Cameron Art Museum

CAM’s newest exhibition Recollection: The Past is Present is currently on view through June 20, 2010.

This exhibition began in the summer of 2008 with the idea of an exhibit by contemporary African American artists and eventually, specifically, female African American artists.  In addition to exploring various artists and their works on line and  suggestions from our director, Deborah Velders, I had the opportunity to visit both the National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, GA and the National Black Fine Art Show in New York.

In the process, it was narrowed to artists that use a considerable amount of texture, color, found and created objects and have a strong, consistent link to thematically referencing the past while their work is rooted in the present day.  The shacks, churches and houses of Beverly Buchanan with her attention to Southern vernacular architectural detail resonates with Amalia Amaki’s highly decorated and encrusted fans, jewelry boxes, pictures—covered with buttons and other materials, objects of which remnants might be found in an old house or church.  Lillian Blades large-scale wall pieces, often embellished with bits and pieces of glass, images of eyes, baskets and other items that remind us of not only Southern but African and Caribbean cultures as well as those embellishments point us to the past, present and future.  Quilts are timeless pieces of family history for so many.  As objects they have moved from purely functional, necessary household items to craft and now with years of exhibitions in art museums across the country to a level of fine art.  Together, the works gives viewers a glimpse into the familiar as well as the unknown while weaving together the myriad aspects which make up African American culture and identity as we know it today, and the ongoing links to the diaspora.

We have had positive response to both the installation and exhibit which includes a fifty minute dvd spotlighting the quilt collective and two of the three artists.  Come by and see for yourself.