SAINT LOUIS, MO.- The
Saint Louis Art Museum announces the March 29, 2009 closing of Louis Cameron: Heineken, an installation in the Museum's New Media Series. This new addition to the Museum's collection was made possible by the generosity of Elissa and Paul Cahn and Joan and Mitchell Markow.
Heineken is a colorful new media piece that straddles the realms of formal abstraction and consumer culture. Cameron's works are titled after well-known brands of consumer items including candy bars, beverages and batteries, to name a few. Through distortion and cropping, Cameron transforms an image of a six-pack of beer into a painterly abstraction that suggests a river of color flowing beyond the frame. Color becomes an element that adds to the pace and mood of the work. The pulsating rhythms of the vertical colored bands create a mesmerizing visual experience. The installation is on view in Gallery 301.
Cameron first gained critical acclaim in 2001 for his Grid Paintings, distorted floor-bound polychromatic grid formations that playfully subvert the rigid structural format of Minimalism. He continues today to challenge established art historical categories by transforming emblems of advertising. His Color Bar Paintings, for example, are nonrepresentational renderings of the circular and square markings found on the inner flaps of product boxes.
Cameron, who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, has enjoyed 11 solo exhibitions since 2000 at galleries in New York City, Los Angeles and recently at Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis. He is represented by I-20 Gallery in New York City.
The New Media Series features installations by living artists, whose work utilizes digital media, engaging the audience through both film and sound. This installation was curated by Charlotte Eyerman, curator of modern and contemporary art.