Jean Brown Artist Ots That Time Again

Jean Brown Revisited

 by Rimma Gerlovina and Valeriy Gerlovin

There is no straight line as such, if you draw a line continually over the surface of the world, it will be a circumvolve. That is how we should �circumscribe� Fluxus mentality. Following the similar directly and winding line of our life, nosotros came to the door of the Shaker Seed House in Tiringham, MA, in May 1980. Seemingly, all things take had arranged themselves rapidly and favorably for that matter. In February, we moved to New York from Moscow (after lingering for some time in Europe); in March, our friend Italian visual poet Mirella Bentivoglio came to New York and continued us with Jean Brown, collector of Dada, Surrealism, and Fluxus. The first two days nosotros spent at Jean�s firm, that had been built by the Shakers, were nigh revelatory – we suddenly met the person whom we knew from illo tempore, the mythical �at present� that is stretching through past and future. The true reason for whatever deep connection lays in that �immemorial� familiarity between the people, a kind of familiarity that would exist intelligible only to faithful affection. From here on Jean became our skilful friend, an advisor on many matters, and probably a person who left the near memorable impression on us with her exclusive kindness. And that particular quality is most rare, which we were destined to learn later when encountering its overpowering opposite.

We begin our little story well-nigh Jean Brown with describing her landmark characteristic. If each man should exist a constabulary unto himself and follow the teaching of his heart – Jean was one of such people, she always followed the natural tenderness of her center, filled with gentle benevolence, but void of sentiments. Either by accident or by ordinance she always said to people the kindest words. She used to call Mirella �My Italian Princess� (that was literally truthful), for Rimma she reserved an artistic championship �My Botticelli Girl,� and her aisle true cat got a figurative proper name �My Whisky Bottle.� Her attitude had not been formed only by the nice social manners, or past that blazon of friendliness that feeds on the culling motives.

Valeriy Gerlovin , Jean Dark-brown, and Rimma Gerlovina at Jean's house, 1980

On the whole, she was outwardly wrapped in her own kindness that prevented her from being damaged past other people. At least that was our impression, which may or may non be contrary to reality. She had achieved what is called in technical terms, the disarming ability of a smile. Indeed, before the tongue can speak from the heart, it has to lose the power to wound. While the bulk of people tend to decide everything by heed, she was unique in her orientation in the world, at least in our experience - knowing by love that which is normally known past understanding. At the same time, her zipper to people was non without the discrimination, her benignancy was fully conscious, based on the independent judgment that was never expressed past harsh words. For example, she was very fond of John Lennon, only quite indifferent to the fame and power inherited by Yoko Ono; both of whom she knew personally. Equally nosotros noticed subsequently, nearly people echo other people opinions usually determined by fame; and the aforementioned bureaucracy of viewpoints operates in the art globe, it is merely polished by artistic liberty. In that sense, she was adamant but poised and repose about her views.

Thinking back nigh Jean Dark-brown, It seems to us that the clue to our relationships was in our immediate, spontaneous reaction to her collection. Seeing how nosotros were overwhelmed with her house of wonders stuffed with all kinds of aesthetic absurdities, she was thrilled and filled with similar joy. That is an old-aged formula of giving-taking relationships. Happiness is always mutual, even if it is just a �perhappiness.� Probably, her friendship with George Maciunas had a like basis – in natural spontaneity and simple sincerity. �Only like George� – she used to complain softly every fourth dimension she felt nicely about something well done or well said. Later nosotros met many Fluxus artists, just unfortunately, not him - he died before our arrival in New York. George was a pivotal figure both in her collection and her placid memories that were occupied by his irrepressible vital spirit. Thank you to her memories and tongue in cheek accounts on Maciunas� adventures by Jean Dupuy, we developed a neat sympathy to this wonderful artist and a �solder of misfortune� in the struggle of Soho loft-development policy. Frequently we had a feeling that with our enthusiasm we revived his spirit in Jean�due south life. She used to stress that George was too one-half Russian by his mother side. A former ballerina in her later years she worked as a secretarial assistant of Kerensky, the ex-caput of the Russian conditional government in 1917. Aside of the national and aesthetic affinity, the unmarried fact that after seeing Jean Chocolate-brown collection we bluntly said in our rudimentary at this point English �Fluxus is Maciunas� seemed to contribute immediately to our friendship. Probably for many Fluxus artists our quick affirmation would audio as much blasphemous equally the argument of Nietzsche for the churchgoers that �there was but one Christian, and even he was crucified.�

Jean Brown in a Fluxus robe designed past George Maciunas in forepart of the cabinets         also designed past him peculiarly for her drove. Photo � 1980 Gerlovin

           One could find in this collection objects suggesting all kind of hypothesis mixed with all kinds of facts, which made the mind practise by imagination. Some works remained in our memory such as a black metal box made by Joe Jones in which two metal worms were chasing each other in a circuit. They produced a funny buzzing sound, chosen by the author �flux music.� It was a cause-and-outcome game when one inevitably follows the other. We think how Jean pulled upwardly the chain of metal letters fabricated past George Brecht, spelling them into �this sentence is weightless.� It was similar having an intention and not having i. We tried our luck touching the unidentified content in the tactile boxes of Ay-o. It left the strange feeling that inside and exterior are made to capsize and incorporate each other. Ben Vautier in his Flux Suicide Kit instead of regarding the tragicomic content of the world in a gloomy way, suggested a more than calorie-free-hearted absurdist style, maybe even laughing about it as Voltaire used to express mirth in society to �keep himself from going mad.� Jean told us the story behind the piffling Fluxplane - Stalingrad by Nam June Paik. He presented information technology to George Maciunas, who was dying from cancer, promising him that he will return to them as the Red Ground forces returned to Stalingrad. �But the Cherry-red Ground forces never left Stalingrad�- answered Maciunas.

Recollecting those privileged moments that we spent with Jean, one occasion stands out. In December 1981, she gently suggested to celebrate her birthday at our garage-loft on Jump Street. Jean rarely went to New York, and this anniversary was an excuse from her regular habit. She insisted that she would bring everything and everybody along. Her escort consisted of her son and Peter Frank. Needless to say, we were happy to host her in our identify crowded with the fine art works, ours as well as others. We retrieve how somebody joked that coming into our loft he felt like Alice inbound the rabbit hole when she suddenly appeared among the glasses and wonders of another dimension. Nor was this all. Upon her entrance, Jean was astonished by the large painting by Salvatore Dali crossed by the banner �Happy Birthday to Jean.� This painting made for the Art Fair in 1939 consisted of four 99� ten 47� panels; information technology came into our hand for restoration, following a trajectory as mysterious as Dali�s art itself. (For many years in New York, nosotros supported ourselves with this traditional arts and crafts of �curing� other artists� works.) Jean was thrilled. Information technology was in the spirit of her ain collection of Dada, Surrealism, and Fluxus. The synchronicity of events occurred seemingly for that special occasion of her lxx^th altogether, and we merely cohered with information technology by means of �surrealistic� twists of fate. Information technology went along with her taste reflected in her uncommon interests in art total of surprises.

Jean Brown�southward Altogether. From left to right: Valeriy Gerlovin, Jean Brownish, sitting under the tree with Dali�s Liquid Clock, Pauline Ores (dorsum), Jonathan Brown, her elder son, and Peter Frank at our loft in Manhattan. 1981

One more than unusual characteristic of her character attracted our attention. Many years she lived alone in a rather remote business firm in Massachusetts. The very first evening nosotros spent with her, she unexpectedly said to usa: �Stay abroad from New York.� Seeing our surprised faces, she made a gesture like she said something of no importance. How could we empathise the pregnant of her words arriving in New York only iii months ago? At this moment, we reasoned not: the time was non ripe for this. She simply read our futurity. Simply later, in 1993 when we moved out of the city did we fully understand her words almost New York that she seemingly dropped accidentally many years agone. �From Quaker Route (our new address) to Shaker Business firm�� was the opening line of our last letter to her. Simply in the Eighties, she was listening to our stories near the art world in the metropolis and its perplexions with sad silence, without any comments. The world is a dandy mart, and it would be a waste material of energy to analyze information technology or to argue confronting its casuistry. Everything has followed the natural class of events, and she knew information technology. Equally for herself, Jean has chosen to live alone surrounded past nature, without losing much energy in social cross-purposes and conflicts. Often people are worldly because they know no better. Jean seemed to manage the scales betwixt natural and social rest. She has chosen the manner of life that can exist characterized as inwards and outward simultaneously, progressively becoming mindful and cocky-possessed and at the same time friendly and opened to many artists who came to see her collection and to add to it something of their own.

We do not want to go into descriptions of her collection, her firm, or other empirical realities, instead, nosotros try to await at certain forms of insight and bring them into conscious performance. Her unusual reply to our question �How is she managing alone?� took a stiff hold in our retentiveness. �I am not alone. I am with my thoughts,�- was the respond. Her radio was ever on, tuned to the classical music station, which soft continual sounds environed all rooms of her house with frequent interruptions by news. Observing the changes in her own graphic symbol, she admitted that she has get much more attracted to her religious roots. Probably she felt that she must return to her own essence, to preserve her identity, and recover the understanding of her own nature. Needless to say, not everybody tin confront a lifetime of solitude, to exist set apart by nature to live alone. One time at the very beginning of the nineties, she telephoned us and suggested usa to motility to her business firm, to alive and work at that place. It was clear that Jean is very much alone and information technology has become difficult now. In bounty of her solitary way of life, Jean used to receive bunches of letters and parcels from all over the earth daily. She had an enormous correspondence. A not bad deal of her archive and to a certain degree, fifty-fifty some part of her drove was built through the post.

         Jean Brownish�due south treasures were collected with an exclusive aesthetic intelligence, and it seems to us, sure ethical perception. Every fourth dimension we visited her, we found something new in her multitude of draws and boxes full of unpredicted conceptual curiosities. As soon every bit she sensed that her effort to share her vision was sincerely appreciated she was very happy because she establish the meaning of her life in this sharing. Trusting intuition pure and unproblematic, Jean discovered the meaning of this �artless fine art,� then deepened it for herself and made information technology clear and meaningful for others. Just similar an alchemical evocation �deepen, widen, and subtilize.� If we continue in heed that the boundaries of the aesthetic do non hold now, being transgressed and broken downward, nosotros can view her peculiar choice of the works as highly personal, all the same expressing a collective feel - not overly sophisticated, merely subtle like Jean herself in her psychological implications. With age, many people come to think that all deep things are simple. To this, we can add from the account of Albert Einstein who said that �everything should be fabricated as uncomplicated as possible, simply not simpler.� Indeed, Jean�s self-expression was clothed in language adapted to the ordinary understanding, at the same time her drove was the most extraordinary in terms of taste, erudition, and eccentricity. Her holdings were candy past her life and finally reabsorbed through the eyes of other people.

For many fellow artists, she was the mother figure, the sustainer and a home-based art center, where the most man approach was guaranteed. It requires a not bad deal of creativity inside to be supportive to creativity of others. The art of seeing is a prerequisite of all other forms of art. In a higher place all, the notorious egoism of many artists with their contractive self-love was counterbalanced by her friendly altruism. Therefore, the news that she is selling her collection to the Getty Museum left many artists to exist wrapped in speculation. From 1 point of view, the artists were losing their favorite patron, from another; she was securing the farther life and location of their art. Every bit Jean told u.s., she has required that all her drove without a single exception volition be taken by the museum not simply the market-valued fine art - but everything and past everybody.

Jean Brownish at her house, on the second floor. Photograph � 1980 Gerlovin

1 meets the facts but does not know soon plenty what to brand of them. In the long run, her decision was proved correct and made in favor of impersonal aims. Equally much as it was in her power, she assured the preservation of the artworks from her collection before she was parted with it. At that point, she asked united states to make a video of her collection and the interior of the house before it was to exist packed and shipped to the Getty Museum. As close continuing witnesses of this situation, we were compelled to notice that along with the parting of her treasures she gradually entered a land of apathy, started to lose interest, and perchance some personal significant of her life. She was crumbling, and to keep the collection and correspondence was very difficult. In 1988, we made several trips to Tiringham. Shooting the funny objects, the outside, and the interior of the multitude of the draws filled with the peculiar stuff, we made probably the last havoc earlier the packing of the collection. Jean did not have much energy, and we felt we are asking as well much from her trying to put her in unlike positions among the objects in front of the camera. Marking Bloch made the editing of the video and the soundtrack created past John Muzzle, also a long time friend of Jean. Everything was washed rather apace and spontaneously, equally a visual memento or a small diary about this remarkable person and her collection. Unwillingly, nosotros participated in this tranquility procedure of �letting go�; Jean was moving into a new mode of being. �Just like George!� were her final words after the screen went out.

         In our final chat by phone, she said, �I am tired.� That was her response to our questions about her health and everything else. Ane calendar week afterwards, she passed away, moving from the state of visibility into the hiddeness; may we say, moving into space independent timing, or perchance into fourth dimension contained spacing. Mayhap nosotros shall run into over again; wherever it is that we go to.

Rimma Gerlovina and Valeriy Gerlovin � 2006

The video Not Jean Brownish was screened at The Emily Harvey Foundation 537 Broadway #ii New York, NY 10012

          Sat, February 22nd, 2019 � 7PM

Not Jean Brown: Dada, Surrealism, Fluxus, etc.

Premiere of a ½ inch colour video past The Gerlovins and Mark Bloch, sixteen min with sound rail by John Muzzle and works by George Maciunas, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Andr� Masson, Joe Jones, John Cage, Yoko Ono, Robert Watts, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Filliou, Geoff Hendricks, Nam June Paik, Christo, John Lennon, George Brecht, Ay-O, John Furnival, Dieter Roth, and others.

Preceded by videos:The Concepts, The Gerlovins, 16 min, 2012 andA visit with Collage Artist John Evans and the Avenue B School of Art, Marker Bloch, 28 min, 2004 Saturday, February 22nd, 2019 – 7PM The Emily Harvey Foundation537 Broadway #2
New York, NY 10012 Admission is gratis

             From left to right: Rimma Gerlovina, Jean Dark-brown, and Valeriy Gerlovin at Brown'due south house, 1980. Photo: The Gerlovins.

The Emily Harvey Foundation is pleased to present the world premiere of NOT JEAN BROWN , a 16-infinitesimal portrait of the Massachusetts art collector, Jean Brown (1916-1994), some 35 years after information technology was originally begun in 1985. Though a finished copy exists in Brown�s vast archives at the Getty Research Establish in Los Angeles, the project has never been screened for a New York audience or any audience, really, despite information technology being a pet project of the eccentric art lover who was excited to document her collection. The subtitle of the film is �Surrealism, Dada, Fluxus, etc.�

The original footage for Non JEAN Chocolate-brown was shot past Rimma and Valeriy Gerlovin on ½� video at Brown�s home in a former Shaker Seed Firm in Tyringham, a minor boondocks in the Berkshire
Mountains well-nigh Lee, Massachusetts. Brownish enthusiastically encouraged the Russian couple to collaborate with artist, musician and video editor Mark Bloch, a friend of both Jean Brownish and the Gerlovins, to formally bring the project to fruition, prior to Dark-brown shipping her unabridged honey collection to Southern California following her arrangements for placing information technology with The Getty Inquiry Institute. At Brown�s request, Bloch then contacted John Cage to aid create a soundtrack for the work.

The result is Non JEAN BROWN , a quick, personal portrait of the fine art collector, a group effort cobbled together by a few of her friends. The Gerlovins tested out their new home video equipment to shoot Ms. Brown and a tiny portion of her extensive holdings during i visit. Fluxus founder George Maciunas, who moved nearby a few years before his death in 1978, had custom built Chocolate-brown a beautiful room to brandish her unique works. Though she kept everything from collages by Max Ernst and other fine art superstars to tiny oblique works sent by unknown practitioners of the mail art network in the dozens of wooden drawers that Maciunas built for her, this film by and large features the work of Fluxus artists. A fully documented video bookkeeping of the work she amassed would have taken years to create professionally. So instead what we encounter is something that reflects the quirky, friendly personality of the owner: a somewhat roughly cut together collection of sometimes fuzzy clips shot on consumer equipment with a spontaneous voiceover by Brown. The soundtrack �Sink Sound (for Jean Brown)� is a �music of contingency� that Bloch recorded at Muzzle�southward loft on 6 ^th Artery in Manhattan one afternoon when Cage�s plumbing was acting up. Muzzle asked Bloch to come right over so that the sounds could be used for the Jean Brown projection.

Similar a great many other artists, both Bloch and the Gerlovins have written and made art about their friend Jean, a gracious hostess and generous supporter of avant garde artists. The Gerlovins said virtually her: "Jean Chocolate-brown�s treasures were nerveless with an exclusive artful intelligence, and it seems to us, certain upstanding perception. Every time nosotros visited her, we plant something new in her multitude of drawers and boxes full of unpredicted conceptual curiosities. As shortly as she sensed that her attempt to share her vision was sincerely appreciated she was very happy because she found the pregnant of her life in this sharing. Trusting intuition pure and uncomplicated, Jean discovered the meaning of this �artless fine art,� and then deepened it for herself and fabricated it clear and meaningful for others. � Indeed, Jean�s self-expression was clothed in language adapted to the ordinary understanding, at the same fourth dimension her collection was the most extraordinary in terms of taste, erudition and eccentricity. Her holdings were candy by her life and finally reabsorbed through the eyes of other people."

Roberta Smith wrote in her obit well-nigh Dark-brown May iv, 1994:

Jean Brown, a collector of Dada, Surrealism and Fluxus, died on Sunday at the Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass. She was 82 and lived in Tyringham, Mass�.Sometimes called the den female parent of Fluxus, Mrs. Dark-brown possessed a natural openness to new art and counted among her friends such avant-gardists as Marcel Duchamp, John Cage and George Maciunas, the leader of the Fluxus movement.

Mrs. Brown, whose maiden name was Levy, was built-in in 1911 in Brooklyn. Her father was a rare-book dealer who enjoyed taking his girl to museums. She briefly attended Columbia University. In 1936, she married Leonard Brown, an insurance amanuensis. They settled in Springfield, Mass., where Mrs. Chocolate-brown worked as a librarian.

 
In the late 1950's, after collecting Abstract Expressionist paintings, the Browns began to learn Dadaist and Surrealist art, manifestoes and periodicals. They soon moved on to Fluxus, a new, irreverent fine art movement that stressed multiples, printed ephemera, posters, newspapers and post art.

Afterwards Mr. Chocolate-brown's expiry in 1971, Mrs. Chocolate-brown moved to Tyringham, and expanded into areas adjacent to Fluxus, including artists' books, concrete poetry, happenings and operation fine art. Her abode, originally a Shaker seed house, became an important eye for both Fluxus artists and scholars, with Mrs. Brown alternately cooking meals and showing her guests her collection. Activities centered on a large attic archive built by Mr. Maciunas."

In 1985, as the Jean Brownish Archive approached 6,000 items, it was bought by the J. Paul Getty Centre for the History of Art and the Humanities in Santa Monica, Calif. This was among the showtime collections of 20th-century cloth acquired by the center.

(from NY Times, �Jean Brown, 82, Avid Collector Of Dada, Surrealism and Fluxus" By ROBERTA SMITH,  MAY 4, 1994).

The Concepts,  The Gerlovins, xvi min, 2012 
Coinciding with their book Concepts published in Russian federation in 2012, their fine art is grounded in playing with paradoxes and is rich in metaphor, linguistic communication and symbolism. They oftentimes use their bodies as a surface for psychological experience. Male / female features are role of their metaphorical games toward a theatre of consciousness. Their philosophical and mythological implications are also reflected in their theoretical work and writings.

A visit with Collage Artist John Evans and the Avenue B Schoolhouse of Art, Marking Block,  28 min, 2004 
Mark Bloch presses the late collage maestro John Evans for details of his diverse techniques regarding his decades of work with daily collage/diary works.

Rimma Gerlovina (American, b. Russian federation 1951) and Valeriy Gerlovin (American, b. Russian federation 1945) were founding members of the underground conceptual movement in Soviet Russia, described in their bookRussian Samizdat Art. Since coming in America in 1980, they had many personal exhibitions in galleries and museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago. The New Orleans Museum of Art launched a retrospective of their photography (Photoglyphs), which traveled to venues in fifteen cities. Group exhibitions include: The Venice Biennial;Photography of Inventionin Smithsonian�southward National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC;100 Years of Advanced in Cardinal and Eastern Europein Bonn Kunsthalle, Germany; The Polaroid Collection in Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography;Russia!in the Guggenheim Museum, New York and Bilbao, and others. Books featuring their works:Fine art on the Border and Overby L.Weintraub,Reflections in a Glass Eye(ICP and Bulfinch Press); also art history college books such asUnderstanding Art past Lois Fichner-Rathus (Harcourt Higher Publ.),Making Fine art, andCriticizing Photographsboth past Terry Barrett (McGraw-Hill),or Art Since 1940by J. Fineberg (Prentice Hall). Their works have appeared on the covers ofThe New York Times Magazine;Zoom;The Sciences; The Buddhist ReviewTricycle. In the Millennium Effect on fine art,The New York Times Magazinegave them a spread. Important Museum collections include: The Center Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Tate Gallery, London; The Guggenheim Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago; The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; International Center of Photography, New York, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Cincinnati Art Museum; Denver Fine art Museum; Nasher Museum, Duke Academy, Durham, NC; The Scottsdale Museum of Gimmicky Art, AZ; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, The Country Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia; Museum Moderner Kunst, Vienna, Austria, and others.

Mark Bloch (b. 1956) is a author, curator, historian, videographer, public speaker and pan-media artist living in Manhattan whose work uses visuals and text to explore ideas effectually long distance advice. Since 1977 Bloch has done performance fine art in the USA and internationally. An archive of many of Bloch's papers including a vast drove of Mail/ Networking/ Communication Art ephemera is part of the Downtown Collection at the Fales Library of New York Academy, which volition nowadays an exhibition of his piece of work in April 2020. Bloch is the author ofRobert Delford Brown: Meat, Maps, and Militant Metaphysics, published by Cameron Fine art Museum, Wilmington, N.C. (2008). His writings on fine art accept been published by theBrooklyn Rail,Whitehotmagazine.com, ABCNews and others.He was a correspondent toConversing with Cage (Richard Kostalenetz, editor, 1988) andAlmost Art Sucks(Walter Robinson, Editor 1998). Bloch organized and curated theCavellini Festival inNovember 2014 at the Museum of Modernistic Art, Lynch Tham Gallery, White Box Art Heart and Richard Fifty. Feigen and Co. His lecture, �Jungflux Finger Stor�ge Box for Ay-O� was performed at the Museum of Gimmicky Art in Chicago in 2011. In addition to his piece of work equally a author and fine artist, he has too worked every bit a graphic designer for ABCNews.com, The New York Times, Rolling Stone and elsewhere. Bloch has degrees from Kent Country University and Baruch Higher, City University of New York in Dissemination (1978) and Digital Marketing (2013), respectively. A solo exhibition of objects, paintings, collages and assemblages �Secrets of the Ancient 20th Century Gamers� was presented past the Emily Harvey Foundation, New York, March xviii-April 2, 2010.

Video Not Jean Brown in The Internet Archive

faulknerpooft1936.blogspot.com

Source: http://gerlovin.com/English/eng_jean_brown_revisted.htm

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