Drew Daly, who is exhibiting at the Greg Kucera Gallery through Nov. 14, received an MFA from the University of Washington in 2004. Timothy Brown graduated with the same degree from the UW two years later.
About the impression Daly made in the MFA exhibit at the Henry, I wrote:
Just inside the galleries are two chairs by Drew Daley that aren’t
chairs at all. Keep looking at them, and they turn into rarified
paintings, all scraped down and burnished to a soft green glow. They
impersonate the useful as tribute to the uselessly beautiful.
Later I learned that the two chairs started as one chair. By carving it, Daly doubled its presence. That piece:
About Brown I wrote:
Timothy Brown’s massive chunk of yellowing resin has four (schoolroom) chairs painted inside it. I love their spindly legs. With their platter tops and the ghostly contrivance of the resin layering, they are memories frozen in time.
That piece:
And more recently:
These artists were familiar with each other’s work, at least
peripherally, as their studios in the time their schooling overlapped after graduating were in the same
building. Only Brown was working with resin.
As part of Daly’s current exhibit, he too has turned to resin.
Circulating around town are rumors that Daly plagiarized Brown. About Daly’s current show, I wrote:
The dropped ball never hits the floor in Drew Daly’s resin sculptures, which are surely a tribute to Jeff Koons’ Three Ball Total Equilibrium Tank from 1985 in particular and to Lucas Samaras in general…Daly makes art as if the world were a bellows, breathing in and out. On the exhale, faces, furniture and (most recently) sports equipment pull apart in fragments. On the inhale, they reform, but not necessarily in their original shapes. Two chairs become one, or one becomes two. Twelve fuse as if through an electrical current. A chest of drawers bends and flares. (more)
Brown’s work didn’t come to mind when writing that review. If it had, I would have been unlikely to mention it. There’s a material similarity, but the focus is entirely different, Daly honing in on fracture and Brown on floating sense world memories.
Intentionally or unintentionally, Daly might well have borrowed the idea of resin casts from Brown, but he might also have been thinking of Rachel Whiteread. Art comes from art. What matters is not the what of materials but the how of their use.
In regard to who did what when and thinking strictly of subject matter, don’t both artists owe Jack Daws?
Daws’ Hollow Reed from 2001:
No.
Does Daly need to acknolwedge Daws’ Basketball Watermelon from 2002?
No. Brown deserves a far larger career than he has had to date. Daly did not, however, steal his play or render it invalid.
I haven’t seen Brown’s work before and I like it. Sometimes it’s hard to understand why one artist becomes famous and another never gets invited into the party.
Point of clarification, Regina: our studios were in the same building AFTER we had graduated. From summer 2006 through spring 2009 we both had studios in the GSA complex at Federal Center South. And thanks for the kind words.
I’m trying to have a direct discussion with Drew and Greg. I’ve sent them both messages asking for their take on the situation. I think it’s important for me to hear what they have to say before I say anything more on the matter in a public forum.
Hopefully they respond. That’s all for now.
Tim. I can’t imagine why you want to pursue this. There is nothing to pursue.
there is no such thing as plagiarism in art. read the rules (please don’t). art is directly lifted from surroundings and a mixture of minds. you can stick me with critical dialectics and such, as i’m sure you’re wont to do, but just because you present something to others doesn’t mean you own it. or perhaps it’s a new type of art, called “arrogant expressionism”? food, sliced up into time display, cast in resin, for thought…
I think it’s a valid conversation for two artists to have when their practices run so closely parallel. I’d rather talk to my neighbor than avoid them and make assumptions about who they are, if you know what I mean.
I appreciate your input, Regina. I admit that it’s probably a stale issue for everyone other than myself, especially with all the shows that are actually going on right now. So I won’t muck up your blog or any other public forum with any more of it.