Darbyshire are excited to have been chosen to frame a new series of drawings by Glenn Brown, to be shown at Galerie Max Hetzler in Paris. The project involved producing a range of American Black Walnut frames in a variety of finishes, Darbyshire worked with the artist to ensure each piece complemented its frame, resulting in a highly considered exhibition of bespoke picture frames.
The Exhibition runs from the 5th of September to the 10th of October 2015 at Galerie Max Hetzler, Rue du Temple, Paris.
Galerie Max Hetzler:
“Galerie Max Hetzler is delighted to announce a solo exhibition by Glenn Brown, opening on September 5, 2015. The exhibitionwill feature for the first time an entirely new aspect of Brown’s work: drawings on paper and polypropylene, and will include one recent sculpture. This is Brown’s first solo exhibition with Galerie Max Hetzler in Paris, following the artist’s four exhibitions with the gallery in Berlin.
For a very long time in the history of art, drawings have been primarily considered as preliminary studies or sketches for painting. In the case of Glenn Brown, the drawings come after the paintings, as if they were their natural and logical consequence and counterpoint. Despite their classical first appearance, Brown’s drawings present the same alterations, qualities and dilemmas as his paintings: the appropriation from an existing source imagery (reproductions of ancient drawings), the transformations, the distortion, the collusion of styles, the virtuosity of the pen strokes allowing asleep motives to take on a new life, deliquescence, atemporality and the abolition of the clear distinction between figuration and abstraction.
Most of the drawings presented in the exhibition have been made on polypropylene, a material whose main characteristic is its transparency, allowing Brown to draw indistinctly on both sides – something the painting cannot offer, as well as the overlapping of images. This relationship between the artist and the support is not insignificant: although he’s working on a two-dimensional plan, Brown can turn around his motif, there is no clear recto and verso; there are faces. The sculpture presented in the exhibition is no mere coincidence. It belongs to the same family of artefacts.
The expected simplicity of the technique is contrasted by the dense and tormented compositions. Different types of lines, shadings and strokes, even ink stains are present on the drawings. The recurrence of what could be called gestural lines around the figures gives both a certain musicality and a cartoonesque aspect to the works, recalling that with Glenn Brown’s art, popular culture is never too far from art history. They also add mystery to the scenes, like if there was something happening somewhere around these familiar faces, trees, figures in clouds or standing. What was often called morbidity when talking about Brown’s paintings is also deeply present in the drawings, especially when they’re combined with a non-finito aesthetics. The notion of uncanny takes on its full meaning.
Albeit Brown’s black and white drawings have the precision of a mechanical reproduction technique – one could think of surrealist etchings collages for instance – they have the same force as the paintings.”
All images copyright Galerie Max Hetzler, 2015.
