Sunday Stories: Camp, the Art of Moral Seriousness, Aestheticism, and Irony

Camp—a love for the unnatural, for artifice and exaggeration—goes against the grain by promoting a playful approach to that which others take seriously. Explore the art of camp through the lens of two pioneering forces of modern sensibility as described in "Notes on Camp" by Susan Sontag: Jewish moral seriousness and homosexual aestheticism and irony.

Cary Leibowitz: Museum Show (on view at The CJM Jan 26–Jun 25, 2017) is the first comprehensive career survey and solo museum exhibition devoted to the New York–based contemporary artist, Cary Leibowitz (b. 1963). Since the early 1990s, when he became widely known as, “Candyass,” a moniker that Hilton Als writes, “becomes yet another means of deflecting criticism,” Leibowitz has carried on with an interdisciplinary practice that turns a critical eye on subjects of identity, modernism, the art market, queer politics, and kitsch. In his comically self-effacing text-based works, for which he is best known, he mixes his obsessions with popular culture and fine art with elements of social commentary, self-loathing, institutional critique, and stand-up comedy. His work manages to seamlessly blend comedy and neurosis in such a way that questions about appearance and identity become a running commentary on the self/other.