Vincent Van Gogh: Van Gogh in Provence: Modernizing Tradition / Glenn Brown: Suffer Well

The two exhibitions and the film presented by the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles this summer perfectly illustrate the Fondation’s mission: to highlight the notion of artistic transmission via the resonance of Van Gogh’s oeuvre (1853–90) within contemporary art.

In Arles, from February 1888 to May 1889, Van Gogh reached the height of his modernity. He nevertheless remained enduringly faithful to the masters he revered and to traditional pictorial genres. Today, artists such as Glenn Brown and Saskia Olde Wolbers in turn make reference to Vincent in works to which they bring their own originality.

The selection of 31 paintings by Vincent van Gogh conveys both the coherence and the evolution of the artist’s work and thinking over seven years of intense activity. It allows us to compare his treatment of portraits, still lifes and landscapes from the start of his artistic quest in 1883 in Holland right up to his death in 1890 in Auvers-sur-Oise. It demonstrates the crucial role played by his stay in Arles with regard to his vision of colours, his handling of paint and his compositions.

Among contemporary British artists, Glenn Brown (*1966) is one of the most unusual and most unique. His inventiveness manifests itself in his approach to drawing, painting and sculpture, all of which are presented together for the first time in this major solo show. The majority of the sculptures on display, moreover, have been created specially for this occasion. The exhibition Suffer Well affirms the subjective force of Brown’s translations of old masters and shows him referencing the conventions of different styles and epochs, which he appropriates by atomising them and rendering them more complex.

In her film Yes, These Eyes Are the Windows, the Dutch artist Saskia Olde Wolbers (*1971) shows the London house where Van Gogh once lived. The house, in the role of narrator, unfolds a fiction about the layers of myth that have settled upon the artist and the influence of his ghostly presence. 

*(1) Vincent van Gogh, Field with Irises near Arles, Arles, May 1888. Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). (2) Glenn Brown, Suffer Well, 2007. Oil on panel, 157 x 120cm. The V-A-C Collection, Moscow. Photo: Robert McKeever. (3) Vincent van Gogh, Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat, Paris, September-October 1887. Oil on canvas, 44.5 x 37.2 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). (4) Glenn Brown, The Hokey Cokey, 2016. Oil paint and acrylic over steel structure and bronze, 88 x 66 x 66 cm. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photo: Mike Bruce. (5) Vincent van Gogh, The Sheaf-Binder (after Millet), Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, September 1889. Oil on canvas, 44.5 cm x 33.1 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation). (6) Glenn Brown, Darsham Songs, 2016. Indian ink and acrylic on panel, 82 x 129.5 cm. Collection of the artist. Photo: Mike Bruce. (7) Entrance of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. Photo: Guillaume Avenard. © Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles © FLUOR Architecture.