b. Los Angeles, California, 1961
High Roller Kats Gonna Pay for That
2003
Billboard fragments, acrylic gel medium, permanent-wave end papers, and masking tape on canvas
72 × 84 in. (182.9 × 213.4 cm)
Museum Purchase, 2003 (03.47)
© Mark Bradford. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Cathy Carver
When Mark Bradford sought to highlight the social and political context present in abstract painting, he turned to the materials around him: permanent-wave end papers, the thin sheets used by stylists in beauty shops. Singeing the edge of each sheet to impart a smokey outline, he arranged them in a loose grid together with billboard posters found in the streets around his studio in Los Angeles. At once delicate and gritty, the painting evokes the architecture and topography of nondescript urban environments, while the found elements directly reflect the lived experiences of specific communities and thereby ground abstraction in specific temporal and geographical contexts.
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