Matthew Brown Heads East

Matthew Brown joins the ranks of LA galleries that have gone national. Located in New York’s TriBeCa neighborhood,, the gallery is expanding east and bringing an impressive roster of artists with it, including TARWUK, Sedrick Chisom, Kenturah Davis, and Dan Herschlein. The former, the boundary-pushing art collective TARWUK, will open the space with an exhibition entitled “Good night, Ernst Toller!” 

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Croatia-born, New York-based artists Ivana Vukšić and Bruno Pogačnik Tremow devised TARWUK in 2014 after years of working together as collaborators. The artists are part of a generation that was directly affected by the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, an impact that translates into their artistic practice. At Matthew Brown, they examine the many facets of loss that result from war—life, identity, selfhood—as well as the potential for rebirth in its aftermath.

For TARWUK's forthcoming exhibition (which references Toller, an German playwright and political activist), TARWUK has channeled this into private performances done alone, and photographed, in their studio that they then use as a jumping off point for paintings, sculptures, and even a stop motion display in the gallery. Layered, large-scale paintings like MRTISKLAAH_(.niaga krad si moor ehT .tuo seog dna ,dnah s’HTIDE morf sllaf eldnac ehT), 2024, set backdrops for the animated, sculptural forms and hint at the theater underpinning it all.

Brown’s East Coast debut marks an exciting new chapter for its young eponymous gallerist’s trajectory. Brown knew what he wanted from an early age. Having been raised surrounded by contemporary art —his mother worked for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art while his grandparents are the esteemed Texas art collectors Jeanne and Michael L. Klein—Brown had always dreamed of owning his own gallery. Or three. The Los Angeles-based art dealer was only 23 years old when he opened the doors to his namesake gallery Matthew Brown Los Angeles in 2019, and 25 when its second in Hollywood space was unveiled two years later across the street.

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Buoyed by the success of both these spaces, as well as the support of patrons such as Vincent Valdez and Jeffrey Deitch, Brown is now setting his sights on a new frontier: New York City. The gallery's striking debut with TARWUK sets the stage for what's to come.

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“Good Night, Ernst Toller!” is on view from April 29 to June 15, 2024 at Matthew Brown New York at 390 Broadway, New York, NY, 10013.