A t the heart of all of Glenn Brown’s paintings is an image. This image is most commonly a painting by a canonical artist, often by an expressionist such as Willem de Kooning, Karel Appel or Frank Auerbach. Uploaded and manipulated on Photoshop, the image undergoes a metamorphosis of distortion and inversion. Colours are altered, formations cropped and stretched, compositions mirrored and flipped – the work is made to bend to Brown’s will. The resultant image is projected or otherwise transferred on the surface to be painted, and provides a framework that limits what can happen next, beyond a faithful transference of colour and form. However, in Brown’s eyes, “the departure from the ‘original’ occurs the moment I have the notion to paint the painting and only stops when it is finished” (Glenn Brown in conversation with Laurence Sillars, in: Exh. Cat. Tate Liverpool, Glenn Brown, 2009, p. 140). Indeed, the liberties that Brown takes with his source material do not cease when he picks up his brush. Although he meticulously renders the brushstrokes visible in his manipulated base image, he also “inserts impasto brush marks where none had previously existed… [adds] bright highlights… [and] thin glazes of translucent, tinted varnishes to include a feeling of depth” (Michael Stubbs, ‘Glenn Brown: No Visible Means of Support’, in: ibid., p.103).

These manipulations, forceful insertions of the artist’s hand into what would otherwise be an exercise in transposition, are pivotal to Glenn Brown’s practice, and are what distinguishes him conceptually from artists such as Richard Prince and Sherrie Levine. Although there are definite appropriative strains in Brown’s work, the process of creation and alteration is instrumental to the conceptual rigour of the paintings. The illusion of the Dionysian ecstasy that consumed the American Abstract Expressionists, the preposterous idea that these were men thoughtlessly hurling the contents of their soul onto the canvas, is lampooned by Brown, who will spend hours creating a precise, flattened simulacrum of this ‘moment’ of inspiration. Indeed, Clement Greenberg’s famous criticism of realism, that it is “using art to conceal art” could be judiciously applied to Glenn Brown’s painting (Clement Greenberg, ‘Modernist Painting’, 1961, reproduced in: Richard Kostelanetz, Ed., Esthetics Contemporary, Buffalo 1978, p. 196). Just as Roy Lichtenstein satirised the painters out of whose shadow he emerged with his Brushstroke paintings, which flatten and simplify the loaded gesture of the tortured abstract artist, Brown removes the textural evidence of the means of production, but retains its visual impact.

The Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus epitomises this effect. Included in his pivotal travelling survey exhibition which started at Tate Liverpool in 2009, the work draws its title from a little known 1999 collaborative project between Alan Vega (of the musical double act Suicide) and Steve Lironi (of the new wave/post punk bank Altered Images). The title is somewhat ironic, as the work recalls a corpse more than a corps, with the flayed flesh and thriving flowers lending a morbid overtone to the piece. Indeed, Brown is the Doctor Frankenstein of art. He cannibalises the masters, skinning them, combining them and stitching them together. However, as Francesco Bonami, the curator of the Turin leg of his 2009 exhibition, observed, “the experiment never works… the paintings decay in the process of coming to life” (Francesco Bonami, ‘Paintophagia’, in: Exh. Cat. Tate Liverpool, op. cit., p. 72).

Based on a Frank Auerbach portrait inverted in the style of a Georg Baselitz painting and subsequently distorted beyond recognition by Brown’s digital methods, The Revolutionary Corps of Teenage Jesus evinces a desperate struggle between Brown’s source material and the final painting. Laurence Sillars, curator of the artist’s Tate Liverpool exhibition, described this work as “the culmination… of a battle between subject and form”, and there can be no doubt that the formlessness of the work is one of the principal reasons for its extraordinary presence (Glenn Brown in conversation with Laurence Sillars, in: ibid., p. 143). It presents a conundrum to the viewer; there is an upturned head perhaps, which we are sat below, gazing up the flared nostrils of the subject. Or maybe it is a foot, with what was previously the chin becoming a heel, the neck a calf. There is no definitive answer. Speaking of this tendency, the artist humorously observed “as painting is difficult it is better to encourage the viewer to do as much work as possible” before going on to state that formlessness “can also be a subversive or degenerate tool. It implies that no single perception is correct… There is no perfect form, it is the slippage between forms that is important” (Ibid., p. 144).

The peculiar capacity of formlessness to effect this implication is pivotal. Glenn Brown’s art demands that the viewer acknowledge this liminal space that he creates. It is a space not only between forms but between media, an open refutation of Walter Benjamin’s critique of art in an age of mechanical reproduction. These are works that exist because of technology’s capacity to reproduce, and yet they deny it the pleasure of doing so.

格 倫·布朗所有畫作的核心在於一個圖像。這個圖像通常出自巨匠手筆，尤其是威廉·德庫寧、卡雷爾·阿佩爾或弗蘭克·奧爾巴赫等表現主義藝術家。圖像被上傳至修圖軟件Photoshop後，隨著布朗意念躍動，經歷連番扭曲、倒置，以及顏色的變化、形狀的裁剪和拉伸、構圖的鏡射和翻轉，最終徹底改頭換面。所生成的圖像會以投影或其他方式移至畫面上，它為藝術家之後的發揮提供了框架及限制，這過程並非單純顏色和形式的忠實轉移。然而，在布朗看來，「對『原作』的背離發生自我選定此畫的一刻，直到完成方休」（摘自格倫·布朗與勞倫斯·西拉爾斯的對話，摘自《格倫·布朗》展覽圖錄，利物浦泰特藝術館， 2009年，頁140）。的確，布朗對他所引用素材的改動自握起畫筆不曾停歇。儘管他謹慎克制地讓筆觸可見，但他也「加入了並未見於原圖的厚塗筆跡……[添加]明亮的光點……[和]薄薄一層散發半透明光澤的有色清漆，形成視覺上的深度感」（邁克爾·斯塔布斯，〈格倫·布朗：靠天過活〉，同上，頁103）。若非藝術家巧妙地加插以上元素，作品或許只會淪為調換位置的練習，因此這些策略對於格倫·布朗的藝術實踐至關重要，亦闡明了他與理查·普林斯和雪莉·勒文等藝術家概念上的分別。儘管布朗的作品中有明顯的挪用特色，但他的創作和修改使畫作更添縝密感。美國抽象表現主義藝術家被酒神戴歐尼斯式的狂喜蒙蔽，常將腦中蕪雜的思緒統統拋擲到畫布上，而布朗則花上數小時以準確捕捉、形塑、表達靈感迸發的「時刻」，無疑是對前者荒謬做法的尖刻諷刺。事實上，克萊門特·格林伯格曾評論現實主義是「用藝術隱藏藝術」，廣為流傳，此觀點可謂恰如其分地描述了格倫·布朗的繪畫（克萊門特·格林伯格，〈現代主義繪畫〉，1961年，轉載於理查德·科斯特拉內茨編，《當代美學》，水牛城，1978年，頁196）。正如羅伊·李奇登斯坦用他簡約而平面化的「筆觸」( Brushstroke)繪畫來調侃那些硬往畫布上堆疊意象的畫家，羅伊·李奇登斯坦徹底擺脫了他們的影子，而布朗亦令繪畫工具的質感層次不著痕跡，卻保留了其視覺衝擊力。

《少年耶穌的革命軍團》是體現此效果的優秀範例。此作納入了格倫·布朗2009年以利物浦泰特藝術館作為首站的巡迴調查展中，作品取名自阿蘭·維嘉（雙人音樂組合Suicide成員）和斯蒂芬·利羅尼（新浪潮／後龐克變形合唱團成員）的一首鮮為人知的合作歌曲。畫作標題隱含諷刺意味，因為這幅畫讓人聯想起一具屍體(corpse)，而不是一個軍團(corps)，皮開肉綻之中長出欣欣向榮的花朵，為這件作品增添了幾分病態的色彩。事實上，布朗可謂藝術界的科學怪人。他拆解、剖析大師作品，再將之重新編織、縫合。然而，2009年都靈展覽策展人弗朗切斯科·博納米曾言：「實驗不會奏效……畫作在變得活靈活現之前便已腐朽」（弗朗切斯科·博納米，《Paintophagia》展覽圖錄，利物浦泰特藝術館，同上，頁72）。

《少年耶穌的革命軍團》以弗蘭克·奧爾巴赫的肖像畫為基礎，布朗按格奧爾格·巴澤利茨一幅繪畫的風格將其倒置，繼而利用數碼技術將圖像修改得面目全非，呈現出原素材和最終成品之間的拉扯與鬥爭。利物浦泰特藝術館展覽策展人勞倫斯·西拉爾斯形容布朗此作是「主題與形式之間爭戰的……結晶」，毫無疑問，無形式是其奇幻迷離的主因。（摘自格倫·布朗與勞倫斯·西拉爾斯的對話，同上，頁143）。它向觀者提出了一道難題：也許那裡有一個高高抬起的頭，我們置身其下，仰視著它舒張的鼻孔；或者，它可能是一隻腳，那麼，原本的下巴變成了腳跟，脖子變成了小腿，答案懸而未決。談到這種傾向，藝術家幽默地說：「繪畫如此困難，最好還是鼓勵觀者多參與到過程中。」然後他指無形式「也可能是一種適得其反的工具。這意味著沒有任何一種看法是正確的……沒有一種形式是完美的，重要的是形式之間的轉移」（同上，頁144）。

無形式對於產生這種含義十分重要。格倫·布朗的藝術作品要求觀者體認他所創造的閾限空間，它不僅是介乎形式之間，也是介乎媒材之間，藉以反駁華特·班雅明對藝術之於機械複製時代的批評。這些作品的誕生有賴於機械複製技術，但他們不願承認這種做法的樂趣。