The Show at the CAM

[Marie Weichman]

I went to the CAM with my friend yesterday and downstairs is a show by Xaviera Simmons that involves wall after wall of old album covers and a video of a concert.

So here is my question: What makes this exhibit art? I consider myself a fairly open minded individual when it comes to accepting something as art, but this doesn't qualify in my opinion. I know, I know... the original exhibit included live d.j. activity and performances, but does that make it art? My friend commented that it looks like every vintage music store in the country. Does that make it art? The musicians on the albums are all ethnically african american. Does that make it art? It is clearly a cultural statement. Does that make it art? It just was simply a lack luster attempt at what another artist has been doing very well for years.... altering the albums and music industry equipment into something of form and substance. If the installation at the CAM evoked a strong emotional sensibility from me or caused me to feel as if I had entered a completely altered space, then I might have been more willing to accept it as art, but that did not happen. I think it is nothing more than a trite display of one part of recent music history.

So I'm asking.... have you seen it? What did you think?

[Megan McEntire]

I didn't find it that troubling at all. There have been other shows at the CAMH that have bothered and rankled more severely, but I can always find some suitable form of discourse in all of it.

This show does create a temptation (for me) to wonder what the proposal reflected. I think I would like to see what that proposal looks like.

My favorite piece from the Illustrious Art Guys was a paper document proposal in their retrospective so many years ago. Wish I could be more specific, but it gave me clear insight into their method and creative process in a way that more material product confused. It was a piece of printmaking paper with their idea stamped across it.

It inspired me to make some document pieces in college, like every measured surface recorded in the women's bathroom in my studio area, but this was also inspired by the droll Martha Rosler stuff about Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

[Buffalo Sean]

Yeah, it's not like it matters to her what we write on a message board about it. She believes in her art, and if she succeeds in the artworld she may very well expand our definition of what art is- which would be commendable. She just needs to get there.

[Victoria Lewelling]

That's true too.

[Dean4Hire]

My problem isn't with the artist. It's with the art curator.

It's a whole, wide, wonderful world and there's room enough for all types of art ranging from academic to amateurish, sentimental to surreal. Every piece has its audience and its place. This piece of art in the arena of conceptual art is tantamount to Thomas Kinkade's work (http://www.thomaskinkade.com/) in the arena of painting. It just doesn't measure up to what the royal we both expect and demand from the CAMH. (Imagine the MFAH devoting even a closet to Kinkade.)

I don't begrudge Ms. Simmons her success or question her motive or talent. What I protest is the fact that given the art scene both nationally and locally (to which the CAMH seldom casts its myopic eye) this particular piece is not worthy of its current venue.

To borrow from Victoria's metaphor, her show is equivalent to awarding someone an Oscar (Emmy if we're going to be strict constructionist w.r.t. our metaphors) for a very popular reality TV show. It just ain't right.

[Roberto Castillo]

i'm glad that this is up for discussion. i wasn't very impressed either. i've always felt that if a piece causes a reaction of some sort whether positive ot negative, or even poses a question to the viewer, than it's art. i guess in life and within these 4 dimensions of reality, everything, everywhere causes a reaction. but anyways...i felt that the artist for that installation could have pushed the envelope or even developed the idea a little more. it was interesting to look at, and if anything it does show her preference of music. i think the real art would have been how that particular genre of music made xaviera feel. did it help her through a difficult period of life, was that song played at a wedding, or could it have been the song or words that accompanied her first kiss growing up ?music ,like love, and God, is a unique experience to everyone. it would have been nice, from a creative thinking standpoint, to know why that music was placed on the wall other than as a "decorative" ode to black music. whats the next one gonna be? cd covers? cereal boxes? oh yeah did anyone peep the stuff upstairs? i don't recall the artist but they built a walk in house out of 8 track cassettes. the artist statement said something about pioneers building a foundation that influenced modern music or something.THAT was a dope idea.

[Buffalo Sean]

that was Satch Hoyt's 8 Track Shack upstairs.

Simmons is a DJ and started the project as a collection of blues records for a gallery in NYC. Then she covered a big wall in a Polish museum- where out of context I bet the reception was better.