Cecily Brown, A Day! Help! Help! Another Day! (Installation View), via Art Observed

Since parting ways with Gagosian Gallery in 2015, painter Cecily Brown has remained conspicuously out of view, occasionally popping up for an exhibition here or there in her home city of New York.  Now, two years after her last show at Maccarone, the artist has appeared again, bringing a body of new paintings to bear on the spacious halls of Paula Cooper’s Chelsea exhibition space.  In its last week of exhibition, Brown’s pieces have once again underscored her complex relationship between the image and its modes of expression, ultimately blurring easy readings of the act of gestural abstraction and its relationship to the artist herself. (more…)

The Female Gaze, Part Two: Women Look at Men (Installation View) feat. Louise Bourgeois, Filette (Sweeter Version) (1968-99) and Diane Arbus, Young couple on a bench in Washington Square Park, N.Y.C. (1965) via Art Observed

Cheim & Read is currently presenting the second installment of the gallery’s The Female Gaze series which had its inception with 2009’s Women Look at Women.  In the succeeding episode, on view through September 2nd, the female eye remains the object, but its subject switches to men, forming a full circle subversion on the male-centric narrative of art history. Placed as the subject, men—dressed or stripped, confident or meek, benevolent or distant—fill in the role of the objectified model, triggering the question of how influential the gender of its author is for interpreting an artwork.  The exhibition aims to investigate whether knowing these works, and their origins, impacts the viewer’s reading of each respective work. (more…)

Carroll Dunham, Mound A (1991-1992), via Art Observed

Flexing his curatorial muscle at both Skarstedt Gallery locations in New York, David Salle has compiled an intriguing collection of recent paintings by a vastly diverse group of artists, and examines their shared interests in the grounds of abstract painting: formal concerns of size, scale and focus, in combination with the compositional elements of color, contrast and hue. (more…)

Cecily Brown, The English Garden (Installation View), Rachel Williams for Art Observed

Currently at Maccarone Gallery are a set of intimately-sized canvases by painter Cecily Brown.  Aggressively captivating beyond their small boarders, the artist’s works here ignite a series of personal experiences as viewers stand inches away from canvases no more than 18 inches in height or width. Organized by novelist and art writer Jim Lewis, The English Garden contains garden scenes rather than traditional landscapes.  Sharp lines inside Brown’s expressionist marks create additional horizons that depict mysterious and often open-ended garden scenes. (more…)

Cecily Brown, Untitled (The Beautiful and the Damned) (2013), Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

A collection of new and recent paintings by London-born artist Cecily Brown, is currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, Beverly Hills through October 12. The show includes fifteen paintings primarily focusing on the the human form as an abstraction, and follows up on a previous body of work shown in at Gagosian’s New York gallery earlier this year.

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The first edition of Frieze Masters will run from October 11-14th, with a focus on ancient to modern art; it will open alongside 10-year-old contemporary Frieze Art Fair, both in Regent’s Park in London. The Masters section will host talks by artists such as Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown and Luc Tuymans to discuss the effect that historical work has on their own practice. Dealers are expecting crossover from both fairs and some, such as Hauser and Wirth, have booths at both. The interior has been designed by Selldorf Architects, using natural light and high ceilings, allowing viewers to “wander from one century to another”. (more…)

Cecily Brown, Glenn Brown, and Luc Tuymans have been announced as featured speakers in the inaugural Frieze Masters Talks, an addition to the fair this year. The program will bring together artists, directors, and curators to discuss how contemporary artists engage with art past and present. Jasper Sharp, responsible for programming the talks said, “I look forward not only to learn how each artist in their own way approaches, draws on or rejects historical work, but also to discover and reconsider specific works from their chosen collections with a different eye.”

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Cecily Brown, The Green, Green Grass of Home (2010). All Images via Gagosian Gallery.

Gagosian Gallery in Rome is currently exhibiting a series of paintings by New York-based, London-born artist Cecily Brown. The exhibit examines the human experience, captured in lavish colors, radical abstractions, and voluptuous forms. Brown brings a rich history of painting to her work,  as she channels everything from the sensuality of Rubens to the expressionism of Willem de Kooning.

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Yves Klein all photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed

This year marked the 2nd iteration of the House of the Nobleman, a privately sponsored exhibition which took place at the Boswall House, 15,000sqft  mansion at 2 Cornwall Terrace, overlooking Regent’s Park and the Frieze 2011 Art Fair.  Art Observed was on site for the private viewing.  On view were works by Claude Monet, Auguste Rodin, Peter Paul Rubens, Edgar Degas, Max Ernst,  Damien Hirst, Marlene Dumas, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Sigmar Polke, Christian Boltanski, Anish Kapoor, Nick Hornby, Matthew Day Jackson, Cecily Brown, Lucian Freud, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Longo, Alexander Calder, Eugenia Emets, Francesco Clemente, Salvador Dali,  Peter Doig,  Olafur Eliasson, George Condo, Takashi Murakami,  Hiroshi Sugimoto and Gerhard Richter.

Monet, Claude “ Chemin dans le brouillard”, (1879)

more images after the jump…

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Anselm Kiefer, Winter Ade Scheiden Tut Weh Aberdein Scheiden Macht, Dass Mein Herz Lacht (Goodbye, Winter, Parting Hurts But Your Departure Makes My Heart Cheer), 2010
Listed at $100,000

Last night at the Lehmann Maupin Gallery on Chrystie street in the Lower East Side of New York, West-Village-based Foundation for Contemporary Arts held a benefit auction selling nearly 200 paintings and sculptures.  All proceeds went to programs of the FCA, “hoping to assist and encourage innovation, experimentation and potential in the arts,” this year providing 14 grants to artists, of $25k each.

A view from the balcony

The benefit was extremely well attended, with some of the artists joining as well. The large number of works represented a variety of globally well-known artists, including Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Ed Ruscha, Brice Marden, Francesco Clemente, Bruce High Quality Foundation, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Julie Mehretu, James Rosenquist, Roy Lichtenstein, David Salle, Frank Stella, Elizabeth Neel, Julian Opie, Cecily Brown, Vija Celmins, Robert Gober, Nate Lowman, Dan Colen, Dana Schutz, Kara Walker, and T.J. Wilcox, to name a few.

More photos after the jump…

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Justify My Love, Cecily Brown, 2004, oil on linen. Image via CFA, Berlin.

Cecily Brown‘s exhibition at the Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, features large-scale oil paintings on canvas and linen.  Brown camouflages her subjects, often females in torrid positions, within alternately muted and frenzied colors and animated brush strokes.  Her use of blurred lines and monochromatic colors forces the observer to look carefully to discern the action of the painting.  Brown employs figuration and expressionism in this exhibition, which combines lush landscape paintings with motifs of sexuality and attraction.

More text and related links after the jump…

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Jonathan Meese, “mutter mit roter Brille und roetlicher Perlenkette,” part of “The Figure and Dr. Freud,” a group exhibition on at Haunch of Venison New York.

Haunch of Venison’s New York branch is showing “The Figure and Dr. Freud,” a group exhibition by 31 artists from the last century.  These include past and currently producing artists, from the sculptor Alberto Giacometti to the painter Daniel Richter.  The show, which closes on August 22, focuses on the human figure as the artists have rendered it, through the lenses of the late Dr. Freud’s psychoanalytic theories.

Related links:
Haunch of Venison
Sigmund Freud [freudfile]

David Salle, “With All Due Respect Sir, We Need Modesty Blaise,” at Haunch of Venison.

More images and story after the jump…

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Jenny Saville’s Hyphen, 1999, part of Paint Made Flesh at The Phillips Collection.

“Paint Made Flesh,” a series of 43 oil paintings that focus on the human body, is showing at The Phillips Collection through September 13.  Featured artists incude Pablo Picasso, Leon Golub, Ivan Albright, Cecily Brown, David Park, Philip Guston, and more.  “At times when figure painting was considered outdated,” comments Assistant Curator Renee Maurer, these and other artists included in the show “continue to explore the expressive potential of the painted human body.”

Related links:
Current Exhibitions at the Phillips Gallery
Paint Made Flesh
“Paint Made Flesh” Survey opens at The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC [Art Knowledge News]
“Paint Made Flesh” Is More Than Skin-Deep [Washington Post]
“Paint Made Flesh” : Modern Bodies, Naked Eyes [NPR]

John Currin, Hobo (1999), via NPR.

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Damien Hirst via TheDailyMail

Science, Damien Hirst’s corporation, tops the ArtReview power 100, Gagosian follows, and MoMA’s Kathy Halbreich is first woman to make the top 10 [ArtInfo]
Designer Yohji Yamamoto uses museum curators in New York, Paris, London and Antwerp as models in latest campaign [TheMoment]
PaperMag’s latest issue interviews artworld figures such as Terence Koh, Cecily Brown, Tauba Auerbach, Shepard Fairey and James Fuentes [PaperMag]
Sotheby’s secures $250 million loan from Bank of America while cutting auction guarantees [Bloomberg}
A Liechtenstein billionare is on his second attempt to build 23,000 sf Las Vegas Museum of Contemporary Art [ArtForum]
What happens to the corporate artwork of failed companies? [WallStreetJournal]
Jake Chapman interviewed on, for example, his ideal home: with six or seven of his enemies hanging from trees in front of it [GuardianUK]
Fashion designer Stella McCartney and Artist Ed Ruscha together on Iconoclasts [SundanceChannel]

Yvonne Force Villareal from Art Production fund (left) and others attend the opening reception for Cecily Brown at Gagosian New York via Art Observed

Gagosian New York is currently showing a collection of new and recent work by British painter Cecily Brown. The exhibit, entitled Cecily Brown 2008, displays her signature style in which bold figures are covered in abstract layers. The displayed work mirrors Brown’s previous work in its attempt to expand abstract expressionism, combining the influence of Willem de Kooning with figurative influences Nicolas Poussin and Edouard Manet. The exhibit also includes a series of uncharacteristically small scale paintings which marks a unique transfiguration for the artist who is best known for her large-scale works. Art Observed was at the opening reception along artists John Currin, Francesco Clemente, and Hope Atherton, Art Production Fund’s Yvonne Force Villareal, Tim Hunt from the Warhol Foundation.

Cecily Brown Press Release [Gagosian]
Reading Between the Linens: Cecily Brown at Gagosian Gallery [NYSun]
Cecily Brown Exhibition [NY Art Beat]
Galleries Awaken From Summer Slumber [NYSun]

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