Cameo
Solo Presentation of work by Jamie Isenstein
University Art Museum at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM
March 27th-July 18th, 2026
Curated by Dr. Megan Metcalf
Work details below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

https://uam.nmsu.edu/exhibitions/exhibition-pages/jamie-isenstein-cameo-en.html

Works in the exhibition:

Still Life with Flowers, 2026
Shirtsleeve, hands and/or artificial flowers bouquet, natural flowers bouquet
Dimensions variable

Still Life with Flowers, 2026 is a performative sculpture consisting of a shirtsleeve on a pedestal with human hands emerging from both ends of the sleeve. One hand holds a bouquet of artificial flowers; the other hand holds a bouquet of natural flowers. As the natural flowers wilt and reveal themselves as mortal, they are replaced. When performers are unavailable, the bouquets protrude from the cuffs, replacing the human hands altogether. The work was inhabited by students throughout the exhibition.

Puppets, 2026
Framed prints, rope, pulleys
Dimensions variable

For my exhibition Cameo at the University Art Museum at New Mexico State University, I selected still life artworks from the museum’s permanent collection that depicted both natural materials and manmade objects. I activated the works by turning them into puppets visitors could control. When a visitor walked into the gallery they could pull ropes  causing the artworks to move up and down and sway back and forth along the walls. In this way, the still lifes were no longer still. Puppets, 2026 features works by Chip Pique, Vincent Harley Hallett, Mike Lawrence, Leland Rice and Liliana Porter. The ropes alluded to Marcel Duchamp’s His Twine, his 1942 intervention into the exhibition First Papers of Surrealism where he hung a cat’s cradle of string throughout the gallery.