B ritish-born, New York-based artist Cecily Brown is an integral figure in the current resurgence of painting. The Louisiana Museum opened an exhibition to celebrate her work as a part of a succession of shows dedicated to contemporary painters that include Peter Doig and Daniel Richter.
Curator Anders Kold describes the exhibition, which features drawings, monotypes and paintings, as a "mini-retrospective." The monumental exhibition is a display of works produced since 1997 and is the first major European exhibition devoted to Brown's work in several years.
Throughout her career, the artist has maintained a highly original, painterly style in her work, often melding figuration with abstraction. The brushstrokes convey turbulence, reflecting a myriad of tensions, conflicts and distractions that characterize much of contemporary life. By creating fragmented canvases, Brown engages with urgent contemporary changes while also alluding, somet.mes s directly, to the works of historical artists who have been influential to her work, including Bruegel, Hogarth, Géricault, Degas, and Manet.
One highlight of the exhibition is a perfect example of the artist evoking historical art, while simultaneously producing a politically current piece. The eponymous triptych Where, When, How Often, and with Whom, 2017, which alludes to sources including a viral video of French police harassing a sunbathing woman in a burkini, and French painter Theodore Gericault's Rath of the Medusa, 1818-19.
Cecily Brown: Where, When, How Often, and with Whom, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark, 8 November-10 March 2019.
