Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Shop
CAMH Pool Cleaners Sweater
Regular price
$55.00
When you need your Convo Pool cleaned we are the right team for the job.
Included in the exhibition Six Scenes From Our Future is Mel Chin's Convo Pool (2016/2023).
This sunken seating might look familiar—it is a replica of the apartment pool featured in the 1990s primetime television show Melrose Place. The pool’s patterned tile has been faithfully reproduced on quilted fabric by artist Mel Chin (b. 1951 in Houston, Texas and based in Burnsville, North Carolina), who also created the iconic 50 foot palm tree Manila Palm: An Oasis Secret on view on CAMH’s lawn on Bayard Street. You are welcome to rearrange the pool’s moveable cushions, which are stand-ins for water. Convo Pool blurs domestic and formal museum spaces, extending the ethos of CAMH’s inaugural exhibition that art and life are inseparable.
The artist created this installation as an ode to his role in forming the GALA Committee, a collective of scholars, artists, students, and faculty at the University of Georgia and California Institute of the Arts (GA for Georgia and LA for Los Angeles). From 1995-1997, the GALA Committee created conceptual “product placements” for Melrose Place without public announcement. They produced over 200 pieces of art as props for more than 60 episodes. Yet these interventions were not in service to commercial interests; they tested the possibility to use the medium of TV in the transmission of both social and political ideas. Could network television prove a more powerful site for public art consumption than the museum? This covert public art project is regarded as one of the most elaborate and orchestrated collaborations in contemporary art and television history.
Included in the exhibition Six Scenes From Our Future is Mel Chin's Convo Pool (2016/2023).
This sunken seating might look familiar—it is a replica of the apartment pool featured in the 1990s primetime television show Melrose Place. The pool’s patterned tile has been faithfully reproduced on quilted fabric by artist Mel Chin (b. 1951 in Houston, Texas and based in Burnsville, North Carolina), who also created the iconic 50 foot palm tree Manila Palm: An Oasis Secret on view on CAMH’s lawn on Bayard Street. You are welcome to rearrange the pool’s moveable cushions, which are stand-ins for water. Convo Pool blurs domestic and formal museum spaces, extending the ethos of CAMH’s inaugural exhibition that art and life are inseparable.
The artist created this installation as an ode to his role in forming the GALA Committee, a collective of scholars, artists, students, and faculty at the University of Georgia and California Institute of the Arts (GA for Georgia and LA for Los Angeles). From 1995-1997, the GALA Committee created conceptual “product placements” for Melrose Place without public announcement. They produced over 200 pieces of art as props for more than 60 episodes. Yet these interventions were not in service to commercial interests; they tested the possibility to use the medium of TV in the transmission of both social and political ideas. Could network television prove a more powerful site for public art consumption than the museum? This covert public art project is regarded as one of the most elaborate and orchestrated collaborations in contemporary art and television history.