THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
 
For her second solo exhibition at ROOM EAST, Robin Cameron has made a series of new works that address identity, personality types, and the interchangeability of psychological characteristics.

“Who You” will open on Sunday 1 June 6-8pm at 41 Orchard Street. A new book published in conjunction with Hassla entitled “Who You, I See” brings together photograms and texts the artist has written about individuals from her contact list, leaving identities anonymous by replacing names with letters. The artist asked the author Lydia Davis if her story “A Friend of Mine” could be included as part of this press release:

I am thinking about a friend of mine, how she is not only what she believes she is, she is also what friends believe her to be, and what her family believes her to be, and even what she is in the eyes of chance acquaintances and total strangers. About certain things, her friends have one opinion and she has another. She thinks, for instance, that she is overweight and not well educated as she should be, but her friends know she is perfectly thin and better educated than most of us. About other things she agrees, for instance that she is amusing in company, likes to be on time, likes other people to be on time, and is not orderly in her housekeeping. Perhaps it must be true that the things about which we all agree are part of what she really is, I find only contradictions everywhere: even when she and her friends all agree about something, this thing may not seem correct to a chance acquaintance, who may find her sullen in company or her rooms very neat, for instance, and will not be entirely wrong, since there are times when she is dull, and times when she keeps a neat house, though they are not the same times, for she will not be neat when she is feeling dull. All this being true of my friend, it occurs to me that I must not know altogether what I am, either, and that others know certain things about me better than I do, though I think I ought to know all there is to know and I proceed as if I do. Even once I see this, however, I have no choice but to continue to proceed as if I know altogether what I am, though I may also try to guess, from time to time, just what it is that others know that I do not know.

Included in the show will be seventeen works on paper that reference the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator, two portrait busts made from cut brass sheets and Carrara marble bases, a new slideshow, and two large wall works: “Foggy Self,” made from an etched glass mounted in front of a mirror; and “They are both in this picture — find them” a large work made from acid-etched copper plates that depicts either an old or a young woman.

Robin Cameron, (b.1981, Canada) is an artist based in New York, who is known for her books, prints and zines. In addition to a recent solo exhibition in Paris of her ceramics, her work was also included in a group show in Italy curated by Chris Sharp. A comprehensive selection of her publications is held in the Library of The Museum of Modern Art, and an artwork of hers is promised as a gift to the Whitney Museum of American Art.

“A Friend of Mine” from THE COLLECTED STORIES OF LYDIA DAVIS by Lydia Davis. Copyright © 2009 by Lydia Davis. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

For downloadable exhibition material, click here.