ROGER BROWN

Brown was an avid student of American visual culture.He trained and taught in arguably the best art schoolof his time, but also sought knowledge from self-taughtartists, craftspeople, cartoonists, and the aestheticstrategies of advertising and pop culture. His range ofinfluences suggests he had a universal artistic consciousness that acknowledged no concrete separationbetween the so-called genres of fine art and outsiderart.

In 1990, when he was already an established artist,Brown attended Palace of Wonders: Sideshow Bannersof the Circus and Carnival at the Krannert Art Museumin Champaign, Illinois, an exhibition of historic sideshowbanners curated by circus artists Glen C. Davis andRandy Johnson. It was one of the first serious museumexaminations of the art form since sideshows cameinto existence in the late 18th century, when travelingcircuses themselves first appeared in America.

No official relationship existed between early circusesand sideshow promoters, who were mainly hustlerslooking to cash in on the circus crowds. Unlike the athletic, choreographed spectacles and trained animals featured in the main circus tents, sideshows includeda mix of unusual creatures; performers defying deathby swallowing swords, walking across fire, and climbing ladders made of knives: and ‘freaks of nature’ whowere purported to have, for example, the head of ahuman but the body of a spider or a snake.

As more circus owners formed official relationshipswith the increasingly popular sideshows, a vivid artistic tradition took shape. Blending rough ‘freak show’ imagery with the glamor and flash of the big top, theaesthetic grew to include bombastic visuals, brightcolours, and sizzling language designed to entice peopleinto the shows.

The Palace of Wonders exhibition at the Krannert ArtMuseum left an indelible impact on Brown’s artisticpractice. He produced at least a dozen sideshow paintings that same year, and continued revisiting the format for years to come. Brown’s paintings not only paidhomage to the visual language of the sideshow banners: they embraced the tangled relationship betweenthe so-called main events and ‘outside attractions.’

All of Brown’s interests are on display in his sideshowpaintings, including artworld satire, political controversy, current news, queer culture, American history,nature’s fury, architecture, and bad drivers. Invokingthe sideshow ethos, Brown brought into focus thetopics he saw as being outside the spotlight, or beyondpolite conversation: lurid scandals, ugly controversies,lowbrow entertainment, and the opaque art world.

Museum of What’s Happening Now shows Brown’s trivialising opinion of Abstract Expressionism, a powerfulinfluence in the art market of his time. In one fell swoopthe work satirises artists who blindly follow trends, collectors who artificially puff up the value of popularart, and institutions that glorify whatever happens tobe at the top of the art world pyramid scheme at themoment.

Similar satires of supposedly separate interests thatare actually in cahoots, and sideshows that are actuallymain attractions, underlie several of Brown’s sideshowbanner paintings, including Government Smokescreen,which targets the savings and loan scandals of the1990s: And Everybody Listens, a commentary on thefatwa that was placed on the author Salman Rushdieafter he published his book ‘Satanic Verses’; and ‘Aha!Heterosexuals Fuck Too’, which addresses hypocritical political and social attitudes surrounding the AIDSpandemic.

Some of Brown’s other sideshow banner paintings drawon more personal content, such as Kissin’ Cousins,which traces Browns true-life ancestral connectionto Elvis Presley, and Hank Williams, Honky Tonk Man,which reads like a frank tribute to the country musicstar, who grew up in Georgiana, Alabama, just downstate from Roger Brown’s home town of Hamilton.These paintings again seem to ask what the mainattractions are: the famous singers, or the artist whoimmortalises their images after they’re gone?

Equal parts sincere and sardonic, Brown’s explorationof sideshow banners feels less like a singular thesisabout the ‘freak show’ of modern living and more likean intimate snapshot of his own creative interests.Titled in honour of the presentation that inspired him,Roger Brown, Palace of Wonders is a dedicated exploration of this unique body of work within the artist’s latecareer.