WRITING : 2006 : CAMERON JAMIE
Like a goofier, less bilious Antonin Artaud, Cameron Jamie locates trauma emerging from unacknowledged forms of social theater by zooming in on subcultures in his native San Fernando Valley and elsewhere. Backyard wrestling, haunted-house decorating, and competitive hot dog-eating are among the popular, if marginalized, ritual phenomena investigated in this exhibition of some forty of his works made since 1984. The show centers around four films—BB, 2000; Kranky Klaus, 2003; Spook House, 2003; and JO, 2004—unfussy documents, shot with handheld cameras, that never position the artist above his subjects, suggesting that Jamie, like a studious anthropologist, is a willing victim happily along for the ride. This show (his first solo museum endeavor in the United States) and the accompanying artist's book will surely position Jamie within another unruly subculture: the art world.
Artforum International, May 2006