Mark Bradford

Rasheed Johnson recalls searching the paintings in museums as a kid for black faces and noticing how few black artists the museums of Chicago showed.

Mark Bradford has described looking for other African-American abstract painters besides Norman Lewis, searching for a lineage he could see himself in.

Kehinde Wiley has made the absence of black sitters in European portraiture the engine of his entire practice, putting contemporary black men and women into the poses of kings, saints, and generals.

Different artists, different methods, one complaint.

A work of art you wish you owned.

Oh, Mark Bradford.

I don't know the titles of them, but I think it's incredible.

Something you need in your studio.

He died in near total obscurity in 2003, destitute, punished for the integrity of gestures that could not be monetized.

Can anyone imagine Kerry James Marshall, Kara Walker, Glenn Ligon, Rashid Johnson, or Mark Bradford destroying their own work on principle, knowing full well it would vaporize their market overnight? Of course not.

The galleries that canonized them would intervene before such heresy could occur.

In today's economy, even refusal must be pre-approved.

Like that kind of those little boosts of confidence.

Like for me to to not only like have someone of his caliber who is, you know, seeing people like Mark Bradford's careers.

Sure.

You know, unfold and take off and or Mark Grosjean, like the big dogs, you know, and for him to be like kind of spending any amount of time looking at my stuff was like, wow, that's pretty that's pretty good.

Can we get a little office? What's your favorite thing in the office?

Well, I was just actually saying, I have five small Mark Bradford's.

I'm on the eighth floor, which is where the music department

is.

For me, there are so many additional old masters that are from Los Angeles.

Noah Davis or Mark Bradford, you know, I can go on.

And they also are on that level of footing.

You can see his works starting next Tuesday through this February.

Thank you.

And speaking of layers and mapping, we have to talk about Mark Bradford's piece, City of the Big Shoulders.

Another massive installation.

Yes.

I

mean, you imagine, like, you walk by the Nick Cave piece, or the Mark Bradford, and they're those cozy sofas after you've had a date, and you sit, and then you put your arm around your date.

So what do you think? And then we talk about life, and it gives you a chance to see if your date knows anything about the

world.

Yeah

... or the Mark Bradford.

Mm-hmm.

And there are those cozy sofas-