said, "I prefer the term il-lu-sion-ist." He moved his mouth in an exaggerated way, pronouncing the word slowly, as if to imply something other than the obvious, though whatever he could mean by this micro-drama of enunciation eluded me.
I explained that I was working on a script, and we proceeded to speak for the next half hour or so about his act. I asked how he got into the trade and what it takes to be a successful il-lu-sion-ist. He offered to demonstrate a beginner’s trick. First, he drew my attention to a soft foam rubber ball, one foam rubber ball, about the size and color of a run-of-the-mill clown nose. He induced me to verify that I saw one clown nose only. I did. He then magically produced a second foam nose in his other hand. We were now dealing with two soft, red, foam rubber balls. He placed one of these into my palm and closed my fingers around it to form a fist. I held the foam tightly while he continued talking about the fact that he had only one soft, foam rubber ball now. As he spoke, he directed my eyes to the visible foam ball in his one hand, while he made some magical gestures in the vicinity of my fist with his other hand. When I opened my palm, I was indeed holding two soft, red, foam rubber balls, aka clown noses. Ta da. He removed the booty from my hand and repeated the trick, this time holding up two of our grand total of three foam rubber balls in one hand for me to inventory. Magician: “Count these two please.” Me: “One, two – yep, just two right there.” He placed the pair of magical noses into my palm and re-formed my fist. By the time I opened my hand again, these two had been transformed into three for a grander total of four soft, red, foam rubber clown nose balls. The trick was utterly unconvincing. I knew he had placed two objects into my hand on the first go and three on the second, but I assured him that I could imagine – had we not been discussing sleight of hand all along, or had I perhaps been an audience to the trick instead of its subject – I trailed off. After a slightly awkward but congenial silence, I asked him what makes people believe in something they know to be patently false. He replied, "Once people are involved in a story, they want to believe, so they do, even if what they’re seeing on stage is preposterous.” This sounded more like the message I was destined to receive. “You can buy magic tricks at the store,” he continued. “Sleight of hand is a narrative art.” When I reached Keller’s bithplace a few days later, I discovered that the grounds behind the house are dedicated to a permanent theater set where the story of her early life is regularly re-enacted. The set occupies more real estate than the actual house it represents, just a few feet away.
Robin Cameron, (b.1981, Canada) is an artist based in New York, who is known for her books, prints and zines. In addition to a solo exhibition at Art Metropole in Toronto this summer, her publications are available at Printed Matter and have been shown at The New Museum’s Resource Center. A comprehensive selection of her publications is held in the Library of The Museum of Modern Art. Her artwork has been recently promised as a gift to the Whitney Museum of American Art. She graduated in 2012 with an M.F.A. from Columbia University.
ROOM EAST
41 Orchard Street, NY, NY 10002
212 226 7108
THE SUMMER SHOW
SUNDAY 24 JUNE
"UR" OPENS ON SUNDAY 24 JUNE 6-8 pm
LARRY BAMBURG / SEBASTIAN BLACK / ROBIN CAMERON / ETIENNE CHAMBAUD / RYAN FOERSTER / LUKAS GERONIMAS / LUCAS KNIPSCHER / AJAY KURIAN / AGNES LUX / JUSTIN MATHERLY / ALEXANDER MAY / MAMIKO OTSUBO / RYAN E. STEADMAN / ARTIE VIERKANT
ROOM EAST
41 Orchard Street New York, NY 10002
Art Metropole presents T-R-U-T-H
Opening
June 1st, 2012, 7pm
Free admission
During the month of June 2012, the entire new Art Metropole space at 1490 Dundas Street West will be transformed into a book in an installation by New York-based artist Robin Cameron.
Conceived as a book expanded into an exhibition space, T-R-U-T-H is the culmination of obsessive research referencing many disparate sources, ranging from short stories to cinema, and from hoaxes to philosophy. A web of connections is created around a single topic: Truth. These include short stories written by Lydia Davis, every film that Jean Pierre Leaude has starred in, a hoax about a Temporary Tattoo that contains LSD, and the interpretation of Lacan's theories about Lack. Book pages give the viewer insight into the individual works, each relating back to the overarching theme. With each exhibition of the project, T-R-U-T-H is considered an edition of a book in the making - with each version arranged slightly differently than the last. On this occasion at Art Metropole, the book installation will be further transformed into a special multiple, available in an edition of 10 + 2 AP + 3 PP copies.
Special Preview with Artists Edition
June 1st, 2012, 5pm-7pm
Tickets available at $45
Ticket purchase includes the chance to receive an exclusive artists' edition by Robin Cameron—a 17 by 23 inch mirrored mylar silkscreen print referencing the installation window—produced in a signed and numbered edition of 40 copies.
If you purchase a ticket please RSVP to be eligible for the free print. The first 40 confirmed guests to arrive at the preview will walk away with a free edition.
Free for Metropolitans and those who adopt a ceiling tile via donation.
Attendance at the preview is free to all Metropolitans and to anyone who has participated in our ceiling tile donation initiative. RSVPs are still required to be eligible for the first-come-first-served limited edition giveaway.
RSVP to info@artmetropole.com.
Salon with No Reading After the Internet
July 2nd, 2012, 2pm
Robin Cameron has also been invited to present a selection of texts related to her practice as part of No Reading After the Internet, a salon series dealing with cultural texts that are read aloud by participants. Participation in No Reading is free and open to everyone, and texts will be made available at the salon. No Reading will take place at Art Metropole's new location, within the context of Cameron's installation, on 02 July 2012 at 2 p.m.
For more information, please visit noreadingaftertheinternet.
Robin Cameron (born in Kimberly, BC), recently graduated from Columbia University, New York. Her work examines the unfolding narrative of her own life through various media, including books (such as The Book that Makes Itself, 2011), prints, sculpture and video. Her Practice includes narrative, coded autobiographies, full disclosure and personal mythologies. It has been shown in Canada, Japan, Mexico, and the US. It is held in the collections of The MoMA Library, The New Museum's Resource Center, and The Whitney Museum of American Art.
For more information click here
