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| Mark Bradford, My Whole Family is from Philly, 2014, mixed media on canvas, 102 x 144 inches. Photo by Eduardo Ortega. Image via whitecube.com. |
April 2 – June 14, 2014
Rua
Agostinho Rodrigues Filho
550
São Paulo,
Brazil
From
whitecube.com:
White Cube
São Paulo is pleased to present a new exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist
Mark Bradford. Known for his multi-layered collaged paintings incorporating
materials found in the urban environment, Bradford has created a series of
works for São Paulo that combine abstract imagery with social content.
Themes of
democracy, power and freedom resonate through the paintings. In My Whole Family is from Philly, an
ambitious and complex composition, Bradford has laid numerous layers of paper
–remnants of billboard posters found in his neighborhood, along with
digitally-printed color sheets and newsprint – and partially excavated sections
by cutting and sanding into the stratum below. In doing so, he reveals an
intricate network of pathways and conduits, along with sweeping passages of
exuberant color, echoing in part the cartographic characteristics of the city of
Philadelphia, the location where the US Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution were originally signed. Regarded as the cradle of American
democracy, the “Philly” (as it is colloquially referred) of the title, provides
a backdrop to the geopolitical divisions and social inequalities that continue
to shape political debate in the US, referenced throughout the works in this
exhibition.
Amendments #5-10 cite the amendments to
the US Constitution that were collectively known as the Bill of Rights. In the
first of these paintings, text from the revisions, outlining the rights of the
people against abuse by government authority, are distinctly visible across a
background of expressive, gestural swathes of color. As the series unfolds, the
quotations become more illegible, with only momentary glimpses of text
materializing from within the formal abstract composition. Bradford is
interested in how the amendments are continually subverted and summoned in ways
to control, categorize, divide and restrict people, to the point where the
meaning is manipulated and abstracted far beyond its original intent.
The way in
which the built environment can also be used as a means of sequestering and
subjugation is indicated in works such as The
Less Common Royalness and Rest Deep in Curiosity. Vestiges of architectural
blueprints and master plans are conveyed in the grid-like compositions of
cobalt and turquoise hues, with each small rectangle or square redolent of
cramped living quarters in dense urban conurbations. As with all the works,
Bradford combines the sublime qualities of formal abstraction with
socio-political implication, which he describes as “social abstraction.”
Mark
Bradford was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, where he lives and works. He has
exhibited widely, including group shows such as the 12th Istanbul Biennial
(2011), Seoul Biennial (2010), the Carnegie International (2008), São Paulo
Biennial (2006), and Whitney Biennial (2006). Solo exhibitions include, Aspen
Art Museum (2011), Maps and Manifests
at Cincinnati Museum of Art (2008) and Neither
New Nor Correct at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2007). In 2009, Mark
Bradford was the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Award. In 2010,
You’re Nobody (Til Somebody Kills You),
a large-scale survey of his work was presented at the Wexner Center for the
Arts, Columbus, before travelling to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston;
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; and San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art. Upcoming exhibitions include the Rockbund Art Museum in
Shanghai and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
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