CAM Raleigh was a long time coming, but it is now here with a building, Elysia Borowy-Reeder as the new director, a staff and N.C. State University College of Design as a partner. The state of contemporary art in the Triangle has never been better.
Dan Steinhilber and Naoko Ito, are the inaugural artists and they have created blockbuster shows. When you enter the building under its flying marquee, you will encounter an abstract shape made of Mylar, breathing in and out, sucking in and expelling air; its armature a shopping cart filled with debris. It is Steinhilber's initial presentation of his site-specific exhibition, glorifying a new beginning on the bones of an abandoned derelict.
On the lower level, in the "Independent Weekly" Gallery is the work of Naoko Ito, the first in an emerging artist series. Covering the gallery's largest wall is her commissioned piece "Felicity," 2009-2011, a pattern of knotted 18 inch wires that crawl across the surface like a delicate stand of silver ivy.
CAM Raleigh began its life in 1983 as the City Gallery of Contemporary Art. It had a spectacular run for a few years and then funding dropped off and the gallery lost its lease. A skeleton staff held on long after most in the art community thought the project was dead. In 1996, a new group became interested, changed the name, and found a 1920s building, which had been the Brogdon Produce warehouse. In 2006, a deal was set with the College of Design and with historic preservation tax credits and private gifts, CAM Raleigh is a fact. It will be a noncollecting gallery, with a mission to use contemporary art and design to explore the role of creativity in daily life.
From the entry you move up some stairs and walk into a huge space where a puffy plastic monster settles into the floor. This inflated sculpture is made of mulched plastic bags and people can walk inside. Hanging in the center of the gallery, a bit off kilter, is a shipping palette wrapped in stretch sheets of colored plastic. Flying from the ceiling are, at first glance, feathers from fantastical birds. Turns out they are coat hangars covered in white paper. On another wall an object looks like woven tapestry, but is actually made from small pieces of plastic, sewn and interlaced. The opposite wall has large forms, also wrapped in plastic, based on roadway hazard signs. And on the balcony, which was the loading dock in its former life, is a monumental di Suvero or Anthony Caro look-alike, but on close examination, the steel I-beams turn out to be slender cardboard boxes. On the lower level, tucked into a tightly sealed room, is another Steinhilber. Inside, a wall flickers and beckons and turns out to be long fluorescent light bulbs. A glass elevator with giant wheels and sprockets, a machine of beautiful design, shares the main space.
Steinhilber is an installation artist whose materials of choice are air, plastic, mass produced items like coat hangars and fluorescent lights. As one of CAM's inaugural artists, who was commissioned to do site specific objects, he began early while construction was still under way and set aside old shipping palettes, metal wagons, and all sorts of debris. To the leftovers, he added bolts of stretch plastic in day-glo colors and brand-new long skinny boxes; the sculptures connect with all of us. Most are funny. All incorporate a message about debris, old buildings and the human determination to contain everything and anything.
There is an immediate change as you move to the lower level. The lights are dim and the gentle feel of the art offers a surprising respite from the breathing, flashy objects in the main gallery. Juxtaposed against Steinhilber's rambunctious and lively installations are Ito's quiet and contemplative ones. Besides her wall of knotted wire, subtly lit segmented tree branches bloom with mason jars. Close examination shows the careful registration of one cut branch to another, seemingly threaded through the glass. Ito is the first artist in a series of emerging artists and designers, supported by the "Independent Weekly." Each artist or group of artists will have their work displayed in the "Independent" Gallery; they will also take part in regularly scheduled meetings where there will be an exchange of ideas with visitors from all walks of life.
CAM will not just be a showcase for contemporary art; it will be a place where ideas come together. Innovative design will have its own laboratory. The collaboration between the College of Design program and the ambitions of emerging, mid-career and mature artists will merge ideas that, hopefully, will impact our community and beyond. This is a place where new ideas have a home. CAM's mission may be too ambitious, but unless we aim for heaven we will never reach the stars.
To celebrate its opening, admission to CAM on Saturday and Sunday will be free. Hours are noon to 5 p.m. Check camraleigh.org for details.
Blue Greenberg's column appears each week in Entertainment and More. She can be reached at blueg@bellsouth.net or by writing her in c/o The Herald-Sun, P.O. Box 2092, Durham, NC 27702.
