Menu

Glenn Brown

Come to Dust

January 24–March 17, 2018
Grosvenor Hill, London

Installation video Play Button

Installation video

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view

Artwork © Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Works Exhibited

Glenn Brown, The Music of the Mountains, 2016 India ink and acrylic on panel, 53 ⅛ × 37 ⅜ inches (135 × 95 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, The Music of the Mountains, 2016

India ink and acrylic on panel, 53 ⅛ × 37 ⅜ inches (135 × 95 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, Come to Dust, 2017 Oil on panel, 45 ¼ × 28 inches (115 × 71 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Glenn Brown, Come to Dust, 2017

Oil on panel, 45 ¼ × 28 inches (115 × 71 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Glenn Brown, Drawing 19 (after Van Noordt), 2017 India ink and acrylic on film, in artist’s frame, 12 ⅝ × 8 ⅞ inches (32.1 × 22.6 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Edgar Laguinia

Glenn Brown, Drawing 19 (after Van Noordt), 2017

India ink and acrylic on film, in artist’s frame, 12 ⅝ × 8 ⅞ inches (32.1 × 22.6 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Edgar Laguinia

Glenn Brown, Let me ferry you out to sea To see who you could have been When time comes to row back in You’ll be in the place you should have been, 2017 Oil paint on bronze, 33 ⅛ × 29 ⅛ × 26 inches (84 × 74 × 66 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, Let me ferry you out to sea To see who you could have been When time comes to row back in You’ll be in the place you should have been, 2017

Oil paint on bronze, 33 ⅛ × 29 ⅛ × 26 inches (84 × 74 × 66 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, Let me ferry you out to sea To see who you could have been When time comes to row back in You’ll be in the place you should have been, 2017 Oil paint on bronze, 33 ⅛ × 29 ⅛ × 26 inches (84 × 74 × 66 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, Let me ferry you out to sea To see who you could have been When time comes to row back in You’ll be in the place you should have been, 2017

Oil paint on bronze, 33 ⅛ × 29 ⅛ × 26 inches (84 × 74 × 66 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above, 2017 Oil on panel, 91 × 75 ⅝ inches (231 × 192 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death from Above, 2017

Oil on panel, 91 × 75 ⅝ inches (231 × 192 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Mike Bruce

Glenn Brown, They Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth and Touched the Face of God, 2017 Oil on panel, 50 ⅝ × 32 ½ inches (128.5 × 82.5 cm)© Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Glenn Brown, They Slipped the Surly Bonds of Earth and Touched the Face of God, 2017

Oil on panel, 50 ⅝ × 32 ½ inches (128.5 × 82.5 cm)
© Glenn Brown. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

About

I use pre-existing images to go into pre-existing frames. I don’t like a blank canvas or a blank sheet of paper.
—Glenn Brown

Gagosian is pleased to present Come to Dust, Glenn Brown’s first major exhibition in London since 2009.

For Brown, one of Britain’s most renowned contemporary artists, the past and present are treasuries of raw material, offering countless images, titles, and techniques to be combined, appropriated, and deconstructed. Mining an extensive knowledge of art history, as well as of literature, music, and popular culture, Brown creates complex and sensuous works of art that are resolutely of our time.

The title of exhibition, taken from a song in Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline, evokes the ineluctability of death. The exhibition, comprising oil paintings, drawings in period frames, grisaille panel works, etchings, and sculptures, attests to the ever-intensifying dexterity with which Brown employs paint, content, and form. It teems with contrasts and contradictions, collapsing time, and allowing different, often opposing, references to exist simultaneously. Sources include Rembrandt, Delacroix, Greuze, and Raphael, as well as Abraham Bloemaert, Francesco Mancini, Gaetano Gandolfi, Elisabeth Le Brun, and Bernardo Cavallino.

Read more

News

Glenn Brown: Come to Dust (New York: Gagosian, 2018)

Online Reading

Glenn Brown
Come to Dust

Glenn Brown: Come to Dust is available for online reading from April 28 through May 27 as part of Artist Spotlight: Glenn Brown. The book documents a 2018 exhibition at Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London, which featured oil paintings, drawings in period frames, grisaille panel works, etchings, and sculptures that attest to the ever-intensifying dexterity with which Brown employs paint, content, and form. A text by author Hari Kunzru and a conversation between Brown and curator Xavier Bray offer insight into the artist’s work.

Glenn Brown: Come to Dust (New York: Gagosian, 2018)

Photo: Edgar Laguinia

Artist Spotlight

Glenn Brown

April 28–May 4, 2021

Mining art history and popular culture, Glenn Brown has created an artistic language that refuses categorization, combining a wide range of periods from art history through reference, appropriation, and precise attention to detail. His mannerist impulses stem from a desire to breathe new life into past images; they are treasuries of raw material, offering countless images, titles, and techniques to be combined and deconstructed, producing complex and sensuous works of art that are resolutely of our time.

Photo: Edgar Laguinia