Robert Delford Brown, “˜Happenings” Artist, Dies at 78
by Bruce Weber
The New York Times
April 4, 2009
Robert Delford Brown, a painter, sculptor, performance artist and avant-garde philosopher whose exuberantly provocative works challenged orthodoxies of both the art world and the world at large, usually with a big wink, was found dead on March 24 in the Cape Fear River in Wilmington, N.C.
He was 78 and lived in Wilmington, where he had moved two or three years ago to prepare for a 2008 exhibition of his work at the Cameron Art Museum there.
The death has been ruled accidental, Deputy Sheriff Charles Smith of the New Hanover County Sheriff”s office in North Carolina said. The cause appeared to be drowning. Mr. Brown was last seen on March 20, said his stepdaughter, Carol Cone. Mr. Brown, who had had hip surgery and walked with a cane, was known to have been scouting locations for an art project in the river involving a number of rafts, and he is thought to have fallen in.
A colleague of artists like Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg and Nam June Paik, Mr. Brown was a central figure in the anarchic New York art scene of the early 1960s, a participant in “” and instigator of “” events-as-art known as “happenings.” He saw the potential for aesthetic pronouncement in virtually everything. His métier was willful preposterousness, and his work contained both anger and insouciance.
His raw materials included buildings, pornographic photos and even meat carcasses. Continue reading “Robert Delford Brown, RIP”
Open Audition to be held for all laid off Wall Streeters, AIG Staff and any other struggling members of the financial community
Antarctica – Flying Penguins
Australia – The Sydney Iceberg
