This is really behind schedule—I am supposed to have written this missive back in January, and I know in the background Maria is probably shaking in her perpetual wait for me to write this, but as you can see, that didn’t happen. It didn’t happen because as usual, we hit January 1 running. By now, The CAMP is celebrating our two year anniversary! Congrats to us, to the artists, collectors, advisors, and fans.
The CAMP Galleries in Miami (left) and Westport (right)
Anyway:
This year, like the last two, is jam-packed with physical exhibitions in our North Miami and Westport gallery spaces, and we typically do one a month, so already, that brings us 24 in gallery shows (if everything goes to plan). We also like to curate a couple of online exhibitions a month, or more, so, hopefully, that will bring us to at least 48 exhibitions this year. That doesn’t include art fairs, which by the way, The CAMP Gallery will be at VOLTA in New York next month, featuring Idris Habib, Evelyn Politzer, Silvana Soriano, and Franck de las Mercedes; a cool and colorful booth.
To read the full announcement, click here. [Editor's note: Franck de las Mercedes has since been added to The CAMP's booth at VOLTA.]
This year, we’ve cemented our bond with Fashion Fights Cancer by having an exhibition in Westport featuring works from a total of fifteen artists and their interpretations of fashion as art, all the while raising some money for the charity. The exhibition, Not Dior’s New Look III, united, as I said several artists, but it also brought us together with other brands, local to NYC and Westport also interested in helping the charity help people dealing with the ravages of this disease. Thank you again to Gia Han Phan, Rosie Assoulin, Johnny Was, Kristi Vosbeck, Boho Prep, The Hidden Gem, and Le Rouge Chocolates.
To read the full article, click here.
We also have the honor to have been invited to curate and exhibit our 2020 textile exhibition, 40 Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse, at MoCA Westport Museum featuring the original 40 flags from FAMA alongside new submissions. I want to thank Ruth and Liz for believing in the gallery and for believing in the importance of these women artists—and a couple guys—as they began and continue to pull at threads to create a social discourse. There are some additions to the original exhibition, because as this “episode” of the exhibition will now be in Westport, CT, I am very interested to see if the dialogue between the works is different coming from the North. The exhibit may end up presenting over 50 flags interpreting and commemorating the women’s vote of 1920, opening late June and running through early September.
Details from two pieces made for the original run of 40 Women Pulling at the Threads of Social Discourse in 2020. Images: Shelly McCoy, Allegory of Sisterhood (left); Silvana Soriano, We (Are) the People (right)
We have added over 20 artists to our roster already—God forbid we had a chance to lay back and just chill, or tiptoe through any tulips. Instead, we prefer to challenge ourselves with new artists to learn, understand, and share with our collectors and followers. To learn about new CAMP artists, check out our social media, something that we have changed to create a more curated and thoughtful presentation of who we work with, what we exhibit, and who we all are.
With all of the above said, and the last two years, one word keeps popping up on my feed: folly, and its being associated with art. Considering that folly is defined as “a lack of good sense or foolishness,” I continue to wonder how the connecting of the two can effect the notion of art, and an artist? If we look at folly as a way to enhance or describe art, can an artist, then, be seen as involved in his/her work? Doesn’t the word folly imply some sort of foolish happenstance? Meaning, the art is the folly, and if art is folly, are the artists no longer the conscious beings that, say, Michelangelo was? I don’t know. I think back to these two years and ask, can all CAMP has achieved be somehow due to folly? I would say no, for we at the gallery consciously plan and prod through our schedule, select artists that we believe have something to say, who are conscious and aware. Our curations are thoughtful and, hopefully, invoke both conversation and introspection. There really is no room for a foolish happenstance, or gleeful disregard of the importance of the creative function that is an artist and their artwork, nor is there anything like that in what the CAMP does—just ask Gabe, Maria, Mario, Andrea, Chloe, Brianna, Amy, or Bianca if there is any room for folly.
But, I think I digress from applauding what The Contemporary Art Modern Project and its artists have achieved these last two years during an ever present, and uninvited pandemic, with this notion of folly. I would argue, and do believe, that there is no folly in art, simply because art is intentional.
There! Enough said.
Melanie Prapopoulos
