Will Brown is Lindsey White, Jordan Stein, and David Kasprzak. The project was housed in a storefront gallery space in San Francisco’s Mission District from 2012-2014 before we closed and began working directly with institutions. Our project ended in 2022.
Please see www.wearewillbrown.com for ALL our projects
The exhibition in the Walter and McBean Galleries at the San Francisco Art Institute.
Funded by: Creative Work Fund & National Endowment for the Arts
At irregular intervals and in unfixed amounts, any profits over the initial investment will be redirected into SFAI student, staff, or faculty projects — an unmediated re-investment in the artistic mission of the school. That said, the crypto-marketplace is such that gain is often preamble to loss. The value of our buy will be monitored by an accompanying mobile application that doubles as a grant application portal.
Artist and filmmaker Bruce Conner’s (1933–2008) mobility was severely limited for the last five years of his life, when he rarely left the San Francisco home he shared with his wife, Jean. To aid in his physical navigation of its spaces, he worked with assistants to install a succession of solid brass handles in each and every room--surrounding the stove, down the boat-like stairwell, inside the recesses of the bedroom closet. Buy here
Photo excerpt from the book by Will Brown (Lindsey White, Jordan Stein, David Kasprzak). Text by Jean Conner, Photographs by Jason Fulford
Photo excerpt from the book by Will Brown (Lindsey White, Jordan Stein, David Kasprzak). Text by Jean Conner, Photographs by Jason Fulford
Matrix 259
Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive
Will Brown re-imagines the roles of artist and curator through an inventive upending of traditional exhibition formats and often mines unexpected or forgotten histories within the cultural sphere. MATRIX 259, which unfolds across various locations, takes its inspiration from a 1978 site-specific Dan Flavin installation at BAM/PFA and the enigmatic stories surrounding it. Will Brown builds upon the sense of myth and transience of Flavin’s work for each of the elements of MATRIX 259.
June 12–September 13, 2015
Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive
Will Brown’s MATRIX exhibition unfolds across various sites outside BAMPFA’s Mario Ciampi building: an artist book displayed in UC Berkeley’s Morrison Library; a seemingly abandoned car sited in front of the now closed Bancroft Way entrance to BAMPFA; a light installation on the roof of the building; and a one-night theatrical production written by poet and playwright Kevin Killian, which will take place at the exhibition’s opening.
Will Brown’s MATRIX exhibition unfolds across various sites outside BAMPFA’s Mario Ciampi building: an artist book displayed in UC Berkeley’s Morrison Library; a seemingly abandoned car sited in front of the now closed Bancroft Way entrance to BAMPFA; a light installation on the roof of the building; and a one-night theatrical production written by poet and playwright Kevin Killian, which will take place at the exhibition’s opening.
Will Brown commissioned playwright, Kevin Killian to write a play for Matrix 259 at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The play, "New Light on Riboflavin" was performed at the opening reception. See video footage here
Berkeley, on the eve of Dan Flavin's historic exhibition, a classic car crashes into the walls of Mario Ciampi's Brutalist University Art Museum. From the rubble a lone figure emerges, determined to make use of Berkeley's brain power and fabled social justice to invent a new vitamin to help cure polio.
BRUCE CONNER'S METAPHYSICAL SERVICES: THIS IS A BRUCE CONNER EXHIBITION is made possible by di Rosa and runs concurrently with INHERENT VICE: THIS IS NOT A BRUCE CONNER EXHIBITION on view in Napa, CA through April 6, 2014. Will Brown wishes to thank di Rosa curator Amy Owen for commissioning these interrelated projects. Check Will Brown website for more info
Commissioned by Wattis Institute and Kadist Foundation. Featuring artists Irwin Swirnoff, Leslie Shows, and Anthony Discenza. Plus special guest Google programmer Will H. Brown (seriously)
The infamous "Google Bus" has become synonymous with the changing face of San Francisco by chauffeuring SF-based employees to and from Silicon Valley jobs everyday. CoB is a bus tour in the format of a talk show that traces the unpublished route of the infamous bus through the city with "participants" serving as the live studio audience.
WILL BROWN'S SUPREME CONDOMINIUM EXHIBITION
Inspired by a true story of Kasimir Malevich's burial site being paved over to build a condo in Moscow.
Will Brown turns storefront into a luxury condominium
As assistant to SFMOMA Director Henry Hopkins, Alberta Mayo turned her office -- his waiting room -- into a delightfully delinquent treasure known as the Manitoba Museum of Art. Decades after the physical space closed its doors, Will Brown is pleased to present the complete holdings of MMOFA, including artworks (found and made), ephemera, correspondence, and an extensive army of moose-themed objects.
Some Highlights include: mirror submitted by Bruce Conner for the first ever Bruce Conner Look Alike Contest and Bake Sale; atomic bomb hotpad; glass jar of cotton balls used to clean Jean Arp sculpture; glow in the dark MMOFA key chain; pencil used by Sol Lewitt to make MMOFA wall drawing; tree bark with carved initials; Henry Hopkins' rolodexes; fake butter; fake teeth; small flocked moose; burnt package for Henry Hopkins (never opened); mature discretion sign; Clyfford Still drawing; diploma; Lynn Hershman's "game"; and more!
This exhibition of artworks and ephemera with peculiar provenance investigates the ways in which works of art are acquired outside of galleries and auction houses. The eclectic collection of objects, from some of the world’s most revered artists, have one thing in common—they have all been obtained without any monetary transaction, and often illicitly. Illegitimate Business explores the life of an artwork after it leaves the artist’s hands and posits that the value of a work, removed from the market, is perhaps most evident in the narrative of its acquisition.
For five weeks, Will Brown restages The Ghost of James Lee Byars, the artist’s seminal 1969 work; a completely lightless environment. Inside The Ghost of James Lee Byars, Will Brown hosts a comprehensive collection of the artist’s work.
At 6PM, 10 artists will set out on foot from their respective homes and walk to Will Brown. Departing from disparate corners of the Bay Area, participants will arrive in a staggered procession throughout the course of the evening. The physical space will be empty of art. Beer and wine will be served. We hope to see you there.
Will Brown is pleased to present Untitled (Black Painting), a history of black monochromatic painting in the form of a present tense negation; an absolute inversion of the white cube gallery. On the walls of our black, objectless installation hover white outlines of the most important black monochromes since 1915. In wrestling with real estate rather than canvas, Untitled (Black Painting) explores the struggle between the loftily idealistic and acutely concrete at the heart of realizing a contemporary non-commercial exhibition venue.
THAT POSSUM is the culmination of Will Brown's two-month stay as an artist-in-residence at Headlands. Join Will Brown for a one-day exhibition exploring the eccentric and extraordinary institutional memory of Headlands Center for the Arts, using interviews with long-time staffer Holly Blake as a starting point for several experimental displays and situations.
Bauhaus Baunshaus was commissioned by Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts on the occasion of Capp Street Project's 30th birthday party.
Will Brown was one of two "artists" commissioned to create new work for the occasion. Special thanks to Jesi Khadivi, Anthony Huberman, and Happy Jump.
