Cameron Jamie

Cameron Jamie (* 1969 in Los Angeles ) is an American multimedia and performance artist who has lived in Paris since 2000 .

Jamie is considered a precise chronicler of American and therefore also European tradition and way of life.

Artistic starting point

Cameron Jamie's work has its starting point where he grew up: in California's San Fernando Valley , an oversized suburb to the north of Los Angeles, in a city that isn't.

The settlement was created in the 1970s , when many young families moved to the outskirts of the city because of the cheap land and rents and accepted enormous journeys to work. It is a place with no center, no sights, consisting of countless single-family houses of the American middle class and huge shopping centers, dominated by the porn industry , the fear of earthquakes and full of myths on the border with Hollywood .

Research in subcultures

In the San Fernando Valley, Jamie began to conduct intensive research into subcultural shadowy realms in the early 1990s , and since then has documented the formations of fantasies and ideas of the people who live there in his artistic work. One of these shady realms, for example, was the wrestling halls very popular in the San Fernando Valley at the time , where you could spend an entire afternoon for little money. When the masses discovered wrestling, it became part of popular culture , first in America and some time later - albeit in a less pronounced form - here in Europe.

Artistic work

Cameron Jamie's formal implementation of his research takes place on film in a documentary style, rough staging without any text and without accompanying words. The power of the images is reinforced by specially composed music. Film and music result in a total work of art of the greatest tension and intensity.

The rock band The Melvins or the Japanese avant-garde musician Keiji Haino composed sounds for Jamie's films, which in turn can often be seen in Melvins concerts. The artist prefers to present himself there than in normal exhibition halls.

Jamie's films are accompanied and supplemented by photographs , drawings and texts.

Movies

• BB (1998–2000), 18 minutes: To the music of the Melvins, the film documents what is known as "Backyard Wrestling", a phenomenon of the underground culture of American suburbs.
• Spook House (2002–2003), 20 minutes: Halloween once came from Europe to America and there became a big festival with the most bizarre forms. Spook House shows a series of eerie theatrical productions that Americans develop for Halloween and which testify to a strange fascination with death, fear and violence. For some time now, Halloween has been returning to Europe via America.
• Kranky Klaus (2002–2003), 25 minutes: Here Jamie documents the typical Krampus usage in the Gastein Valley , a ritualized practice of violence that ruthlessly breaks into houses and towns on this day. Music: "The Melvins"
• JO (2004): To the weird tones of the Japanese music extremist Keiji Haino, America's largest hot dog eating contest is juxtaposed with arch-Catholic and right-wing extremist processions and rites in honor of the Maid of Orléans in France.
• Massage The History (2007–2009), 10 minutes