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Exhibition catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition Celestial Mechanics: Form and Future in the Work of Gerhard Richter and Sean Scully , curated by Joachim Pissarro, co-organised by Ben Brown Fine Arts and Asia Society Hong Kong Center. 

Essays by André Mourgues, Adrian Dannatt, Jérôme Neutres, Rosamond Brown, Ben Brown and Louisa Guinness  

Edited by Adrian Dannatt

Observer caught up with the artist in his studio to learn more about how his work is both an act of resilience and a search for roots.

Conceived in a transformational moment of the artist's practice, his dynamic standing sculptures represent a shift in his approach to spatial abstraction.

When Ben Brown opened his first, eponymous art gallery in the heart of Mayfair, London in 2004, it quickly established itself on the international art scene. Exhibitions of leading gallery artists, including Candida Höfer, Tony Bevan, Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne and Heinz Mack hit the headlines. As did important exhibitions of 20th century masters, such Lucio Fontana, Alighiero Boetti and Gerhard Richter. 

Five years later, Ben Brown Fine Arts boldly opened a pioneering exhibition space in Hong Kong - the first international gallery to establish a presence in what soon became a major global art center. And in 2021, Ben opened a third gallery, located in Palm Beach, Florida. Its inaugural exhibition celebrated the legacy of 20th-century American and European artists whose work developed radical approaches, including Alexander Calder, Georg Baselitz, and Andy Warhol.

Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now is an evocative new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, featuring the work of Awol Erizku. This exhibition highlights the profound ways Black artists have engaged with Egyptian visual culture, a rich source of inspiration and identity within Erizku’s practice.

“The exhibition takes its title from The Met’s painting Flight into Egypt (1923), an emblem of fugitivity and timeless creativity by the expatriate artist Henry Ossawa Tanner – the first internationally recognized African American painter. – who travelled to Egypt in 1897,” said Akili Tommasino, Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Met and the curator of the exhibition. “Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876–Now challenges Eurocentric constructions of ancient Egypt, offering a more expansive history that celebrates the contributions of cultural figures of African descent.”.

Thematic sections featuring works from The Met's collection and international loans from public and private collections trace subjects including how Black artists and other agents of culture have employed ancient Egyptian imagery to craft a unifying identity, the contributions of Black scholars to the study of ancient Egypt, and the engagement of modern and contemporary Egyptian artists with ancient Egypt.

Ben Brown Fine Arts is pleased to announce José Parlá: Homecoming, now open at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) – marking Parlá’s first solo exhibition in his hometown. This immersive, two-part exhibition unveils Parlá's experimental process, offering viewers the unique opportunity to witness the creation of a site-specific mural within the gallery space. The second part transforms the space into a dynamic reconstruction of Parlá’s own studio, filled with personal mementoes, Cuban cultural references, and the sounds of his favourite music, providing a window into the artist’s creative world.

Featuring a new series of works, Homecoming showcases Parlá’s signature calligraphic abstractions – vibrant, gestural, and deeply expressive. This process-oriented exhibition celebrates an artist whose practice meaningfully engages with Cuban heritage and the broader diasporic experience, positioning Parlá as a vital voice in contemporary expressionism.

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Ben Brown Fine Arts is delighted to announce that Cologne-based photographer Candida Höfer (b. 1944) has been honoured with the Käthe Kollwitz Prize 2024. The jury, which included Hito Steyerl, Siegfried Zielinski, and Karin Sander, praises Höfer for her ability to imbue spaces with a near-spiritual quality. Sander, Director of the Fine Arts Section at Berlin’s Academy of Arts, remarks, "Candida Höfer’s precise attention to detail brings a profound sense of presence to the absence of people in her images."

Höfer is one of Germany’s most celebrated photographers, renowned for her large-scale photographs of empty architectural interiors. Her work, shaped by her studies under Arno Jansen and Bernd Becher, focuses on public and cultural spaces like libraries, museums, and theatres. By deliberately excluding human figures, Höfer’s photographs evoke an eerie sense of grandeur and reflection on the relationship between architecture and its absent inhabitants. Höfer’s meticulously composed photographs are unpretentious, precise, and serene, engaging with the pictorial poetics of absence and the psychological effect of architecture.

The award was presented on 13 September 2024, during Berlin Art Week at the Academy of Arts, Pariser Platz. Along with a €12,000 prize, Höfer has a dedicated exhibition, on display at the Academy of Arts from 14 September to 24 November 2024.

Ben Brown Fine Arts is proud to announce an upcoming exhibition of select works by Candida Höfer at our London gallery, opening on 27 November 2024. In honour of Höfer’s 20-year collaboration with the gallery, this will be her thirteenth solo exhibition with us. The show will feature an extraordinary selection of photographs, showcasing her unique ability to capture the majestic, timeless essence of prominent cultural spaces. This exhibition also celebrates Höfer’s remarkable career as she marks her 80th birthday this year.

Ben Brown Fine Arts is delighted to announce CUBA, a major solo exhibition by José Parlá at The Gordon Parks Foundation in Westchester, New York, marking the culmination of his 2023 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship.

CUBA represents a deeply personal journey for Parlá as he explores the rich tapestry of experiences that have shaped his life across Miami, New York, and Havana. Through the language of abstraction, Parlá captures the essence of these cities, drawing inspiration from the textures of their buildings and streets.

The exhibition showcases a series of paintings and photographs created in dialogue with Gordon Parks' evocative photographs of Cuba, taken for Life magazine in 1958. These images offer a poignant glimpse of a country on the cusp of monumental change. Parlá's recent works reflects on the collapse of a fading ideological framework and the ensuing oppression, while also delving into profound insights gleaned from lived experience – the unfulfilled potential of what Cuba might have been.

Through CUBA, Parlá examines the complex narrative of a nation caught between its promises and its struggles, conveying its beauty and deep historical layers.