”keep going, always take the shot”. 2007

Link-https://art21.org/watch/art-in-the-twenty-first-century/s4/mark-bradford-in-paradox-segment/

https://art21.org/artist/mark-bradford/

This early program on Mark Bradford shows his developing interest in site-specific materials and social abstract on along with his sense of the humour.

The artist’s practice, self-described as ‘social abstraction,’ examines political and environmental conditions that continue to disproportionately affect the most marginalized populations. Within both historical and contemporary frameworks, Bradford has created a significant body of work that elucidates these issues, such as the AIDS epidemic, the misrepresentation and fear of queer identity, and systemic, institutionalized racism in America.

Link-http://www.thelongmuseum.org/en/exhibition-detail-1581.html

MB finds and show evidence, material, images in symbiosis.

Mithra- 2007– when he arrived in New Orleans. After Hurricane Katrina MB realised the community needed money to organise and provide more than art so he set up a fundraiser and raised over 200000 Dollars, along with questions, highlighting the problems these people faced.

Mithra-MB original project and reason for going to New Orleans – was produced when MB was pushed to create it after the fundraiser. Having spent time amongst the people so gravely affected by hurricane Katrina crisis – caused by so many factors; climate change, poverty, lack of state provision, bad planning, the list is long- MB didn’t feel the necessity. A smart fancy exhibition seemed a bit facile. The people he had been helping and learning from disagreed, they wanted it. He was surprised.

I think they were right to push for this “monument”.I would not have been aware of MBs work, his input or messages relating to this event if he haven’t gone on to produce this work for Prospect 1, which has just shown under the title of Mark Bradford: Los Angeles. In Shanghai after showing in many other sites in a few different guises since its creation in 2007.

Mark Bradford’s giant sculpture Mithra resembles Noah’s ark

Tomorrow is another day.– A complicated piece. I feel all the threads are like timelines connecting events thoughts history, spirits ,our pasts, as well as our futures. Basically about hope.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/venice-art-biennale-pictures/mark-bradford-tomorrow-another-day-usa-pavilion/

From September 22, 2018 — March 3, 2019. Originally presented at the U.S. Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Mark Bradford’s Tomorrow Is Another Day was born out of his ongoing interest in the inherently social nature of the material world we inhabit

In the catalogue accompanying his Venice presentation, Bradford stated, “I’m talking about other worlds. . . . The hope is that we become unrecognizable to ourselves in regard to our policies around race, gender, class, sexuality.” Taking its name from the final line in the 1939 Hollywood film Gone with the Wind (a romance set in the South in the Civil War era) and first shown in a building modeled after President Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, Monticello, Tomorrow Is Another Day weighs the present while looking toward the future, toward possibility.

Cerberus-definitely a nod to the past and to xenophobia. A natural subject matter for MB. He felt different but used that difference to make a difference. He explores boundary containment fear and the beauty that can be found when he brings all these ideas together into 2-dimensional canvases and a film. The synergy between his materials method chosen titles and subject matter results in a collection of canvases which are monumental and incredibly beautiful. Complex patterns and shapes that move both when static and when the film is played. There is a feeling of time and space linked inexplicably to now. How a self-proclaimed 6’7” gay black hairdressing man from LA connects to me now fascinates me. He uses paper string, building material , stories from now and the past to high light current crisis.

Mbs use of text- https://hyperallergic.com/60380/is-mark-bradford-the-best-painter-in-america/

Mb seems to start with a thread…. Eg text he digs researches tries out….keeps going and then, finds a painting where it fits and that magic happens.

– For example – The American Embassy in London- We the people, 2017.

I think the idea is so strong. It is strong enough that when paired with MBS method of ”painting” the picture works.

It may be a very pared back, reduced, but to have any more detail or colour, on that scale, would have been disturbing. You would not have been able to ” fall in to it” which is part of MBs modus operandi.

By using bill board posters and items of use from the Home depot MB is eccoing the the Ready-mades by RR, CS, Asger Jorn and there is a bit of Tapies going on too.