Press Release by Depart Foundation
Los Angeles, CA – Depart Foundation is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition of works by South African-Italian artist Cameron Platter. Curated by Camilla Querin, U-SAVED-ME is on view from June 23 to September 24, 2016.
//Open Door //Sit Down //Order Whiskey //Stand //Get Rose //Give Whiskey //Open Door //Read Graffiti //Read Graffiti //Read Graffiti //Read Graffiti //Look Sink //Get Ring //Sit //Stand //Open Door //Knock //Ken Sent Me //Use Remote //Change Channel //Change Channel //Change Channel //Change Channel //Change Channel //Change Channel //Change Channel //Change Channel //Get Candy //Open Window //Climb Out //Get Hammer //Climb Out //Call Taxi //Get In //Casino //Pay Driver //Get Out //Look Ashtray //Get Card //Use Slot Machine //Buy Apple //Call Taxi //Get In //Store //Pay Driver //Get Out //Look Phone //Dial Phone //555-6969 //Eve //Eyes //Play Monopoly //Left Elbow //White Thong //Dial Phone //209-683-6858 //Get Wine //Get Magazine //Read Magazine //Buy Protection //Ribbed //Colored //Lubricated //Striped //Peppermint //Answer Phone //Give Man Wine //Show Card //Sit //Look Fawn //Talk Fawn //Give Candy //Give Ring //Give Rose //Dance //Stand //Look Fawn //Give Money //Stand //Call Taxi //Get In //Casino //Pay Driver //Get Out //Talk Man //Open Door //Get Married //Press Four //Knock //Turn On Radio //Talk Fawn //Open Door //Press One //Call Taxi //Get In //Store //Pay Driver //Get Out //Dial Phone //555-8039 //Wine //Honeymoon Suite At Casino //Call Taxi //Get In //Casino //Pay Driver //Get Out //Press Four //Knock //Pour Wine //Get In Bed //Cut Rope With Knife //Take Rope //Use Slot Machine //Call Taxi //Get In //Bar //Pay Driver //Get Out //Knock //Ken Sent Me //Remove Clothes //Use Protection //Get In Bed //Remove Protection //Climb Out Window //Tie Rope To Larry //Tie Rope To Balcony //Climb Over Balcony //Smash Window With Hammer //Get Pills //Go Back //Untie Rope //Climb Out //Call Taxi //Get In //Casino //Pay Driver //Get Out //Push Eight //Look Faith //Give Her Pills //Look Desk //Push Button //Open Door //Look //Get Doll //Inflate Doll //Use Doll //Use Doll //Undress //Get In Jacuzzi //Look Eve //Talk Eve //Give Her Apple
— Text by Tim Leibbrandt
U-SAVED-ME is Cameron Platter’s first solo exhibition in the United States, featuring work made over a two-year period.
Comprising video, sound, sculpture, tapestry, and drawings, the works in U-SAVED-ME cohere to form an immersive installation that captures the artist’s eclectic and multi-disciplinary approach to research and art making.
Blurring the distinction between high and low, Platter’s work appropriates, references, and filters, in a highly personal and idiosyncratic way, the enormous amounts of information available to us today. USAVED-ME draws on sources as disparate as R. Kelly, fast food, Constantin Brâncuși, historical South African artists and Arts and Crafts movements, LSD, landscape, Deepak Chopra, poetry, interracial pornography, cheese curls, advertising, therapy, psycho-collage, and consumerism.
NERO will publish a book that combines image, text, and poetry to accompany the exhibition.
CAMERON PLATTER was born in 1978 in Johannesburg. Recent exhibitions include Public Intimacy: Art and Other Ordinary Acts in South Africa, SFMOMA, San Francisco; Imaginary Fact, Contemporary South African Art and the Archive, 55th Venice Biennale; De Leur Temps, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes; Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Rencontres Internationales, Palais de Tokyo (2014) and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Biennale de Dakar 2010, Dakar, Senegal; and Absent Heroes, Iziko South African National Gallery.
His work appears in the permanent collection of MoMA, New York.
He has been featured in The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Vice Magazine, NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Utflukt, L’Officiel Art, Art South Africa, Protocollum, and Artforum.
He lives and works in Cape Town and KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
CAMILLA QUERIN is an independent curator based in Los Angeles. She has worked with the curatorial teams of the International Center of Photography (ICP) and El Museo del Barrio in New York, and she has collaborated on the preparation of the photographer Tseng Kwong Chi’s major solo exhibition (NYU’s Grey Art Gallery, NY). She co-curated the photographic exhibition Stories of El Salvador: The Civil War and Its Aftermath (NYU’s Stovall Gallery, NY) and curated the exhibition Exile: The Land of Non-Belonging (2017). Camilla holds an MA in Museum Studies from New York University and will begin her PhD in Art History at University of California at Riverside in the fall of 2016.
DEPART Foundation is an emerging arts organization predicated on the discussion, exhibition and production of art and is dedicated to the development and support of contemporary artists whose work and careers are departing from their previous endeavors or predecessors. Since its founding in 2008, DEPART Foundation has served as a catalyst for the Italian art and cultural community, strengthening the dialogue between Italy and the international art world. Like multiple outposts in Europe and U.S., DEPART Foundation has actively encouraged artistic production through sponsorship of young and established artists and the provision of spaces and resources conducive to the research, production and exhibition of new work, and to the presentation of educational and public programs. Some of the most interesting and dynamic artists of our time, from around the world, have been presented for the first time in Rome by DEPART Foundation. They include Cory Arcangel, Joe Bradley, Nate Lowman, Ryan McGinley, Tauba Auerbach, Darren Bader, Louis Eisner, Roe Ethridge, Sam Falls, Mark Flood, Elias Hansen, Brendan Lynch, Oscar Murillo, Sarah Braman, Seth Price, Jon Rafman, Stephen G. Rhodes, Amanda Ross-Ho, Sterling Ruby, Lucien Smith, Valerie Snobeck and Frances Stark.