MARK BRADFORD on the Visual Arts
“I have markers laid down along the way. And I have a loose structure that I start off with. But then you always have to let the painting win. You have to let the material win.”
For centuries the art world looked to Europe for inspiration, creativity, genius, and unmatched masterpieces. But around the middle of the twentieth century, America developed its own distinctive visual art styles—from abstract art to pop art to street and graffiti art, among other uniquely American art forms.
The great American artists—Jackson Pollock, Georgia O’Keeffe, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, Jasper Johns, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, and Roy Lichtenstein, among others—became the leaders of the global visual arts world.
More recently, one of the most distinctive of the current generation of visual artists is Mark Bradford. From a young age until adulthood, he worked at his mother’s beauty parlor—and, without the money for paint, learned how to take materials used in the beauty parlor to create art that told a story quite different than what others had ever done.
Today, Mark Bradford is at the pinnacle of the U.S. art world, and has officially represented the U.S. abroad, a few years ago at the Venice Biennale. His expressionistic works of art use paper or materials other than paint to provide a unique texture, meaning, and depth. They often reflect the urban environment he knows from having lived much of his life in Los Angeles.
Mark Bradford’s works also reflect a deep sense of history and its impact on current America. And they send a message that makes the viewer think about life in America—the challenges and the opportunities relating to class, race, gender. That message is frequently communicated through a grid that reflects city life or a set of figures designed to evoke important moments in history.
Unlike some abstract artists, Bradford is quite willing to explore the meaning of what he has put on canvas (or other material). Bradford has, not surprisingly, been the recipient of a MacArthur “genius grant.”
I interviewed Bradford virtually in January 2021; he was in his Los Angeles studio, preparing to work on another history-related creation. One of his most famous works in that genre is his epic recounting of Pickett’s Last Charge from the Battle of Gettysburg in a commission for the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington. The work consists of eight separate paintings, each of which is more than forty-five feet long, completely filling one of the museum’s large circular floors. Although the Hirshhorn—part of the Smithsonian—is free to visitors, almost any price would be worth paying to see this monumental work, and to hear about its meaning from its gifted creator—an American original for sure.
DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN (DR): When you were growing up in Los Angeles, did you have any plans or dreams about what you might want to do when you became an adult?
MARK BRADFORD (MB): No, I did not. My dreams were basically kids’ dreams, playing, doing whatever was in front of me.
DR: How did working in a beauty shop as a young man inspire you to be an artist?
MB: Because inside the beauty shop there was nothing but creativity. Women would come in and they wanted to look like Farrah Fawcett, and you would try to do the best that you could to make them look like Farrah Fawcett. I was always aware that my mom was pulling things out of the air. It was magic. In that way, creativity was something that I used every day. My mother would say, “Mark, take these wigs in the back and do something.” I would pull something from the air. That was creativity for me, and I never associated creativity with being an artist.
DR: Were there things from the beauty parlor that helped you to create your initial works of art?
MB: End papers [used to wrap hair ends during perms] are the first thing I started using when I got out of grad school.
DR: When did you realize that you wanted to be a full-time artist?
MB: In grad school. I really thought I could do it, finally.
DR: What did you learn at the California Institute of the Arts?
MB: I learned that there was a whole history of people thinking and doing for generations what I was thinking and doing. I discovered a whole tribe of people.
DR: When you finished your formal education, did you have a style in mind? How did you develop that style that you now have, which is so distinctive?
MB: I didn’t have a style in mind, but I did know that I wanted to connect the social and art history in some form.
DR: Was it hard getting started as an artist? Did you have to do other jobs as well to pay the rent, or your success happened from the start?
MB: It was hard. I worked in the hair salon for the first six years of my career, but I just took whatever I could get. I would show where I could show. And yes, I struggled, I was on the bus. I worked in the hair salon and I was an artist in the evenings.
DR: How long does it typically take to produce a work of art? Do you work on one at a time or many at a time?
MB: I work on many at a time. I would say that to really produce a work of art I’m comfortable with takes me about sixteen months to two years.
DR: Where do you typically get your inspiration from for a work of art?
MB: I don’t know where it comes from. A conversation I have with someone, a book that I’m reading, a social project, the news, history. It can be a little detail. I’m like Sherlock Holmes and I’ll follow that detail until it opens up a larger area, and a larger area, and a larger area.
DR: When you start a work of art, do you know how it is ultimately going to look when it’s completed? Or is there a fair amount of improvising?
MB: I have markers laid down along the way. And I have a loose structure that I start off with. But then you always have to let the painting win. You have to let the material win.
DR: Sometimes, in the old days, Leonardo and other artists would paint over things they had already painted. They didn’t like what they originally painted, I guess. Do you ever do that, or that doesn’t happen anymore?
MB: All the time. If you run an X-ray of my paintings, you will see paintings on top of paintings on top of paintings. You know how you can tell, in a painting of mine, is by the weight of it. If it’s really, really heavy, you can tell there’s about five or six paintings under there.
DR: Do you ask friends or others to look at your completed work to see what they think? Or do you not need that type of affirmation?
MB: I ask everybody from the mail lady to the curator and everybody in between.
DR: And if they say they don’t like it, what do you do? You say, “You don’t know much about art”?
MB: No, I ask them why.
DR: When did you first realize that your art was sufficiently attractive to art collectors, both individuals and museums, and you could make a comfortable living doing this?
MB: When I sold my first work, I didn’t know if I could make a living, but I certainly knew that instead of working in the hair salon five days, I could drop it down to three.
DR: When did you realize you could not only make a comfortable living but also could become a nationally and globally recognized artist?
MB: Never.
DR: You’re very well known.
MB: But I never had that idea. But the real marker that I can remember is when I represented the United States in Venice [the Venice Biennale exhibition in 2017]. I really knew that was a mark.
DR: What does it feel like to work on something for quite a while, maybe a year, eighteen months, then you sell it quickly and realize you might never see it again?
MB: The operative word is quickly. If I have some time between making it and selling it, I can slowly mourn the loss. But when it’s sold really fast, I have a little bit of a melancholy.
DR: Did you have a mentor when you were building your career? Are you mentoring others at this stage in your career?
MB: I had several mentors and people, some gallerists, some curators, some artists, some friends, and I try to do the same. I have a foundation and I work with young people. If young artists reach out to me, I take the time to share what I’ve learned along the way.
DR: How would you describe your style of art? What is attractive to you about using a grid in your works of art? Do you use Google Maps? Is city culture a major influence?
MB: Grids are what I call my safety net. A grid underpins everything. That’s important to me.
DR: What types of materials do you try to use on your works? What influences your decision about the materials?
MB: I like paper because it’s very unforgiving and it goes from the high to the low. The Gutenberg Bible is on paper, and then the pad that you’re writing on now is on paper. I love this material that’s both historical and also social.
DR: I read that you used to go to someplace like Lowe’s to buy the paint you use. Is that true?
MB: Home Depot, Lowe’s. I still do.
DR: When you walk in there, do they say, “Hey, here’s a famous artist coming in,” or they don’t know who you are?
MB: They think I’m just a painter. A tall painter. Because I wear painting clothes.
DR: When you get identified with a certain style, is it tempting to try something else after a while, or is it enjoyable and stimulating to continue to refine your existing style?
MB: It’s continually enjoyable to just refine my style. I look at other artists and I love what they do. But I’m still fascinated by what I do.
DR: How does it feel when you have an exhibition and an art critic might not like some of your works? Is it hard to not take that personally?
MB: You always take it personally. You get your feelings hurt, for a few minutes, and then you put your bootstraps back on and you go back and do what you do.
DR: When people criticize what I do, I take it personally only for about fifty years. After about fifty years I forget.
MB: It’s good to let it go.
DR: How difficult is it to prepare for an exhibition of new works of art? Does it take a lot of time to do that?
MB: It’s always difficult. It’s always anxiety-ridden, but I’ve done it enough that I know how to work with the nerves.
DR: How did it feel to win a MacArthur “genius grant”? Did that change your life in any way?
MB: I wouldn’t say it changed my life, but I definitely feel like it gave me a certain amount of economic security.
DR: Did you tell all your friends you won the MacArthur grant or you didn’t have to tell them, they just read about it?
MB: I didn’t tell anybody. If they found out, that’s fine.
DR: How has it felt to represent the United States abroad, such as at the Venice Biennale?
MB: For me it was a wonderful experience. It’s a heavy experience, a heavy burden, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it tremendously.
DR: When you were beginning your career, did you feel discrimination because of your race? Do you think you still face racial discrimination?
MB: When you enter into anything, there are always going to be certain biases. Being an abstract painter and not seeing as many African American abstract painters in the field, I thought we should expand it and go back and reclaim some of that history. That’s kind of what I was focusing on.
DR: Do you think there are unique opportunities for artists just getting started in the United States today that might not have existed at other times and places? In other words, is it easier to get started today or is it harder to get started today?
MB: Because of the advent of the Internet there are probably more opportunities. Artists have more ability to get their work out and have people have a conversation about their work. So in some ways it has made it easier, and there are more opportunities today. But in some places, the nonprofits have closed down, which means fewer places to show the work because of the pulling of public funds for arts.
DR: What advice do you give young artists about how to jump-start their careers?
MB: My advice to young artists is to understand that they’re a 1099 employee and not a W-2. You have to be responsible for setting up your studio and retirement and everything. It’s on you.
DR: Are there artists you have particularly admired or been influenced by?
MB: Jack Whitten, absolutely. I would probably say Charles Gaines. Those are the closest to really influencing me.
DR: What is the pleasure of being a visual artist? Do you ever wish you had chosen a different career? Or is this one extremely satisfying?
MB: It kind of chose me. I never thought of myself as being an artist. It really chose me. So, I don’t know, the suit fit.
DR: So you’re happy?
MB: Yes, I’m happy.
DR: Can you explain how difficult it was to produce Pickett’s Charge, which is now on display at the Hirshhorn?
MB: I knew I wanted to make it. I knew I wanted something that felt like paint, but I use paper, so I had to immerse all of this material in water to make it fluid. Then it was just a matter of working with the space, that kind of optics, that cyclorama, that circular space, and then digging into that history. The architecture of the Hirshhorn led me to the making of the work. I don’t think that I would have made Pickett’s Charge if it had not been in this cylinder.
DR: By the way, if there hadn’t been a Pickett’s Charge and Robert E. Lee had won, the Civil War would have been reversed, probably. That’s another matter. Do you own Pickett’s Charge?
MB: I do.
DR: Is it on long-term display there?
MB: Yes, it is.
DR: If somebody comes to you and says, “I’ll pay you $20 million for it,” do you say, “Maybe I won’t lend it forever”? At some point you might want to sell it?
MB: When I made it, it was just an interesting epic work, but now it has such a resonance. I’d really have to think about where I wanted to see that work live long-term.
DR: How long did it take to paint it?
MB: I worked over two years—maybe three, actually.
DR: But you’re working on other projects at the same time?
MB: I set up temporary walls to work on Pickett’s Charge, and I would jump to other works and then always come back to Pickett’s Charge. I love big, epic paintings that you can fall into. I like long, big novels. I like James Michener, those big novels.
DR: Are you working on other epic pieces like that now?
MB: Not at the moment.
DR: What do you ultimately hope, many years down the road, will be your artistic legacy?
MB: A snapshot of the time I lived in.