__________.

Sebastian Black & Robin Cameron
April 5 - May 19, 2013






















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:
  1. 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
  2. reproduced in a small book.
  3. 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:
    1. Seth Siegelaub
    2. Lattes
    3. Marcel Duchamp
    4. New York City
  1. Cameron's side of the conversation has been more earnest and direct.
  2. Black's side of the conversation has been more oblique and humorous.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. Other works in the exhibition will include sculptures, paintings, and photographs that contain or are related to elements of written language including:
    1. letters
    2. numbers
    3. punctuation
    4. logograms
  1. Cameron and Black have had difficulty agreeing on a title. Several proposals include:
    1. Marge, let's "went." I await news telegram.
    2. Language Arts
    3. Language and the Spanglish Anglers
    4. Laymen's Terms for the Cayman Islands
    5. The Language Problem
    6. The Shower of Babel
    7. Figures of Speech
    8. \'lan-gwij, -wij\
    9. Words for Art
    10. yadda yadda
  1. During the correspondence, Cameron and Black sent each other three line poems, which utilize colloquialisms and word play to invert the poems' subjects.
  2. 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.
  3. The flowers will be beautiful.
-Sam Korman

(pdf)

Art Papers review by Christopher Howard

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