Cameron Art Museum

The Cameron presents changing special exhibitions comprised of fine arts, crafts and design.

The Museum presents changing special exhibitions comprised of fine arts, crafts and design.

The Structure of Things Given and Held

This newly commissioned sculpture by the internationally acclaimed artist Mel Chin (American b. 1951), was commissioned in 2007 and given to the Cameron Art Museum by Mary Ann Keith Massey, in memory of her parents Allene Coats Keith and H. Leonidas Keith. The sculpture was installed on the museum grounds in June 2009.

Mel Chin was born in Houston, Texas, and began making art at an early age. Chin's art, which is both analytical and poetic, evades easy classification. He is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that conjoin cross-cultural aesthetics with complex ideas.

Chin received a B.A. from Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1975. With numerous awards and grants from organizations such as the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, Art Matters, Creative Capital, and the Penny McCall, Pollock/Krasner, Joan Mitchell, Rockefeller and Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundations, Chin has created many commissions, public art installations and one-person exhibitions around the world.

Venues for solo exhibits have included: Storefront for Art and Architecture, NYC; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Menil Collection, Houston; and the Fabric Workshop, Philadelphia.

Projects and public commissions have been installed at diverse sites such as New York City's Central Park, Pig's Eye Landfill in St. Paul, Floriadepark in rural Netherlands, Eco Tec International in Corsica, the San Jose Public/State University Library, San Jose, CA; Pittsburgh's Three Rivers Arts Festival; New York Times Magazine, West Queens High School, Queens, NY, the City of Corpus Christi, TX, and the St. Roch neighborhood, New Orleans, LA. Group show venues have included: Fifth Biennial of Havana, Cuba; Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain; Kuntsmuseum, Bonn, Germany; Kwangju Biennale, Korea; Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C.; Museum Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, P.S. 1, and Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY.

The Structure of Things Given and Held

Bob de Young's Hands Down