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Modern Ancient Brown logo by The Crimson Fox

Lehmann Maupin, Seoul

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McArthur Binion (b. 1946) has maintained an engaging and historic artistic practice that spans over forty years. Sourcing narratives of an African American experience in rural America and his presence in the white-dominated heyday of American Modernism in New York City, Binion has developed a unique style of action painting which places personal memory in dialogue with visual elements of Modernism.

 

Binion combines collage, drawing, and painting to create autobiographical abstractions of painted minimalist patterns over an “under conscious” of personal documents and photographs. From photocopies of his birth certificate and pages from his address book to pictures from his childhood and found photographs of lynchings, the poignant and charged images that constitute the tiled base of his work are concealed and abstracted by grids of oil stick. The complexly layered works, from a distance, appear to be monochromatic minimalist abstractions however; Binion’s works are intensely personal and deeply dedicated to the rigorous process of making a painting.CONTINUE READING >

THE ARTIST

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There is no historical line running

through me. I made myself up!

        - McArthur Binion.  

Established in 2019, the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation supports and nurtures BIPOC artists and writers through the creation of a new Core Program housed in Detroit. Drawing upon the personal experience and journey as an artist of its founder, McArthur Binion, the Foundation is committed to build an organization and foster a culture that supports the work of black and indigenous / artists of color leading to the empowerment of these artists to tell their own stories and share their gifts.⁠ The Foundation’s Core Program will consist of a Visiting Fellowship, a Post-Baccalaureate Artist Residency, and a collection of international BIPOC art with a resident Curator.

2024 sees the continuation of the Foundation’s Core Program consisting of the Modern Ancient Brown Visiting Fellowship and the Post-Baccalaureate Residency in Studio Art and Critical Studies. Each year four Visiting Fellows and four Post-Baccalaureate Residencies in Studio Art (all disciplines) will be chosen. LEARN MORE >

THE FOUNDATION

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Curated by artist McArthur Binion, Executive Director Michael Stone-Richards, and the Modern Ancient Brown Foundation, the Modern Ancient Brown Collection is a contemporary collection of international art drawing on the interdisciplinary work of diverse, emerging and established artists whose practice has been historically underrepresented. LEARN MORE >

THE COLLECTION

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Untitled, London England, 1966

Gordon Parks

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STUTTERING : STANDING : STILL (AFTERTHOUGHTS)

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STUTTERING : STANDING : STILL (AFTERTHOUGHTS)

A film by Marika Maiorova, 2021

Renowned American artist McArthur Binion reveals his intimate, cool, and beautiful world of the first Black MFA in Painting from Cranbrook Academy of Art in this documentary story about how he "made himself up precisely."

VIEW THE FILM>

EVENTS + EXHIBITIONS

May 9 — May 12, 2024

Spring Studios / New York

April 12 — May 31, 2024

GRAY / Chicago

December 10 — February 22, 2023

Library Street Collective / Detroit

November 18 ​– December 23, 2022

Visual:Ear / Paper:Work

Xavier Hufkens / Brussels

September 1 – October 22, 2022

Lehmann Maupin / Seoul

July 8 – August 14, 2021

Gridscape

Xavier Hufkens

February 25 – March 27, 2021

Origins

Lehmann Maupin / Palm Beach

October 24 – February 21, 2021

Duel - McArthur Binion. Modern Ancient Brown

MUSEO NOVECENTO

September 10 - October 31, 2020

Gray Warehouse / Chicago

June 24, 2020

First Look | McArthur Binion Healing:Work

Lehmann Maupin / New York

October 1, 2019 - November 16, 2019

McArthur Binion White:Work

Massimodecarlo / London

June 20, 2019 - August 16, 2019

cart, horse, cart

Lehmann Maupin / New York

May 24, 2019 - July 13, 2019

Hand:Work:II

Lehmann Maupin / Seoul

May 22, 2019 - July 5, 2019

Hand:Work:II

Lehmann Maupin / Hong Kong

January 17, 2019 - May 2, 2019

Hand:Work

Lehmann Maupin / New York

November 17, 2018 - March 10, 2018

Binion/Saarinen: A McArthur Binion Project

Cranbrook Art Museum / Bloomfield Hills

May 13, 2017 - November 26, 2017

Viva Arte Viva

57th Venice Biennale / Venice

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