April 13,2010 CAM

Ruchama Lubin
April 15, 2010

April 13, 2010 we as a class visited the Contemporary Art Museum to go see the 3rd year MFA Exhibition. This was the very first time I have gone to CAM. I thought it was interesting. It was a lot smaller then I thought it was. I thought it was a whole lot bigger then what it was. The exhibition itself was pretty interesting as well.
Ariel Baron-Robbins, a university of Mississippi grad, did the multi-layer drawing. She had a three or four of her work up; with a video of herself, and they were all different in their own way. I enjoyed her work. It was messy at the same time very created. In her video all I can remember thinking was how thin she was. Classmates made commons about her needing something to eat. In her video she was dressed in all black. Form head to toe. And she was making a lot of moments in front of a white sheet. Like she was showing how she created her work.
Stead Thomas, a Ringling College of Art and Design grad, had a video playing that you could sit and listen to. In the video it showed him climbing a tree and doing other things. He also uses technique to make where he was intertwine with another place. He also used layers in the video to act like he was standing in the middle of two room but he was able to destroy things from both room. This one I really did not understand nor did I like much. When I put the headsets on to listen to what was going on in the video, there was nothing but background noises. Like the noises that he made to climb the tree. or the noises he made when he was destroying the room.
Victoria Lee Skelly, a University of Montevalla grad, did a great project, in my opinion. She made this installing that had all the emails that she had got while trying to do this project, which were all the negative things. But on the inside she had a park-like thing that you can go in to sit or stand and just see what she wants you to see or feel. She, I believe, is all about the community. And I really believe she showed us that. I love the fact that she had pictures of the trees in the park and stuff, but she had real grass in the installation.
Carmen Tiffany, a Minnestota State University grad, made a video that had to do with her experience as a child and the experience of children now days. In the video she used a lot of, what I believe was, clip art. She also had a lot of old children commercials, mostly toys. I understood what she is trying to say but I really did not get the video. It was going back and forth from the story that was going on to the old children commercials. It looks like there was a lot of work and thought put into this final project but I really did not like it that much.
Andrew Nigon, a Minnesota State University-Mankato grad, made a really big elephant with junk. I found this project to be very interesting. He made the base of the elephant with wood, I believe, and use anything and maybe everything to make the rest of the elephant. The reason I like this one is because it was a very simple project but not. He could have made the elephant out of anything. He could of use just one material but he didn’t; he got very creative with it and went crazy with it. To me it looks like a screen out of a movie. Like an elephant came running though someone’s bedroom and left with all those stuff on it.
Toni Danette Billick, a University of Akron grad, was dress as a drag queen. I really didn’t understand her final project as well but I think it had to do with a day in a drag queen/transgressor life is like. She has a make-up mirror, where I guess whoever you get ready for the night. Then next to that was a installing of a women private part with a video in it; which is normal, since in that life style a lot of people are look up in that area. Next to that was a nasty, dirty looking pay phone, which could be where they make a call for a taxi or their pimp?
Maxim Maximovitch, a West Virginia University grad, did a virtual tour. Which I think was impressive. It was like a tour of his thoughts. And it was interactive. He made it where you could control where to go. I’m a big fan of video games, so I really like this one.
After going though the exhibition, we got a tour of the background stuff by Peter. We were shown were the art work was delivered and unpacked. Then we were shown where they make the fame for the art work that is mounted on the walls of the museum. Peter told us how after every exhibition how they have to reprint everything and start over for the next exhibition.
It was a great experience. I enjoyed seeing the hard work that the 3rd years are doing. And I was happy to hear about all the voluntary opportunity there are in the museum.