Mark Bradford, Elgin Gardens, 2015, Mixed media on canvas, 2 parts, 253 1/2 x 253 1/2 in. each part 

2017 HEADLINES:

MARK BRADFORD TO UNVEIL LARGEST WORK FOR THE HIRSHHORN

MARK BRADFORD TO REPRESNT THE UNITED STATES AT THE 57TH VENICE BIENNALE IN 2017

THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART AND THE ROSE ART MUSEUM AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCE COLLABORATION ON U.S. PAVILION PRESENTATION OF MARK BRADFORD AT 2017 VENICE BIENNALE

Edited by Janel St. John

Mark Bradford is trending and everyone wants to work with him! One of America’s top contemporary artists, he is known for large-scale abstract paintings made from a variety of collaged materials. Themes of race, class and urban poverty are prevalent in his work. Recently, his artwork Smear sold for a whoping $4.3 million, placing him on our list of 2015 top-selling artists. That same year, he was awarded the U.S. State Department’s Medal of Arts. But 2017 is lining up to be a watershed year for the LA-based artist!

Bradford has been commissioned by the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, to create site-specific paintings, which will be on view beginning Nov. 17, 2017. The new work is the largest indoor work the artist has ever created. To put this in perspective, Bradford’s largest work to date is the 22-foot high, 64-foot long ark, Mithra! His new installation will occupy the entire circumference of the Inner Circle galleries on the museum’s second level, forming a monumental circular “fresco.” The exhibition is Bradford’s first in Washington, D.C. “...This is the first time that the full expanse of the second-level ambulatory walls will be turned over to a single artist," said Melissa Chiu, the Hirshhorn’s director. "Mark Bradford has won acclaim for his site specific works, and we are thrilled to see what he does at the Hirshhorn.”

Bradford has also been chosen to represent the United States at the 57th VENICE BIENNALE - the world’s oldest and most prestigious contemporary art event. He will create a new site-specific installation for the U.S. Pavilion in Venice, Italy, to be on view May 13 – November 26, 2017. And the artist is getting help from two major institutions. The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) and The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University are collaborating on Bradford's presentation. Both will work in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The 2017 U.S. Pavilion is commissioned by Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, and co-curated by Bedford and Katy Siegel, Senior Programming and Research Curator at BMA. This is marks the first time since 1960 that BMA has served as commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion.

Mark Bradford was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, where he lives and works. He received a BFA (1995) and MFA (1997) from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Hailed as America's leading abstract painter of his generation, he merges the formal qualities of abstract expressionism with the need to have his art address cultural issues. He uses fragments of found posters, billboards, newsprint and custom printed paper to create works informed by personal experience and historical significance. Through his LA-based non-profit, Art + Practice, an arts education platform, he works with disadvantaged teens.

Bradfords work is in the collections of the Hirshhorn; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York, the Broad Art Foundation in Santa Monica and the LA County Museum of Art, among others. He has had solo exhibitions at major venues including the Hammer Museum, the Rose Art Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 2010, Mark Bradford, a large-scale survey of his work, was organized by Christopher Bedford and presented at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, before traveling to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

#MarkBradford is trending! Get to know him.