Cameron Gray – Birth of a Legend
Mike Weiss Gallery
520 West 24th Street
New York, NY 10011
June 20 – August 17
Mike Weiss Gallery will be presenting “a questionable low-point in their program:” Birth of a Legend, by nomadic artist Cameron Gray. Roberta Smith and Jerry Saltz claim that “Cameron Gray is too big to fail,” and Paddy Johnson of Art Fag City asked for “more cheddar” with her order of Cameron Gray. Gray’s latest exploit serves up a Dionysian smörgåsbord of state-of-the-art digital technology, where kaleidoscopically bright palettes and hypnotic kitsch run rampant. With your senses utterly titillated and suitably doped, you’ll discover his artistic touch is as light as his work is raucous; speed of play carefully calibrated, execution satirically dead-pan and content spot-on HOT. Straddling the line between comfort and the disquietingly uncanny, Gray’s gargantuan installations flash, blink, twirl and pulsate off the walls in total pandemonium, culling visual and auditory white noise from the vast Internet in something akin to a holy art apocalypse. As Gray descends into the deepest realms of the web world, we can only look on and marvel at the chaos that we have created.
Frequently likened to the second coming of Koons and thoroughly rooted within postmodern sensibilities, Gray is an incredibly articulate forager of the irreverent. In I Was Made For Dancin’, All, All, All Night Long, Gray achieves near tantric nirvana, emblazoning a glossy, hollowed Leif Garrett poster with psychedelic patterns and prismatic forms; two all-seeing eyes flicking every which way as he sluggishly sings the work’s eponymous and thoroughly cheeky song. Acid Zen Garden imbues a glowing cherub figure and assorted fauna with Gray’s unrivaled knack for mischief. Like-wise, in Ice Cream for John Wayne, a duo of melting waffle cone treats take residence upon John Wayne’s dreamy visage. Not content to simply tear the ‘mask’ off such iconic machismo, Cameron spatters many a surrounding wall with fluorescent, glow-in-the-dark paint-effectively taking on Abstract Expressionist bravado as well.
A shaman of digital technique and reprographic means, Gray sets forth an alternate universe rife with under-auto black lighting and over-the-top pop, instinctively splaying nonsensical sights and sounds across an ambitious range of mediums: video collages chock-full of outlandish abstractions, including an all-encompassing 12 foot wide work comprised of 27 monitors; an epic 7-foot-tall pin bricolage in which 3,000 photographic images abut embedded 3-D video, spinning disco-lights, and utterly unrelated bric-a-brac; manipulated c-prints of classic American icons; and circular, Archimboldo-like smiley-face sculptures in which fake food is adhered to densely-patterned, wood-mounted table-cloths, with fake plastic ‘turkey dinners’ forming the eyes of one piece, and a glazed faux Jell-O mold its nose. Simultaneously chaotic, organic, orgasmic, and narcotic, Gray delivers the Cadillac of collage, the epitome of hyper-stimulation, and the ultimate state of transcendence – a meaningless yet tantalizing void, where nothing is sacred. Indulge yourself this summer in this orgiastic, optical feast and celebrate with us the 10-year anniversary of Mike Weiss Gallery.
Your mom loves Cameron Gray’s work. Ask her, she told us so.
