Past Exhibition
- Spencer Sweeney
Perfect
Greenwich May 10th to September 11th, 2022
The Brooklyn Rail: Spencer Sweeney with Andrew Woolbright
Spencer Sweeney: Perfect opens to the public on May 10, 2022
Greenwich, CT – The Brant Foundation Art Study center is pleased to present an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Spencer Sweeney. The exhibition, titled Perfect, will be on view beginning May 10, 2022.
Known for his psychologically rich figurative paintings, and collaborations with various musicians, performers, and artists in the downtown New York City art scene throughout his career, Sweeney will present an exhibition tracing his robust practice over the past 15 years throughout the Foundation in three parts.
Beginning on the lower level of the Foundation, Sweeney will introduce the exhibition with a series of self-portraits with significant emotional depth and tension as the subconscious fights to the surface of the canvas. With these works, Sweeney reaches inside to express the psychological territory he is navigating as he goes about his daily routine. Works such as Studio (2010), Self Portrait Transposition (2013), and Pregnant Woman on Horseback (2010), create a sometimes humorous and self-deprecating tableau of interior fantasies, insecurities, musings, and struggles involved in the creative process.
Sweeney notes, “The title Perfect is utilized here in broad philosophical terms, contemplating the challenges in the full acceptance of life in its entirety including of course, the imperfect. For instance, in the case of the self-portraits, with all their anxiety, pathos and chaos, are depictions of difficult moments along the path of the creative process, which in the end and with some perspective, might as well be ‘Perfect.’”
The Foundation’s double height gallery will feature several large-scale variations of the nude in repose. In these musings on the classical motif, Sweeney distills the figure down to its essence, conveyed through shape, hue, and line. Monochromatic paintings such as Before Behind (2019) and Moonlit Lady (2012) create a bold feminine figure in outline and emphasize a lyrical playfulness. Improvisations such as Woman with Metronome (2019) is an exploration in the boundaries of abstraction and form. Sweeney refines the expression in his ongoing engagement with the characteristics of the feminine.
In addition to his paintings, music is central to Sweeney’s practice, and the artist has been a vital presence and performer in his own right in the nightlife and music scene of New York City. Further galleries will feature announcement paintings from various events, parties, musical shows, and concerts that Sweeney helped organize. The posters feature names of performers and artist collaborators such as Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Peter Doig, Telfar Clemens, Afrika Bambaataa, Craig Harris, Pete Drungle, Kai Althoff, Pheeroan akLaff, and Jay Rodriguez, among others.
Paintings produced to announce Headz, a collaborative art and music performance salon initiated by Sweeney, Urs Fischer, and Brendan Dugan, will also be on view. Headz was conceived as an open studio where artists – both established and amateur – could come together to draw, paint, or sculpt, and also became a hub for live improvisational music performances. The salon’s collaborative space shifted the act of art making into a shared experience.
About Spencer Sweeney
Spencer Sweeney was born in 1973 in Philadelphia, and lives and works in New York. Collections include the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. Group exhibitions include the Whitney Biennial, New York (2006); and That Was Then, This Is Now, MoMA PS1, New York (2008). Performances include Hey, You Never Know (curated by Carol Greene and Kenny Schachter), 534 LaGuardia Place, New York (1998); and CrissCross: Some Young New Yorkers III, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (1999). In 2015, Kitto-San published Spencer Sweeney, a retrospective monograph featuring interviews with fellow artists and other figures from Sweeney’s diverse cultural circles.
About The Brant Foundation Art Study Center
The Brant Foundation Art Study Center has a mission to promote education and appreciation of contemporary art and design, by making works available to institutions and individuals for scholarly study and examination. The Brant Foundation Art Study Center presents long-term exhibitions curated primarily from the collection. The collection is remarkable in that scores of artists are represented in depth, including works from the earliest period of their practice through their most recent works. Currently, The Brant Foundation, Inc., established in 1996, lends works to more than a dozen exhibitions per year. The Brant Foundation Art Study Center is located at 941 North Street, Greenwich, Connecticut.
In March 2019, The Brant Foundation presented a solo exhibition of works by Jean-Michel Basquiat to celebrate the inauguration of its new space in New York City’s East Village. Located at 421 East 6th Street, the space occupies a century-old building originally designed as a substation for Consolidated Edison. The building subsequently served as the home and studio of famed artist Walter De Maria from the mid-1980s until his death in 2013. Richard Gluckman of Gluckman Tang Architects renovated the former substation to create a 16,000-square-foot building that features 7,000 square feet of exhibition space arrayed across four floors. The project includes two new gardens adjacent to the structure and a landscaped roof terrace.
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Media Contact
Anika Zempleni
Third Eye
212-355-9009
Artist Biography
Spencer Sweeney
In addition to making paintings, drawings, and collages characterized by infectious exuberance and raw materiality, Spencer Sweeney produces immersive multimedia environments that transform gallery spaces into open workshops and performance stages, exposing the traditionally private realm of the artist’s studio to public scrutiny.
Born in Philadelphia, Sweeney graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1997. He then moved to New York, where, in concert with his visual practice, he helped establish the nightclub Santos Party House and worked as a DJ. He also cofounded the seminal noise-art group Actress (1997–2001) with Lizzi Bougatsos of Gang Gang Dance, performing as its drummer at gallery and museum events including Criss Cross: Some Young New Yorkers III at MoMA PS1 in 1999. Sweeney cites jazz as having influenced his reliance on improvisation, and alongside frequent references to popular culture in his work, he alludes to the history of art. His reclining nudes, portraits, and self-portraits, for example, reverberate with the amplified and distorted voices of Pablo Picasso, Édouard Manet, and Henri Matisse, while also combining the extemporaneous vigor of Neo-Expressionism with the knowing repetition of signature motifs.
In 2015 Spencer Sweeney, a 500-page book of conversations between the artist and some of his myriad inspirations from the worlds of cinema, literature, music, New York nightlife, and contemporary art, was published, testifying to his fundamental investment in context and open exchange. Sweeney’s painting and drawing salon Headz (2017–)—a collaboration with Urs Fischer—hosts performances by experimental jazz musicians such as Pete Drungle, Craig Harris, and Jay Rodriguez, and has received international stagings in Berlin, Mexico City, and Paris. In his current work, Sweeney continues to invoke the spirit of “availablism” (a term coined by performance artist Kembra Pfahler to describe making art with materials to hand), interweaving images of disarming psychological directness with a fluid and multilayered examination of the creative process itself.
SOLO
| 2017 |
Viva Las Vegas, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany |
| 2016 |
The Grey Leg, Gavin Brown’s enterprise & Cahiers d’Art, 15 rue du Dragon, Paris, France |
| 2015 |
TRAMPS, curated by Parinaz Mogadassi, London, UK Karma, New York / Wake Up and Make Love, Gavin Brown's enterprise, 291 Grand, New York |
| 2014 |
She, C-l-e-a-r-i-n-g, Brussels, Belgium / Monads and Party Paintings, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, UK |
| 2013 |
Berlin Paintings, Veneklasen Werner, Berlin, Germany |
| 2012 |
Twig Gallery, Brussels, Belgium |
| 2011 |
The Pharaoh’s Lounge – Party Paintings and Sauna, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York / Nudes, The Green Gallery, Milwaukee, WI |
| 2010 |
Egyptian Diving Board Part II, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York / Teatr Laboratorium, Veneklasen Werner, Berlin, Germany |
| 2009 |
Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York |
| 2008 |
Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco / Our Gang, The Modern Institute, Glasgow, UK |
| 2006 |
AMT Gallery, Como, Italy |
| 2005 |
The Modern Institute, Glasgow, UK / Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York |
| 2003 |
Works on paper, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York |
| 1999 |
Lawing Gallery, Houston |
GROUP
| 2017 |
HeatWave, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles Peace Pieces, Brian DeGraw with Spencer Sweeney, Hysteric Glamour, Shibuya, Japan Animal Farm, The Brant Foundation, Greenwich, CT |
| 2016 |
Don’t Look Back, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany |
| 2015 |
What’s Wrong With Me, Martos Gallery, Los Angeles |
| 2014 |
Painter's Painters: Gifts from Alex Katz, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA |
| 2013 |
PIZZA TIME!, Marlborough Broome Street, New York |
| 2012 |
Do Your Thing, White Columns, New York |
| 2010 |
Paintings From England and America, Crisp Gallery, London, UK To NY with Love, Don’t Projects, Paris, France |
| 2009 |
Le souci de soi, Don’t Projects, Paris, France |
| 2008 |
That Was Then...This Is Now, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City |
| 2006 |
Day For Night: Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
| 2005 |
Looking at Words: The Formal use of Text in Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York The Early Show, White Columns, New York |
| 2004 |
Subway Series Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York |
| 2003 |
My People Were Fair and Had Cum in their Hair, Team Gallery, New York Today’s Man, John Connely, New York |
| 2002 |
20th Anniversary Exhibition, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York Paintings: Steve DiBenedetto, Spencer Sweeney, and Joe Zucker, Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York |
| 2001 |
American Fine Arts, New York Hysteric Glamour, Tokyo, Japan |
| 1999 |
XXX-Mas Show, American Fine Arts, New York (curated by Colin Deland) CrissCross: Some Young New Yorkers 3, PS1 Contemporary Arts Center, Long Island City, NY |
| 1998 |
Beyond the Matter of Space, Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center |
| 1997 |
Gift Land, Printed Matter, New York |
| 1993 |
Subculture Gallery, Philadelphia |
