CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/17/2018

Celebrate Black History with Mark Bradford

Today, Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles opens Mark Bradford: New Works, and we celebrate both the show and Black History Month with this image from Tomorrow Is Another Day, published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. on the occasion of the 2017 Venice Biennale, where Bradford represented the United States. “There is walking and then there is dancing,” Zadie Smith writes in her catalog essay comparing the protagonist of Bradford’s 2005 video Niagara to Marilyn Monroe in the 1953 film of the same name. “And now I watch Mark Bradford’s neighbor walking away from me just as Marilyn did, albeit in a baggy pair of yellow shorts, battered boots, a half-ruined vest, and pristine white socks. Here is sex appeal and swagger and a fierce aesthetic, all managed on the tiniest of budgets. An outdoor public performance for whoever happens to be watching. All eyes on me. What does the unseen passerby make of him? We can’t know, but we certainly understand that not all such walks are received equally.”