Mark Bradford

Throughout his career, Mark Bradford has collected print posters advertising services such as legal advice for immigrants, debt relief, and quick money, forming an archive that explores the social and political structures that objectify marginalized communities and the bodies of vulnerable populations. The exhibition Los de abajo by Mark Bradford takes its title from the novel of the same name by the writer Mariano Azuela, published in 1916 and first published in English in 1929, with illustrations by José Clemente Orozco, who was in Nueva York since 1927. Just as essential is the practice of social engagement through which he reframes the objectification of social structures by bringing contemporary art and ideas to communities with limited access to museums and cultural institutions. Hence Bradford develops an Educational Laboratory as an integral element of the show. Under his tutelage, a group of art students from diverse contexts will sand, tear, whitewash and erode the surface of the wall, to reveal El hombre de fuego (2023), a mural relevant to the city of Guadalajara and its muralist tradition, as well as with the political climate of the United States and the problem of immigration. Street prints are interspersed in work with paper canvases of each of the colors of Orozco's homonymous mural. The exhibition will also include the work Float (2019), whose painted and deconstructed paper strips will cascade from the ceiling to the floor in the double-height room. In addition, Luz (2023) will be exhibited, a site-specific light sculpture that, like a border wall, allows us to speculate about the communities, their realities, and conflicts, their dreams, and desires.

— MAZ

Curated by Viviana Kuri Haddad