Issue

Up Close: Mark Bradford

Up Close: Mark Bradford
MARK BRADFORDMidnight Bloom, 2024, mixed media on canvas, 244.2 × 171.5 × 5.7 cm. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, Hong Kong.

It is indicative of current art discourse that Hauser & Wirth’s press release for American painter Mark Bradford’s 2024 exhibition “Exotica” labors under the dead weight of preassigned interpretation, serving as a prime example of linguistic obfuscation in which a work’s ultimate, unknowable mystery is hidden beneath a veil of moral, social, and political context. Great art should speak for itself.