"Untitled", 2012.
Injected ink with stipple printing and applied texture
Prior to representing the United States at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Mark Bradford is considered one of the most critically acclaimed artists of the latest generation. Unlike other African American artists who have favored a return to figurative language, the artist has remained faithful to abstraction, creating paintings in which collage (in a process of repeated application and scraping) largely replaces painting. Bradford has also created ambitious installations, such as the recent one at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, or his "ark" for the I New Orleans Biennial. The photograph "Ark in the Snow", by Bradford himself, documents this latter project. His work focuses on themes of racial denunciation and sexual identity, with the "Merchant posters" being one of his most well-known series; to it belongs the group of six prints from 2012 also in the collection. The graphic work "Untitled" (2012) exemplifies his abstract pictorial style. Finally, his sculpture "The Once and Future King" can be described as a portrait of power on the brink of failure, and as a metaphor for art itself.