Coming in the Spring of 2007

Who! knows?

"I WAS BORN IN CENTRAL COLORADO IN 1930. NO ONE IS MORE AMERICAN THAN I AM, AND WHAT HAS BEEN DONE TO MY COUNTRY IS ENOUGH TO PUT ME INTO A BLOOD SPITTING RAGE. THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE DESTROYED MY COUNTRY ARE NOT FOREIGN TERRORISTS. THEY ARE TREASONOUS AMERICAN CITIZENS."

-Robert Delford Brown

"IN 1950'S THE USA HAD THE FINEST MASS TRANSIT IN THE WORLD. IT WAS DESTROYED BY THE OIL INDUSTRY TO MAKE IT NECESSARY FOR AMERICANS TO BUY CARS FOR TRANSPORTATION. CARS ARE INEFFICIENT, DIRTY AND DANGEROUS. THE SUBURBS ARE ANOTHER OF THE MOST STUPID IDEAS THAT EVER EXISTED. IN THE 1950'S ALL OF THE CITIES IN AMERICA WERE GUTTED TO FORCE PEOPLE TO MOVE INTO THE SUBURBS. THEY ISOLATE PEOPLE. THEY DESTROY COMMUNITIES. THE UNITED STATES HAS BECOME A NATION OF INVALIDS. TRAVELING AROUND IN THEIR 6,000 POUND WHEELCHAIRS.."

-Robert Delford Brown

Unidentified photographs on this page: Above: R.D. Brown in performance still from video Fried Blood.Photo by Laurie McDonald. Above right: We The People, An Artcar by R.D. Brown and others, Art Car Parade, Houston Texas. Above left: From a collaboration in 2006. Robert Delford Brown (on left) and an unidentified collaborator.Top center: R.D. Brown as Saint Kittenish. and Saint Bunny as Saint Bunny, performance, 2003.

Click any of the photos to enlarge them. For more information of the book release in 2007- or for advance orders write book@funkup.com

To see the old home page and learn more about the wonderful world of Robert Delford Brown, artist and founder of the First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, click here!

What? Great Art!

From The New York Times

Live. Don't Eat Cars.

By JESSE MCKINLEY

Q.

At 251 West 13th Street, near Greenwich Avenue, there is an ornate building with two large plaques inside its vaulted entranceway. One identifies the building as the location of some church, and the other has an essay on it describing the building as, among other things, "a metaphor concerning molecular physics" and a collision between a 19th-century building and a 20th-century building. What in the world is this place?

A.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Robert Delford Brown, artist and founder of the First National Church of the Exquisite Panic, a self-made religion devoted to laughter, art and the road to Nevada (Nirvana, says Mr. Brown, is too hard to find). Mr. Brown, 64, started the religion in 1964 as a stunt to attract attention to his first New York City art exhibit, a display of 3,600 pounds of meat in a local cooler. (Ah, the 60's.) He billed the show as "the grand opening services" of his new religion and promised "startling spiritual, sexual and esthetic revelations." He has been spreading his doctrine of Orthodox Paganism (its two commandments: live, and do not eat cars) ever since. Mr. Brown, a smiling prophet who sometimes preaches in a clown's wig and rubber nose, bought the building in 1967, and asked an architect, Paul Rudolph, to renovate in 1971. The "collision" refers to the juxtaposition of the new design to the original 1888 design by Richard Morris Hunt. Mr. Brown lives on the second floor, or in Temple of Hilarity, as it is known to the converted.