#markbradford

SOVEREIGN SIGHT

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Untitled #36, Mark Bradford, 2004, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

John B. Turner Fund Size: composition (irreg.): 13 9/16 x 24 3/16" (34.5 x 61.5 cm); sheet: 49 3/16 x 37" (125 x 94 cm) Medium: Lithograph and screenprint

During the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, California, Mark Bradford was living in Leimert Park, and watched his neighborhood burn. In the wake of the riots, Bradford described Leimert Park as “scorched earth.”

The 1992 Los Angeles riots began on April 29, after the verdict acquitting four police officers from Los Angeles Police Department for their excessive use of force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King in 1991.

Bradford collects different paper materials in his neighborhood, whether advertisements, employment notices, posters, maps, or billboards, and repurposes them in his art. Connie Butler writes, “Bradford works the streets into the fabric of his work—literally scouring and scraping as if extracting some of the city’s surface, and making meaning from it, will somehow suture a grid frayed to the point of unraveling as a result of social, economic, and political neglect.” (p. 16)

“Scorched earth” is also military terminology for a policy of devastation.

Image 1: Front cover

Image 2: “Scorched Earth,” 2006 Billboard paper, photomechanical reproductions, acrylic gel medium, carbon paper, acrylic paint, bleach, and additional mixed media on canvas, 240 x 299.7 cm.

Image 3: Mark Bradford in the studio. 2010. Photo by Fredrik Nilsen.

Untitled, Mark Bradford, 2003, Brooklyn Museum: Contemporary Art

© Mark Bradford Size: 32 x 32 in. (81.3 x 81.3 cm) Medium: Lithograph

Untitled, Mark Bradford, 2012, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Committee on Prints and Illustrated Books Fund Size: composition and sheet: 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm) Medium: One from a series of fourteen etching and photogravures with chine collé

Untitled, Mark Bradford, 2012, MoMA: Drawings and Prints

Committee on Prints and Illustrated Books Fund Size: composition and sheet: 20 x 16" (50.8 x 40.6 cm) Medium: One from a series of fourteen etching and photogravures with chine collé