Robert Delford Brown: A Retrospective
Curated by Mark Bloch
Text by Mark Bloch, Rhett
Brown, Robert
Delford Brown,
A.D. Coleman, Robert C.
Morgan, and V. Vale
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Portrait of the Artist/Religious Leader as a Young Man
In 1960 I could have said that I knew a great deal about art. By 1970 I could
only have said that I knew a very little bit about art. A sheet of lined notebook
paper had become a serial composition. Marcel Duchamp's prophecy had come to
pass. Life had become art. Every one had become an artist. Modernism had sputtered
out in a profusion of styles that had been adumbrated earlier in the 20th century.
Everything was now seen as an event, as a relationship, as a process. DILEMMA!
If you really wanted to be a real artist, (A REAL MODERN ARTIST), where was
there to go? You had to find a limb to crawl out on! All the formal innovations
for the communication of contemporary events had been completed. In addition,
the role of the lone experimenter had come to an end. The only frontier open
to innovation was in the area of content in a social context.
The most challenging project I could imagine was to choose as my medium the creation of a religion. For the previous 20 years I had yearned for a religion which could give me some comfort and direction, a raucous, exuberant religion that explained the hectic discord and frenzied changes I saw taking place all around me. The one defining characteristic of the 20th century has been total confusion, but in my opinion, the yiddish word fablonjet gives a much more substantial feel to this disordered state. I have chosen to anglicize the term, "Pharblongence", and use it as the central concept in the teachings of the church.
I felt that there was a real need to reexamine, renovate, and therefore revitalize religion. When the major religions of the world were created nothing was known of the earth as a planet possessing an extraordinary range of climates and inhabited by an astonishing variety of people.
” Brown studied at Long Beach College and UCLA from 1948-1952. In 1952 he received his B.A. from UCLA and in 1956 he received his M.A. from there. “I lived in a little ten foot square apartment which was above the merry go round on the Santa Monica pier. I absorbed a lot of the carny atmosphere and devil-may-care eccentricity of that place.” From 1955 to 58 he studied drawing with Howard Warshaw (1920-1977). “When I came out of school in 1950, the art world I was preparing for was gone.” In 1959 Brown moved to Manhattan. “If you aspired toward becoming an artist you had to go to New York.”
Art critic Robert C. Morgan said, “ The New York art world was a fast-moving situation, very much in contrast to the somewhat sluggish Los Angeles scene. The climate of the late 1950s pulsated with new ideas. The galleries on Madison Avenue and Tenth Street were the favorite haunts of the young Brown. “Through my twenties I lived in extreme poverty. I spent more money on art supplies than I did on my rent. ”
Brown’s art career as a first rate iconoclast started shortly thereafter. “In 1963 I met Rhett and life got better.” His wife and art-partner for the next thirty years, Harriet (Rhett) Elsa Gurney once said, “When I met Bob he was 29 and working as a dishwasher. A lot of his work comes out of that experience.”
In 1992, Allan Kaprow, credited with originating the Happening
movement that followed Abstract Expressionism in the early 60’s said
of Robert Delford Brown “Consider his early raw meat environment in
a commercial refrigerator, his S & M garishly-colored photo blowups, his
"mad artist" role in Stockhausen's Originale, his performances in motels all
across the American continent, and most of all, his inauguration of the First
National Church of the Exquisite Panic… The ecstatic power that has
marked his art since the 60's… Brown's work….threw a monkey wrench
into the avant garde in those days. He was hard to explain, hard to categorize.
He was (and is) a visionary you couldn't ignore or forget… Brown's work
is important … He touches a nerve at the core of the social codes that
organize not only our behavior but also the limits of our art… Robert
Delford Brown's transcendent vision takes on a great significance.”
Some Observations by R.D. Brown
"In retrospect, Cubism was Pop Art. The entire history of modern art was Pop Art.... l knew that things were not going in the direction I wanted them to go. I didn't dedicate my life to becoming a Pop artist. "
“ When I was thirty-five and I had all that success with the ‘Meat Show,’ it seemed like a god damned bore to spend the rest of my life maintaining success. This is not what being an artist is all about--maintaining success, maintaining the status quo, treading water, just keeping things the same.”
“After doing my meat show I got a fair amount of publicity and everyone assumed I should do one meat show after another—become a meat artist. I wasn’t interested.”
“Art, to me, is discovery.
And this is what people more and more have to learn--that continual discovery
is the only way to live."
Bob and Rhett: The First Artist Couple
Robert Delford-Brown
in 1990: “The most serendipitous event in my life was my meeting with
Rhett Cone. She had founded the Cricket Theater on Second Ave. and Tenth
St. where she showcased new material, presented Blanche Marvin's "Merry Mimes"
children's theater, and produced and directed plays by such writers as Edward
Albee, and Samuel Becket. For the past 27 years Rhett has been my most
fervent admirer. For the past 25 years she has been my wife and enthusiastic
collaborator, as well as co-conspirator.”
Robert C. Morgan: “In 1963, Robert Delford Brown met Harriett (Rhett) Gurney, a theater director for Off-Broadway Plays…It was through this warm and supportive relationship with Rhett that Brown became interested in performance (and) the impact of the "Theater of the Absurd"-playwrights such as lonesco, Albee, Beckett, Pinter and Arrabal. Their plays were being performed on Off-Broadway stages in the Greenwich Village area. Rhett Brown was instrumental in getting many of these productions on the bill. The plays of Samuel Beckett-Waiting for Godot, Endgame, Happy Days, and Krapp's Last Tape-were significant catalysts that helped to direct attention to the aura of a new existentialist art. This existentialist interest in "the absurd" was also bringing a European tradition into view…”
“Initially, the idea of performance was ancillary to Brown's painting. Even though Brown had always had a propensity for performance, he had never considered it in relation to his art. Through Rhett's involvement with the theater world …Brown became fascinated by the possibility of entering into an interdisciplinary situation in which multimedia events might replace the practices of the solitary artist who worked outside of the public realm and only in the solitude of his studio.”
“By 1963, Brown was ready to open up his discourse and to liberate all of the force of his creative drive. Robert and Rhett were to marry in 1963.”
Quote from Bob
“We were the first artist team… Kienholz, Christo etc.” quote from my videotape of Bob.
Rhett has said, “Before out first event we really
didn’t know how to do happenings or performances but from my theatre
background I was the one who hired a press agent. We got the meat show a lot
of publicity.”
The Meat Show: A Major Art Work of the 20th Century
Brown had wanted to get into performance as early as 1961 when
he had first conceived of his famous "Meat Show." … But this piece was not to be realized
until 1964.
I was born in 1930. When I came out of school in 1950, the art world I was preparing for was gone… my 1964 Meat Show said, “It’s really all really really over with.”
Rhett continued, “ We went and rented a meat locker, telling the owner that we were making a movie and needed a set. The trucks arrived bringing all this steaming hot meat. We hung it everywhere on hooks. Then we got thousands of yards of lingerie-like sheer fabric and created rooms as in a brothel. It actually looked very erotic. The cops came in to inspect and said we had to have some red lights in the back which made it even more erotic.
“Bob used blood as a painting medium on the fabric. There was blood dripping everywhere. You had to push through about eighty perfumed curtains to tour the entire environment. We had doused the place with literally a gallon of ‘Strange Moods’ perfume. Underneath lurked the insistent odor of butchered flesh.”
“In the center of the ceiling we installed a mirror ball which threw revolving light everywhere. The place looked like a mutated discotheque.”
“We had white coats for people to put on when they walked through, and when they emerged we served them sausage.”
“The event lasted for three nights,” Rhett continued, “The Daily News society column chatted it up so lots of curious people in limousines made their appearance.”
Robert Delford Brown: “ I decided to write an inflammatory statement of the kind that had served the dadaists so well… The response from the media and city officials astounded me… I proclaimed that… ‘It is my belief that even the most totally bereft wretch will be jolted into some kind of consciousness when confronted by the fearsomely beautiful sight of tons of meat, gallons of blood, hundreds of yard of lingerie fabric and other sights as yet undisclosed, which will be organized into a harmonious and inspirational work of art.’”
Robert Morgan: “This was an important statement for
the times-one that caught the imagination of the press, and one than left
an indelible mark on the audience, as a ritual.”
Originale: Stockhausen, Kaprow, Brown
Robert C. Morgan:
“Another significant event for Brown was his participation in the musical
play entitled Originale by the German avantgarde composer Karlheinz
Stockhausen.”
Rosalee Goldberg, in her book Performance Art, 1979, recalled that the piece caused a “schism between locals and foreigners…” “At the Carnegie Recital Hall... in August 1963… a reconstruction of Stockhausen’s Originale orchestrated by Kaprow, and including Nam June Paik, Robert Delford Brown, Lette Eisenhauer among others… various dissidents-- Henry Flynt, George Maciunas, Ay-O, Tony Conrad---picketed this performance regarding the foreign import as ‘cultural imperialism.’”
Morgan: “This event was held at Judson Hall in New York City as part of the Second Annual Avant Garde Festival in 1964. Brown created the part of "the mad painter" for Originale. The presentation of the play took the form of a Happening and Allan Kaprow was the director. …Brown's contribution was outrageous and provocative. He donned a fireman's uniform and wore an enormous phallus, achieving the hybrid appearance of a devilish inseminator…. He began by dumping raw eggs on stage from a high ladder. ”
Robert
Delford Brown: “I wanted to do something visually interesting.
Jackson Pollock had thrown paint, Georges Mathieu had dressed funny and squirted
paint from tubes, and Yves Klein had dragged naked women covered with paint
across canvases, and had used a flame thrower to paint with fire. I decided
that I would wear a firefighter's suit and drop eggs and red powder from a
ladder. I suddenly realized that I was coming up with a creation myth
that had similarly occurred to people for millions of years.”
Robert
Delford Brown: “ The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc.
is a baby religion which strives for inclusivity and tolerance.
The idea for the creation of a church began when Allan Kaprow asked me to
play the role of The Painter in Karlheinz Stochausen's "Originale".”
Rhett Brown: “We tried to incorporate but the state of New York turned
us down so we had to go to Delaware.
We were one of the first Mom and Pop religions- why not? Everyone could start
his or her own church. There could be one on every corner. The night Bob came
up with the idea Allan Kaprow was in hysterics.”
Robert Delford Brown: “The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic,
Inc. thoroughly covers every line of action within and beyond conceptualization
in the grand tradition of classic burlesque. IN COMEDY ALL THINGS ARE
POSSIBLE!… The one prohibition, DO NOT EAT CARS!, even though
it's nonsensical, gives The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic,
Inc. an air of legitimacy since all other religions have an abundance of prohibitions…
The ultimate answer to every line of inquiry is the question WHO KNOWS?.”
YOU
4/19/64
“Because of the article in Das Kunstwerk (about the meat show), we also got to know Wolf Vostell,” Rhett recalled.
Rosalee
Goldberg, in her book Perfromance Art 1979: “In April 1964, (Wolf)
Vostell presented YOU (“for Bob and Rhett Brown”) at the home
of Robert and Rhett Delford Brown in suburban Great Neck NY. A decollage happening,
You took place around a swimming pool, tennis court, and orchard, scattered
with 400 pounds of beef bones. A narrow path littered with colored advertisements
from LIFE magazine and punctuated by loudspeakers greeting each passer-by
with YOU YOU YOU, wound between the three main locations of activity.
In the deep end
of the swimming pool were water and several typewriters as well as plastic
sacks and water pistols filled with brilliant yellow red green and blue dye.
… on the pool edges there were color televisions sets on a hospital
bed; Lette Eisenhouer …lying on a trampoline between a pair of
inflatable cow’s lungs and a naked girl on a table embracing a vacuum
cleaner tank. “What is important is what the public takes away as a
result of … the Happening,” said Vostell. The piece became a landmark
in Fluxus and performance art history thanks to the Browns. “
Maps to Nevada
Robert Delford Brown: “Many religions
teach you how to get to Nirvana. They all give very complicated directions.
The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc. tells you how to get
to NEVADA. It sounds close
and it's simple. YOU TAKE A BUS!”
Robert Morgan: “In the 1960's, Brown had a couple of moments of tremendous media hype. His parties , offered by himself and his wife, Rhett, were ecstatic assemblies of people from all walks of life, artists and non-art people alike. But by the middle of the 1970s, it seemed as though Brown had disappeared from the popular scene… Brown shifted his interest to "Maps to Nevada." He was no longer thinking in terms or trends or media attention. His art became more private, more inner-directed.”
“There has always been a definite expressionist nuance in Brown's work -- the early paintings to the events of the 1960's, and including the "Maps to Nevada" of more recent years. This expressionist yearning embodies a certain romantic fascination with life, and it stems from an attitude that is not at all cynical or trendy. …They are filled, for the most part, with the kind of abstract longing that was typical of the American (and European) bohemian art of the 1950's.”
Robert Delford Brown: “ I chose Nevada rather than Nirvana as the ultimately desired destination because the sonic similarity was comic and it was conceptually ironic, as Nevada is the major site for nuclear testing and America's official capital of profligacy.”
Sex and murder
AD Coleman: His series of tinted photographs involve
the reworking of found pornographic, scatological and forensic photographic
imagery… Brown’s works are lessons expositing the politics of
politeness,… the fascism of good taste.”
Rhett Brown: “We imported this four volume set of books from Germany with the aid of my psychiatrist. Laymen couldn’t import these at the time., At the same time we mail-ordered photos from the little ads in the backs of magazines (e.g. Seven oriental Poses) and went to little shops around 42nd Street and bought sex books and magazines. Then Bob selected the photos he wanted to work on. We went to Modern Age to have the photos blown up to life size but they wouldn’t touch ‘em. So we had to produce a letter written by Lawrence Alloway of the Guggenheim that this was serious work after which they agreed. The negatives were kept in their vault and were enlarged on Sunday when no women were working. Then Bob carefully hand colored them.”
Coleman: “Recurrent in his work is the theme of taboo.”
R.D.
Brown: “I did a little prank on Andy Warhol. He had said in an interview
that he was going to be the Walt Disney of Porn. He had just started Interview
magazine and through this person who worked there, we managed to get this
ad we did on the back page without Andy knowing. A hand colored photograph
of a woman in bondage, lactating. After that appeared he couldn’t
be the first.” “(the) huge tinted blow ups of sex-crime victims
and perversions outdid Andy Warhol’s silkscreens in intensity,”
said AD Coleman.
Ideal Self Portrait 1965
Robert Morgan: “In
an early photographic piece from 1965, Brown took an old passport image
of himself, crumpled it up and creased it, and then asked Rhett to take it
to a commercial developer and have it rephotographed and touched up.
He asked Rhett to tell the developer that this was the only picture she had
of a deceased relative and that she wanted to have it framed and to hang it
over the mantelpiece. When Brown received the blown-up and retouched
black and white photograph of his portrait back from the developer, his appearance
had utterly changed--it had been transmuted into an ideal non-living portrait.”
Orgasm Event
Rhett Brown: “In 1966 we visited France where
Bob did the orgasm event... In Nice we rented the bridal suite of a hotel
and sent out cocktail invitations. In one room we served cocktails and in
the other room Bob hard set up a kind of homage to the Statue of Liberty--naked
but covered with red plastic, holding sparklers which lit up everything.
In the bathroom we staged a lust-murder scene featuring a woman clad in black lace lying in the bathtub, her legs sticking up and lit by highway flares. On the bed nearby were two people who looked like they were fucking.”
“It was a four minute event, “ said Bob, “it lasted as long as the flares lasted. Everythin g was red so it couldn’t be photographed.”
Rhett: “After that we took our church to London for
“Free Striptease with Drum and Bugle Corps Accompaniment.” For
two weeks we were stopping traffic because Bob had stripped his hair white
and then dyed it shocking day-glo pink and his clothes were covered with buttons
that read “I am a Young Jazz Immortal…When he still had hot pink
hair he had a girl sit on his head and titled the piece ‘giving head’.”
Free Striptease and Bugle Corps Accompaniment 
Rhett: “After
that we took our church to London for “Free Striptease with Drum and
Bugle Corps 
Accompaniment.” For two weeks we were stopping traffic
because Bob had stripped his hair white and then dyed it shocking day-glo
pink and his clothes were covered with buttons that read “I am a Young
Jazz Immortal…When he still had hot pink hair he had a girl sit on his
head and titled the piece ‘giving head’.”
Hanging
AD Coleman explains, “His Hanging Pamplet (1967)
is an excerpted reprint from a medical text which was the first manifestation
of another leitmotif in his oeurve: plagiarism.
Bob says, “Most of what people term “original” is plagiaristic so why not call it what it is?”
Robert Morgan: “Robert Delford Brown has been an appropriator of images from other sources for a considerable length of time. In the early 1960s he was appropriating old photographs of Victoriana, old pornographic shots, revived from old albums, old trunks in storage in decrepit attics.
…Even his Maps to Nirvana were essentially appropriations---nude
photographs, soft porno, black and white images, mixed with color skeins
and fragments, collaged together, a kind of ecstatic bricolage, a fleeing
of time caught in orgiastic recourse-recourse instead of discourse…Robert
Delford Brown's name should be added to this historical tendency as an early
appropriator who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.”
VULVA PAINTINGS
The Vulva paintings are collaborations which celebrate the vast potential of the human mind to bring all experience into coherence. Nothing is irrelevant.
This Vulva Painting is a collaboration between Saint Kittenish and Saint Robusta-Clafouti. It was created in the seventh arrondissement of Paris in March 2002.
The Great Building
Crack-Up: An Architectural Improvisation 
"Doodling
with bricks"
1969 to 1997
251 W 13th Street NY NY 10011
Robert Morgan: “By 1967, Rhett and Robert Brown were thinking in terms of real estate in New York City and they had the good fortune to discover a branch library building that was up for sale in the West Village. They immediately seized the opportunity and bought it for very little. This was a perfect place for the headquarters of a work begun in 1964: The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc. The building itself would be referred to as The Great Building Crack-Up.”
“…Brown
called his religion at the First National Church of the E
xquisite
Panic, Inc. "orthodox paganism." …His desire was for the Great Building
Crack-Up to house a Church that need not be taken too seriously; … "It
is a parody of the past, a burlesque of the present, and a travesty
of the future! It has but one prohibition. DO NOT EAT CARS!"
Robert Delford Brown: “ It was the "SUPREME DADAIST GESTURE". I decided that by colliding a 19th century building with a 20th century building something might happen that would be akin to colliding sub-atomic particles in a cyclotron… The method which I chose to accomplish this feat was to introduce a live architect, Paul Rudolph, to a dead architect, Richard Morris Hunt. I knew the bricks would fly…This renovation was one of the first attempts at contemporizing an old building in New York City. It has consequently been very influential, but I was looking for something more.”
Mr. Jesus Christ Contest
March 30, 1972
Garrick Theatre New York NY
Robert Delford Brown: “This happening was the 12th grand
opening service for the First National Church of the Exquisite Panic,
Inc. and the first formal announcement of the church’s religion, Orthodox
Pagaanism. The contest was open to all, women welcome!—and contestants
were judged on the basis of originality, spirituality, beauty, sincerity,
and tastefulness. The judges panel included a Christian clergyman, a journalist
and an art critic. The purpose was to aid man’s search for new pillars
of faith, ew fountains of wisdom and hopefully to shock us into a spiritual
revelation.”
Robert C. Morgan: “Another aspect of Robert Delford 
Brown's work is his use of the camera. In 1973 he did a book of portraits
entitled First-Class Portraits, accompanied by an essay by the esteemed photography
critic, A. D. Coleman. One of the concerns of this book of photographs is
the issue of an exact definition of portraiture….Brown deliberately
and subversively manipulated his Polaroid shots of people by smudging
emulsions, taking the picture out of focus, or by creating situations of bad
or irregular lighting. Yet Brown captures something of the moment; the shutter
snaps shut on an unrarified moment.”
V. Vale in the book Pranks: “Brown was the first artist to publish a book of “bad photos” which were out of focus, influencing photographers like Joel-Peter Witkin who immediately recognized that he had opened up a whole new area of freedom in photography outside the realm of academic standards of perfection.”
A.D. Coleman called Brown’s
work “a restless individual intelligence engaged in a running creative
battle with the structures of its native culture.”
Mr. Mike's Mondo Video:Jo Jo The Human Hot Plate
Jo Jo The Human Hot Plate, directed by Michael O'Donoghue
Robert Delford Brown’s hilarious performance as “Jo Jo the Human Hot Plate” was a brief, bizarre interlude in his late friend Michael O’Donoghue’s brief, bizzarre and legendary cult film “Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video” in 1979. Correctly billed at the time as “the TV show that can’t be shown on TV”, “Mondo Video” was the very first (and without a doubt the most original) film ever to come out of the Saturday Night Live camp. A young Lorne Michaels was executive producer while the brilliant Mike O’Donoghue produced and directed this project that only he could envision. It was kindred spirit O’Donoghue that asked Brown to appear.
Brown’s performance as “Jojo” was absurdly masterful in its simplicity. He stands subtly writheing, bare-chested in a pair of briefs, with a pile of canned spaghetti overflowing from his carefully cupped hands.
The
film showcased other curious performers in other equally demented mutations
masquerading as short art films, including Thomas Alva Edison’s “Elephant
Electrocution, ” “ Christmas on Other Planets,” “The
Church of the Jack Lord,” “Laser Bra 2000,” and “Nazi
Oven Mitts.”
Originally
intended to be a one-shot summer replacement for Saturday Night Live, “Mr.
Mike’s Mondo Video’s” disorienting 75 minutes were never
aired due to its offbeat, dark humor. O’Donoghue’s own parody
of the previous cult classic “Mondo Cane” hit problems with
NBC censors and, instead, received very limited theatrical distribution
by New Line Cinema.
The cast included most of the SNL originals, Not Yet Ready for the Local Multiplex: Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd (as the Church of the Jack Lord priest), Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner. Also featured are avant opera singer Klaus Nomi, actresses Margot Kidder, Carrie Fisher, Teri Garr, and Blondie’s Deborah Harry (In a funny piece called “Beautiful Women Love Disgusting Men” she states ”It’s cute when guys miss the toilet seat.”) There is also a comedic turn by Judy Jacklin, the woman who three years later purportedly gave the fatal shot of heroin and coke to John Belushi.
An
impressive musical menu includes Paul Shaffer who wrote original music and
appears as the Jack Lord organist, RootBoy Slim and the Sex Change Band
and the American debut of Sid Vicious’ now infamous performance of
“My Way,” well before it appeared in “The Great Rock and
Roll Swindle.” Sadly, the video re-packaging of “Mr. Mike”
is now missing Vicious’ audio. Scrolling titles explain that Paul
Anka, who wrote “My Way” refused to give rights to the performance.
The standout, in addition to Brown’s appearance as the frenetic Jojo,
is an amazingly schmaltzy theme song in a deadpan rendering by Sinatra wannabe
Julius LaRosa.
Watching
Brown as “Jojo” cradling his warm spaghetti and presumably heating
it up in the time it takes to say “Stay Tuned for Performance Art”
is worth the price of admission if you don’t blink. And assuming you
can find this rare, important and fascinating cult classic at your local
video store. - Mark Bloch
See the Jo Jo quicktime clip- 6.5 megs
See smaller Jo Jo quicktime
clip- 1 meg
"Expect the Unexpected"
"Robert Delford Brown: In 1973 the
Village Voice ran a full page ad entitled EXPECT THE UNEXPECTEDt every week
for the entire year. I was becoming a downtown icon of the unconventional
whether I liked it or not."
Funkupagan Ikonobiles
Robert Delford Brown: “ For the Ikonobiles I chose eight requisite saints gifted people who were extraordinarily
inspiring to me in my adolescence and for whom I have always felt great affection and admiration; the jazz musicians Frank Teschmacher, Leon Rapollo, Herbie Fields, Stuff Smith, and PeeWee Russell; the poet Chidiock Tichborne; the comedian Hornsby; and the opera singer manque Florence Foster Jenkins. And of course Ben Turpin.The ritual of Sanctification consists in the making of a collaborative collage relief painting in which the Saint to be is the message and I am the medium.
More to Come
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Saints Robert Delford Brown: “ For the requisite saints I chose eight gifted people who were extraordinarily inspiring to me in my adolescence and for whom I have always felt great affection and admiration; the jazz musicians Frank Teschmacher, Leon Rapollo, Herbie Fields, Stuff Smith, and PeeWee Russell; the poet Chidiock Tichborne; the comedian Hornsby; and the opera singer manque Florence Foster Jenkins. In addition to these charter saints I have also sanctified friends who have been important in offering their talent and moral support in the development of The First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, Inc.. The ritual of Sanctification consists in the making of a collaborative collage relief painting in which the Saint to be is the message and I am the medium. The strongest apparent influence is H.C. Westermann, who was
a very close friend from 1965 until his death in 1981. However,
I have been an assiduous student of art for the past 40 years and nave
been influenced by every artist I've ever looked at. Picasso declared
that no artist is a bastard. Originality is culturally determined.” |
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Performances opening rituals
Everyone participates to the degree to which they feel comfortable. No one is coerced or made to feel that they should be doing more than they are doing. The materials used in making the images are conventional materials that have been used in the festivals of other religions hundreds or thousands of years…
“Carving a pumpkin in the fall Grand Opening Service Pumpkin
Circumstance, is something that most people have done as children. It
is not a task that engenders trepidation, but it engages all the problems
with which a sculptor is confronted. ”
Robert Delford Brown presented a
performance of Fried Blood in Houston, Texas in 1993. A videotape is available
of this event. You can also purchase a videotape about Robert Delford Brown
by Mark Bloch called I'm A Sweet Old Man Now, a visit with R.D. Brown
at the Great Building Crackup, which chronicals Brown circa 1997. Contact
the webmaster for prices and information.
Funkup.com
The web site you are now looking
atIS the current home of the church. The First National
CHurch of
Exquisite Panic, Inc. The
Funkupagan Manifesto tells us that "we must regenerate ourselves. We must
create new rituals and new mythologies to accommodate new found capabilities.
Our launching into outer space, which was considered an impossibility a mere 50 years ago, has already been accomplished. We must now have the courage to continue this exhilarating and frightening adventure without procrastination.
It will be necessary for us to throw overboard outmoded, wasteful ways of living. Humanity has to achieve coherence.
We must
have absolute equality across the board in order for everyone to be able
to contribute to this enterprise. We will need all of the intelligence and
of the energy we can muster."
Brown is represented in the collections of (partial list): The Museum of Modern Art, New York City; The Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.; Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Menil Collection, Houston, TX; Archivio Francesco Conz, Verona, Italy; The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal;