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Lot Essay
“I want my materials to actually have the memories—the cultural, personal memories that are lodged in the object...you can’t erase history, no matter what you do. It bleeds through” Mark Bradford
Like an explorer chancing upon the remains of some long-lost civilization, the act of viewing Mark Bradford’s mysterious and magisterial paintings is often commingled with a sense of wonderment and awe. The result of countless hours of persistent work, Bradford’s paintings are the accumulation of found materials—merchant posters, newspapers, comic books—that the artist then scrapes, rips, and erodes, thereby excavating a new kind of painting, transforming and expanding the medium in the process. “I want my materials to actually have the memories—the cultural, personal memories that are lodged in the object,” Bradford has said. “You can’t erase history, no matter what you do. It bleeds through” (M. Bradford, quoted in S. Smee, “Mark Bradford: Dance Again,” in Mark Bradford, New York, 2018, p. 64.
Known for his fierce commitment to social activism, especially in the LA neighborhood of Leimert Park where he spent many years working alongside his mother in her beauty salon, Bradford remains committed to his unique brand of painting that he calls “social abstraction.” “To use the whole social fabric of our society as a point of departure for abstraction reanimates it, dusts it off” he explained. “It becomes really interesting to me, and supercharged. I just find that chilling and amazing” (M. Bradford, quoted in C. Noby, The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 46).
Bradford remains one of the most vitally important artists working today. His torn paper paintings, of which Ghost Money is an exceptional early example, are among the most critically-acclaimed works of his career. Across its surface, areas of gleaming metallic foil surround a centralized mass, comprising a sprawling network of lines, grids and swirls. Scavenged bits of newsprint, posters and comic books are discovered beneath the riotous cacophony, which alternates between the intricate and the sublime. The painting functions on both a micro and macro level. Diving deep into the sophisticated labyrinth of crisscrossing lines that Bradford has delineated using a caulk gun, an entire hidden world is revealed where colorful scraps of comics intermingle alongside newspaper headlines and the merchant posters that Bradford scavenged from his South Central LA neighborhood. Here and there, recognizable imagery shines through: a female superhero in bright pink spandex; a soldier holding an assault rifle; newspaper headlines issuing illegible proclamations.
Bradford’s process is both intuitive and time-consuming, both additive and subtractive. He often uses an industrial sander to abrade and erase the countless layers of paper, paint, caulk and glue that bind the painting together. The result is a fascinating palimpsest, where infinite gestures, additions and revisions come together in a bravura display. In addition, Bradford’s work is linked to his highly personal connection to his materials. Particularly paper—the kind that’s printed, scavenged from his neighborhood, or plays a specific role in society—is central to his craft. Often, its meaning precedes its usage, thereby adding yet another interpretive layer to his already complex body of work.
Ghost Money alludes to the marketing flyers that are targeted to struggling working-class neighborhoods, advertising easy cash, debt relief, food assistance, and the like. These merchant posters “constituted a lurid phantasmagoria of dissonant, exploitative inducements,” the art critic Sebastian Smee explains. “As such, they were stark indices to poverty, shame, greed and desperation” (S. Smee, op. cit, p. 61). Ghost Money, in particular, and the 2015 La Jolla mural Sexy Cash, explicitly reference these predatory lenders’ grip on an impoverished community. In Ghost Money, the shards of torn and scavenged paper linger like silent witnesses to the culture from which they were produced. The term "ghost money" also refers to covert CIA funding, particularly during the war in Afghanistan, when the United States funneled millions of dollars in cash payments to buy influence in Hamid Karzai's government. "Ghost money" is also slang for a bank account's unavailable funds, such as those already set aside for incoming bills; it also refers to "joss paper" or "spirit money," which is burned during traditional Chinese ceremonies to honor the dead.
Acclaim for Bradford’s work has been steadily building since 2001, when he was included in the watershed exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem curated by Thelma Golden called Freestyle. There, Bradford showed his paintings made from “end papers”—the small, translucent papers that cover the ends of hair when permed. Arranged in serendipitous abstract patterns, the endpapers had a personal connection to the artist’s biography. Around 2004, Bradford began to experiment with other types of paper, including billboards, movie posters, comics and the merchant posters to which Ghost Money alludes.
With each ensuing year, Bradford’s work seems to have increased exponentially, not only in terms of scale, but through its meaning and connection to societal issues at large, especially those pertaining to the lingering effects of systemic racism that plague the United States. In 2014, he co-founded “Art + Practice,” a local organization that works with teens and young adults in foster care. He has been awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the State Department Medal of Arts, and the prestigious Bucksbaum Award, among others.
It is Bradford himself who perhaps best summarizes his work, as he did in conversation with Anita Hill in 2018: “I thought that I wasn’t going to let anybody tell me what to do and how I was going to do it,” he said. “I decided that I was going to take all my experiences in the world and all that material from the world—the detritus of the world that we live in, the billboards, the stickiness, the messiness—I was going to take all that, I wasn’t going to use a drop of paint and I was going to push myself into the center of the room. That’s what I did” (M. Bradford, quoted in “Anita Hill in Conversation with Mark Bradford,” in Mark Bradford, New York, 2018, p. 18).
Like an explorer chancing upon the remains of some long-lost civilization, the act of viewing Mark Bradford’s mysterious and magisterial paintings is often commingled with a sense of wonderment and awe. The result of countless hours of persistent work, Bradford’s paintings are the accumulation of found materials—merchant posters, newspapers, comic books—that the artist then scrapes, rips, and erodes, thereby excavating a new kind of painting, transforming and expanding the medium in the process. “I want my materials to actually have the memories—the cultural, personal memories that are lodged in the object,” Bradford has said. “You can’t erase history, no matter what you do. It bleeds through” (M. Bradford, quoted in S. Smee, “Mark Bradford: Dance Again,” in Mark Bradford, New York, 2018, p. 64.
Known for his fierce commitment to social activism, especially in the LA neighborhood of Leimert Park where he spent many years working alongside his mother in her beauty salon, Bradford remains committed to his unique brand of painting that he calls “social abstraction.” “To use the whole social fabric of our society as a point of departure for abstraction reanimates it, dusts it off” he explained. “It becomes really interesting to me, and supercharged. I just find that chilling and amazing” (M. Bradford, quoted in C. Noby, The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2017, p. 46).
Bradford remains one of the most vitally important artists working today. His torn paper paintings, of which Ghost Money is an exceptional early example, are among the most critically-acclaimed works of his career. Across its surface, areas of gleaming metallic foil surround a centralized mass, comprising a sprawling network of lines, grids and swirls. Scavenged bits of newsprint, posters and comic books are discovered beneath the riotous cacophony, which alternates between the intricate and the sublime. The painting functions on both a micro and macro level. Diving deep into the sophisticated labyrinth of crisscrossing lines that Bradford has delineated using a caulk gun, an entire hidden world is revealed where colorful scraps of comics intermingle alongside newspaper headlines and the merchant posters that Bradford scavenged from his South Central LA neighborhood. Here and there, recognizable imagery shines through: a female superhero in bright pink spandex; a soldier holding an assault rifle; newspaper headlines issuing illegible proclamations.
Bradford’s process is both intuitive and time-consuming, both additive and subtractive. He often uses an industrial sander to abrade and erase the countless layers of paper, paint, caulk and glue that bind the painting together. The result is a fascinating palimpsest, where infinite gestures, additions and revisions come together in a bravura display. In addition, Bradford’s work is linked to his highly personal connection to his materials. Particularly paper—the kind that’s printed, scavenged from his neighborhood, or plays a specific role in society—is central to his craft. Often, its meaning precedes its usage, thereby adding yet another interpretive layer to his already complex body of work.
Ghost Money alludes to the marketing flyers that are targeted to struggling working-class neighborhoods, advertising easy cash, debt relief, food assistance, and the like. These merchant posters “constituted a lurid phantasmagoria of dissonant, exploitative inducements,” the art critic Sebastian Smee explains. “As such, they were stark indices to poverty, shame, greed and desperation” (S. Smee, op. cit, p. 61). Ghost Money, in particular, and the 2015 La Jolla mural Sexy Cash, explicitly reference these predatory lenders’ grip on an impoverished community. In Ghost Money, the shards of torn and scavenged paper linger like silent witnesses to the culture from which they were produced. The term "ghost money" also refers to covert CIA funding, particularly during the war in Afghanistan, when the United States funneled millions of dollars in cash payments to buy influence in Hamid Karzai's government. "Ghost money" is also slang for a bank account's unavailable funds, such as those already set aside for incoming bills; it also refers to "joss paper" or "spirit money," which is burned during traditional Chinese ceremonies to honor the dead.
Acclaim for Bradford’s work has been steadily building since 2001, when he was included in the watershed exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem curated by Thelma Golden called Freestyle. There, Bradford showed his paintings made from “end papers”—the small, translucent papers that cover the ends of hair when permed. Arranged in serendipitous abstract patterns, the endpapers had a personal connection to the artist’s biography. Around 2004, Bradford began to experiment with other types of paper, including billboards, movie posters, comics and the merchant posters to which Ghost Money alludes.
With each ensuing year, Bradford’s work seems to have increased exponentially, not only in terms of scale, but through its meaning and connection to societal issues at large, especially those pertaining to the lingering effects of systemic racism that plague the United States. In 2014, he co-founded “Art + Practice,” a local organization that works with teens and young adults in foster care. He has been awarded the MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, the State Department Medal of Arts, and the prestigious Bucksbaum Award, among others.
It is Bradford himself who perhaps best summarizes his work, as he did in conversation with Anita Hill in 2018: “I thought that I wasn’t going to let anybody tell me what to do and how I was going to do it,” he said. “I decided that I was going to take all my experiences in the world and all that material from the world—the detritus of the world that we live in, the billboards, the stickiness, the messiness—I was going to take all that, I wasn’t going to use a drop of paint and I was going to push myself into the center of the room. That’s what I did” (M. Bradford, quoted in “Anita Hill in Conversation with Mark Bradford,” in Mark Bradford, New York, 2018, p. 18).