Cecily Brown “Rehearsal” at THE DRAWING CENTER

James Kalm visits the Drawing Center, one of SoHo’s stalwart institutions, to bring viewers glimpses of this, the first museum show of the work of Cecily Brown. “Rehearsal” presents about eighty drawings and sketchbooks with additional large format mixed media pieces that extend the idea of work on paper to the brink of traditional painting. As a prolific drafts-person, Brown is an image magpie, collecting and reusing subjects and influences form Hieronymus Bosch, and Pieter Bruege, William Hogarth to Edgar Degas, all are master draftsmen, and added to the mélange. These images are then infused into a loose mix of Abstract Expressionist brushwork and gesture to create a unique take which never quite coalesces into a coherent example of ether contemporary figuration or painterly abstraction. This program was recorded on October 7, and October 13, 2016 in SoHo.