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Viewers enjoy the exhibit.
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In April we visited family in New York and viewed Death and the Maid, an retrospective exhibit of work by New York City-based artist Cecily Brown. The exhibit, including about 20 paintings as well as monotypes and sketches, was favorably reviewed in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. It helps to have some knowledge of art history to appreciate the imagery of the paintings, as many of the works connect to earlier artists' work, such as the monotype below. In this work Brown riffs on the genre of vanitas paintings, typically featuring young women fixated, Narcissus-like, on their image in a mirror while the composition forms a skull, a memento mori.
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All is Vanity (after Gilbert), monotype, 2006.
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"Gilbert" refers to Charles Allen Gilbert, (1873-1929), a popular American illustrator who created the image below. Brown updates this timeless theme for this era of social media and influencers.
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All is Vanity, Gilbert, 1892. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Allan_Gilbert
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The painting which gives the exhibit its title is below and echoes a work by Edvard Munch (1863-1944), which in turn continues the long tradition of juxtaposing young women with a skeletal angel of death, a reminder that youth and beauty are fragile and fleeting. Below, two barely discernible vertical figures merge in a frenzied landscape.
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Death and the Maid, 2022.
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Death and Life (Death and the Maiden), Edvard Munch, 1894. https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/death-and-life/GgGrhNSsviphYA?hl=en
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One of my favorites in the show is below, entitled "Selfie" and was painted early in the Covid-19 pandemic. There's a reclining figure in the right foreground, and a mirror and vanity in the right background (with a suggestion of a face). The room is crowded with pictures, shelving, a wall clock; the sense of confinement and containment is palpable. I really enjoy Brown's use of color.
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Selfie, 2020.
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Selfie, detail.
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At the exhibit.
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Another genre which Brown explores is the still life celebrating luscious displays of luxurious foodstuffs, such as lobster, table grapes, cherries. Animals often invade, or lurk in, the scene. We think of this genre with regard to 17th-century Dutch painters but modern painters such as Picasso painted still lifes too, even with a cat.
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Lobsters, Oysters, Cherries and Pearls, 2020.
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Still life with cat and lobster, Pablo Picasso, 1962. https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/still-life-with-cat-and-lobster-1962
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Lobster, Oysters, Cherries and Pearls, detail.
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The tablecloth, cherries and lobster all merge in a swelter of red, relieved by white and cream suggesting a compote dish, the titular oysters and pearls. A black cat crouches, concealed beneath this swirl of luxury - a reminder of fickle fortune, perhaps.
There is an exhibition catalog, ISBN: 9781588397614.
