Monday, September 26, 2022, 7 pm CET, at the Museum Ludwig's auditorium

Since the first major solo exhibition at the Artist Space New York in 2016, Cameron Rowland (*1988 in Philadelphia) was recognized as one of the most remarkable voices in the current New York art scene. Rowland's conceptual works deal with social injustice. They address different dimensions of slavery in American history and its outreach into our modern society and reveal the legally legitimized, racist structures in US society. Rowland shows carefully selected objects and documents. The work and exhibition titles or critical texts written by the artist refer to the origin, the use or the economic and social circumstances of their manufacturing. What is special is that many of Rowland's works cannot be bought, but only borrowed. In this way, Rowland remains in possession of the works and subverts the conventions and ownership of the art market. 

For the Museum Ludwig, the International Society has borrowed the work Out of sight (2020) by loan agreement. The work consists of two 19th-century irons used by slaves who worked in their master's house. As Rowland's caption for the work describes, "Irons with rattles built into their handles, called slave irons, were designed to be used  by the enslaved working inside the plantation house to iron the laundry of the masters. While out of sight, the rattle audibly signaled to the master that the slave was working continuously. Removing the rattle was a refusal of this oversight."

Similar to the texts, the lectures are part of Cameron Rowland's artistic practice. The lecture at Museum Ludwig focuses on the work Encumbrance (2020), which was on view at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London in 2020.

Cameron Rowland

(*1988 in Philadelphia) lives and works in New York. Rowland had solo exhibitions at Essex Street / Maxwell Graham, New York (2021, 2014), the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2020), the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018), Galerie Buchholz, Cologne (2017), Établissement d'en face, Brussels (2017), Kunsthalle Freiburg, Switzerland (2016) and Artists Space, New York (2016). This year the Museum Brandhorst in Munich has exhibited Cameron Rowland together with Carolyn Lazard (Junger Ankauf 2022).

Watch previous lectures here online.