Enjoy this set of images from CamLab’s final Engagement Party event, Two in The Bush.
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Scenes from Two in The Bush
Like a cat in a wine glass or the pleasure’s all mine.
I met both Anna and Jemima at separate moments during the almost three years I’ve spent living in Los Angeles. We met through the large network of artists and other cultural producers that I found myself situated within as a graduate student in art writing and curatorial studies and we shared many mutual friends. I had also seen some of Jemima’s work and had heard of some of the collaborations Anna had been involved with. In late 2010, one of my closest friends, Zemie Barr, was doing research on local artists for a series of performances she co-organized at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE) and she found CamLab’s work during her research. Although CamLab was not a part of the series at LACE, Zemie was intrigued by their work and suggested that I take a look, especially within the context of our shared interest in feminist collaborative work and the use of humor and play as critical devices.
A few months later, we invited the Eternal Telethon to participate in the exhibition Work After Work. Anna was performing the duties of telethon host. I was impressed with her quick wit and unflinching direct but playful delivery. Her voice was soothing and confident as she asked viewers of the telethon to donate money for the construction of an artists’ convalescent home. After I published my thesis and graduated, I left LA for the majority of the summer. In September of 2011, once the “season” kicked off, I frequently ran into both Anna and Jemima and I suggested doing a studio visit with CamLab.
I enjoyed our visit. It was long. I felt connected to CamLab immediately. Both Anna and Jemima were welcoming and open as they described their work. They complement each other so well. Anna is highly analytical and Jemima has an incredible contagious emanating energy and together, they are so much fun. I admire and understand the necessity of their fondness towards one another and how they work from that intimate place. In our nearly three-hour long studio visit, they described their work with humility without suspending criticality. I also appreciate how CamLab embodies feminist concepts, particularly their interest in gendered “psychoness” and pushing back against repressed sexuality by bringing participants in intimate, close proximity. A few months later, they asked me to write for their Engagement Party residency at MOCA.
We don’t talk about money here.
I left off last time with a mention about how CamLab donated part of their allocated budget from MOCA to the group, W.A.G.E (Working Artists and the Greater Economy). I have previously worked with W.A.G.E, as part of a panel for the exhibition, Work After Work, which I co-curated with my graduating class from the USC Master of Public Art Studies: Art/Curatorial Practices in the Public Sphere program. The topic of artistic labor and economics of art was of deep interest for myself and other students (and was actually one of the few things we could agree on) and I was part of a small group that advocated for a degree of economic transparency and equity in our curatorial framework. Part of this, for me, was also holding a discussion with people possessing various motivations and who inhabit different roles within the loose but prodigious parameters of the art economy. W.A.G.E’s involvement was critical because of their commitment to explicating the fee structures of exhibitions and placing pressure on institutions to implement fair wage standards. I had the pleasure to moderate the panel last year with queer artist, activist and one of the instigators behind W.A.G.E, AL Steiner on the topic of institutional relationships between artists and other cultural producers and the institutions of art, particularly art schools and museums. Steiner was joined by Sue Bell Yank, writer and Assistant Director of Academic Programs at the Hammer Museum and also, LA-based artist, activist and all around interdisciplinarian, Robby Herbst. It was a productive conversation and I’m glad to have been a part of it, as many issues raised that day have remained with me and continue to influence my decisions concerning the practices and institutions I choose to work with.
"CamLab has allocated part of its Engagement Party series' budget to support W.A.G.E." hung on the wall behind the "instrument of intentions."
We live in a culture where palpable discussions of the exchange of money for labor are often viewed as crass or inappropriate; which I have come to know as simply more representative of a successful hegemonic class system than it is indicative of a lack of social finesse. The discussion of cultural production and its curiously applied structure of capital is still of significant concern to many artists and cultural producers. For me, I’m particularly interested in how artists take it as a central concept within their own work and it is also why I was especially excited for Two in the Bush.
Two in the Bush: $ and sense.
Last week, CamLab concluded their three-month Engagement Party residency with Two in the Bush. It’s a little surreal now to plan out the few remaining posts. It’s been a pleasure working with everyone involved and being able to closely write about CamLab for the last few months. But I’m not done yet.
The Heart Wants What It Does has consistently featured textiles and garments, with pattern designs by the artists and silhouettes and construction by collaborators (with some exceptions, see note below). It’s appealing and certainly one of my favorite aspects to CamLab’s materiality. The beautiful dresses worn by CamLab were designed and sewn by Australian artist Glenda Wyman, the mother of CamLab’s Jemima Wyman. The dresses were flowing full-skirted frocks with tassel pulls attached to the back of the leather busts. Jemima was in the brown leather & potato printed dress while Anna wore the green leather and $100 bill print dress.
Jemima Wyman adding a wish to the "instrument of intentions"
What is Horizontalism?
As part of “You Are An I,” I attended artist, activist and educator Ken Ehrlich’s “What is Horizontalism?” workshop. In a small group of 7 (the previous session had about 20 people), I sat with a handful of familiar faces and some people that I had never met before. Ehrlich invited us all to sit inside the yurt and to find a spot for our heads and hands to come through one large printed, circular piece of fabric adorned with the pattern designed by CamLab. The same pattern that was present in each yurt in different material structures. For example, participants in the self-defense workshop wore vests made of the same material.
Ehrlich began describing the impetus of the workshop and his general approach to bringing people together to discuss horizontalism. Horizontalism or “horizontalidad” is a concept that originated out of Argentina during a period of radical political uprising in the aftermath of the country’s 2001 economic crisis which left many Argentineans completely disenfranchised. This gave way for the unified rejection of the institutional structures that brought forth a period of deep civil and political inequality. Horizontalism emerged from both the necessity of new forms of organization and also, from an adamant rejection of hierarchical forms of power. Ehrlich is also heavily involved in the Occupy Movement and the relationship between both Occupy and the origin of horizontalism is striking. READ MORE »
Views from You Are an I
Enjoy this set of photos from CamLab’s second Engagement Party event, You Are an I. Photos by Christina Edwards.
THIS THURSDAY:
TWO IN THE BUSH
Thursday, March 1, 2012
7-10pm
MOCA Grand Ave
In response to an economy gone to the birds, this third installment in CamLab’s Engagement Party residency will “instrumentalize” money and intention in a large-scale hands-on group gathering. Longtime “economicalists,” the members of CamLab invite you into their efficiently excessive installation for a material meditation on the distribution of resources. While occupying a cipher of fabric and song, participants will address their immediate surroundings by graphically converting cash amid the sounds of steel (oil) drumming. Join us to find your sense of re-purpose and build collectivity with conversation and contemplation, not walls with wealth. Make audible your values. CamLab will don “Feast and Famine” outfits designed by Australian artist Glenda Wyman. At the end of the evening, the duo’s Engagement Party series will conclude with a celebratory live performance by Hotel La Rut.
CamLab has apportioned a part of its series’ budget to W.A.G.E., Working Artists and the Greater Economy, in an effort to support the group’s continued work ‘to draw attention to economic inequalities that exist in the arts, and to resolve them.”
**TWO IN THE BUSH will take place outside the galleries at MOCA Grand Ave… Wear warm clothes!
You Are An I: Wayward Empath
Hey everyone,
I know we’re getting ready for the last and really exciting CamLab event on Thursday, Two in the Bush. But I still have some ground to cover in regards to February’s You Are An I and I will be doing that for the next few days.
To start, I’m pleased to include here a participant reflection on the workshop facilitated by Chris Diaz and Vivian Babuts, as part of You Are An I, titled “Wayward Empath” and which, as you may recall, was one of five workshops that took place in the yurts created by CamLab and set up outside the Geffen Contemporary. Sascha Goldhor drew this amazing image of another participant, Adam , and she was exceptionally kind enough to grant me permission to share here, in addition to writing a wonderfully poetic response to her experience in the workshop. The “Wayward Empath” workshop was described as “Workshop participants will be guided in interactions with each other and their bodies and voices, in order to facilitate transcendent understanding, and an experience that challenges the idea of human bodies as separate beings. Concepts based in dualities and ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, male and female, truth and lie, life and death will be explored.”
Read her response below the image:
Text reads: "I made someone very angry this week." and "I have friends that love me." on a contour drawing of Adam.
“As Chris Diaz and Vivian Babuts guided us through their Wayward Empath workshop, I was mystified by the emotional highs and lows moving through me. At times playful, cruel, tender, and ambiguous, the workshop molded my feelings like clay. The slightest intonation, a facial expression, or a simple word from the facilitators and other participants and I, too, transformed. Yet I did not feel powerless. We were free to interpret, moment to moment, what we’d become. For days afterward, I kept thinking about the inherent connectivity of our life experience. Separation is an impossibility. You are an I, I is a you and everything in between.”
I’ll be back tomorrow with my own experience during Ken Ehrlich’s “What is Horizonalism?” workshop.
-Melinda
Happening NOW!
Hi there,
Apologies on my little departure the last two weeks. I was traveling back and forth from home but I’m back in LA and really happy with the continued feminist art activity here. Soooo, with that I present to you something that is a little tangential to Engagement Party but nonetheless, significant. Happening right now (!!!) in the Ahmanson Auditorium at MOCA is The Feminist Art Project’s Shares and Stakeholders symposium organized by artists Elana Mann and Audrey Chan and featuring discussions on a variety of topics including men and feminism, feminist critical pedagogy, queer identity and performance, among others. Panelists include artists, writers, educators and curators such as Nancy Buchanan, Zachary Drucker, Barbara McCullough, Glenn Philipps, AL Steiner and many more.
The ever-busy CamLab were invited to come in and bring their aesthetic signature to the auditorium, which effectively disrupted the room’s austerity. In a similar material approach to the mic podiums from Dubious Equalities, CamLab wrapped the lectern in a skirted fabric with a white with black dash like lines print, bubbling around the front and sides of the podium. On the panelist tables, CamLab used the same fabric to adorn the table lamps, giving them an orb like quality, in addition to their obvious functionality. In the third element of their aesthetic intervention, the artists had a looped video of the same fabric, closely framed and moving sporadically on each of the four small, mounted monitor displays in the auditorium’s stairway aisles. Here’s a super short video clip from one of the monitors.
CamLab’s signature material exploration, from the transformed podium, suggestive of the feminist mode of challenging the masculine quality of the podium and its authorial power; to the decorative and domesticating element of the lights to the optical, rhythmic pulse of the video, complemented the critical feminist dialogue quite nicely.
You still have a few hours to catch the tail end of a great series of panels!
I’ll be back soon with much more on You Are An I. Promise.
-Melinda
table light
My view of the first panel, "Feminist Art Education: Renewal and Revision"
Possibilities and the body: You Are An I
The settlement of yurts while the workshops were in session.
I’ve had some difficulty approaching how to unpack last week’s You Are An I. Mostly because of the levels of exchange – sensory, dialogical, instructive – that took place in such a short period of time. It’s impossible to capture completely what transpired and I know that that is entirely intentional on CamLab’s behalf. I’m also in the process of gathering contact information for the workshop participants and facilitators and will use this space to provide reflections on the project and the workshops from (what I hope to be) a multitude of voices.
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yurts and where to go from here
"If you would like to borrow this yurt for your own programming, contact CamLab at camlabia@gmail.com"
Happy Friday everyone.
Did you happen to catch some of the amazing workshops last night, as part of You Are An I? If so, I’d love to talk to you.
I’m going to try something new over the next few weeks to unpack last night’s series of workshops that emulates CamLab’s curatorial methodology in You Are An I. I’d like to feature the experiences of workshop attendees and I’ll also try my best to contact the facilitators for some responses to the night.
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Historical Materialism: Not According to Marx
Where did this week go? Sorry folks I’ve been a little busy. I hope you’re ready for the conclusion on my analyses, assumptions and rants regarding Dubious Equalities because February’s You Are An I is fast approaching. (This post also has absolutely nothing to do with Marx’s notion of “historical materialism” and everything to do with materiality and parts of art history.)
So let’s begin with some theoretical framing from the incredible feminist art writer and activist Lucy Lippard. Those that know me or have read some of my work already know how much Lippard’s astute and courageous theorizations have influenced two generations of artists, critics and activists.
