Luis Camnitzer, “Landscape as an attitude,” laminated black-and-white photograph, 1979 (Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zurich)

El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Tuesday – Sunday through May 29, $9
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

Born in Germany, raised in Uruguay, and living and working in New York City since 1964, Luis Camnitzer has been pushing the boundaries of Conceptual art for five decades. Through drawing, sculpture, painting, installation, photography, and other disciplines, he comments on socioeconomic culture by examining the very text, objects, and images he creates, calling into question art as commodity and the very nature of value and what constitutes reality. El Museo del Barrio is currently presenting an engaging retrospective of Camnitzer’s career, displaying nearly seventy works that, as Deborah Cullen, the museum’s director of curatorial programs, writes in the exhibition catalog, “implicate the viewer in the construction and deconstruction of meaning. His art demands that we question our perceptions, our assumptions, and at times our consciences.” To Camnitzer, etching his name on paper is a self-portrait. In “Self-Service,” he invites visitors to rubber-stamp his signature on sheets of paper that feature such quotes as “Adquisición es cultura” (“Acquisition is culture”) and “Una firma es acción, dos firmas son transacción” (“One signature is action, two signatures are transaction”), which can be taken home. The titles of his works often indicate exactly what they are, leaving it up to the viewer to decide their meanings while enjoying their inherent humor; for example, “Project for the miraculous appearance of a dot,” “This is a mirror. You are a written sentence,” “Span of the hand as a unit of lineal measure converted to one inch,” and “Image constructed with words arranged in a sequence to form a sentence. (Sentence forming an image that looks like a sentence).” Other titles play off images in other ways; “Windows” turns out to be a hole in the gallery wall filled with books and concrete, and “The Journey” reduces the ultimate commercialism, Christmas, to a trio of phallic-shaped objects each made with an engraved knife and two ornaments slyly labeled “Nina,” “Pinta,” and “Santa Maria.” Instead of being constructed of actual things, “Living Room” consists of text labels in their place. Much of Camnitzer’s oeuvre can be seen as an expansion of Henri Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (“This is not a pipe”), some pieces more obvious than others but most demanding, and deserving of, lengthy investigation. This is an exhibit that should not be rushed through but instead savored, allowing plenty of time for it to percolate in one’s mind.

Luis Camnitzer, “This is a mirror. You are a written sentence,” vacuum formed polystyrene mounted on synthetic board, 1966-68 (photo by Peter Schälchli, Zürich)

El Museo del Barrio will be hosting a number of special events this month, some in conjunction with “Luis Camnitzer,” which continues through May 29. Tonight the free WEPA Wednesdays includes “INSIDE/OUTSIDE: Street Level with El Museo” for students, artist Adam Pendleton leading a tour of the Camnitzer show, “Action Actual” with performance artists (Arthur Aviles, Migdalia Barens, Nao Bustamante, Susana Cook, and others) moving through the museum’s usually restricted areas, music from DJ Pampa, and extended hours to see “Luis Camnitzer” and “Voces y Visiones: Signs, Systems, and the City in El Museo del Barrio’s Permanent Collection.” (Some events require advance RSVP.) On May 14, American escape artist Thomas Solomon will perform magic in El Teatro ($50, 8:00). On May 18, chef Daisy Martinez will share recipes and stories as part of the “In Our Lingo” series. And on May 21, the free all-day Super Sabado program goes “Mad About Libros” with a book fair, a life-size pop-up book, an African journal workshop, spoken-word performances, musical storytelling and dance, Caridad de la Luz “La Bruja” leading a spoken-word workshop for children eleven to eighteen, and more. (In addition, Camnitzer will be delivering a lecture on May 15 at 5:00 as part of the International Studio & Curatorial Program’s Spring Open Studios four-day group exhibition at 1040 Metropolitan Ave. in Brooklyn.)