Los Angeles, CA – For the inaugural edition of Frieze Los Angeles, Mark Bradford has created an image of a police body camera isolated on a light-colored background. Entitled Life Size, this significant work comprises the powerful camera image presented on posters around the city, a large-scale billboard on location at Paramount Pictures Studios, as well as a limited-edition print series of the image, rendered into a 3-D sculptural work that is elevated from the print’s surface.
“I’m always interested in found objects and how context can give meaning,” said Bradford. “The police body camera carries with it such loaded and complex connotations. I also love it as an object—it’s both haunting and resonant.”
At the artist’s behest, proceeds from sales of his limited-edition print series will go directly to the Art for Justice Fund, to be invested in campaigns to support greater career opportunities for people who are transitioning back home from prison. Bradford is the first artist since the Fund’s establishment to directly support Art for Justice with proceeds from the sale of their own artwork.
“I admire Mark as both an artist and a humanitarian. His work helps us confront our own biases by exposing the false narratives around race and poverty. In doing this, he enables us to see one another with more compassion and empathy,” said Fund founder Agnes Gund. “I’m honored by his gift, which will accelerate our artists and advocates’ efforts to create communities that welcome people back home to fewer barriers and to more employment opportunities.”
Art for Justice takes a holistic approach to confronting the primary drivers of high prison population, in part, by eliminating the thousands of legal barriers to employment that often confront people with a criminal record and boosting investments in reentry policies that recognize the importance of higher education in prison. Bradford’s donation will support organizations including the Bard Prison Initiative, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, The Opportunity Institute and the Vera Institute of Justice in addition to fellowships for artists whose work speaks to the devastating consequences of mass incarceration and the web of legal obstacles that entangle people post incarceration.
In 2019, a police body camera has clear evocations around responsibility and notions of freedom across the United States, and specifically in Los Angeles, as one of the most culturally- and racially-diverse cities in the nation, which has its own charged history with these themes. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Bradford’s interest in our shared human experiences is a theme that runs throughout his diverse studio practice.
Life Size, contextualized by this collaboration with Frieze Los Angeles and Art for Justice, reflects the artist’s longstanding interest in how communities—particularly those which have been traditionally marginalized—address issues of social and economic justice, as well as his belief in art’s ability to expose contradictory histories and inspire action in the present day. Bradford is deeply engaged with social issues as co-founder of Los Angeles-based nonprofit Art + Practice, which encourages cultural education by supporting the needs of foster youth living predominantly in South Los Angeles, and providing access to free, museum-curated art exhibitions and moderated art lectures to the community of Leimert Park. The artist’s equivalent commitments to formal intervention and social activism anchor his contribution to culture at large and embody his belief in the power of art to affect positive change.
Life Size is made possible thanks to a collaboration between the artist, Frieze Los Angeles, Endeavor and Hauser & Wirth.
This will be an edition of 45 numbered prints, which will be signed by Bradford. If you have any interest in acquiring one of these rare prints, please contact the Hauser & Wirth New York gallery at +1 212 790 3900 or newyork@hauserwirth.com for more information.
About Art for Justice
The Art for Justice Fund is a five-year initiative created by Agnes Gund in partnership with Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and the Ford Foundation. The Fund is dedicated to combating the injustices of mass incarceration through the collective action of artists, advocates and philanthropists.
About Mark Bradford
Mark Bradford was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, where he lives and works. Bradford’s profound insight and inventiveness have established him as one of the most significant and influential artists of his generation, and he has been widely exhibited internationally as well as the recipient of numerous awards including the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts in 2014, his appointment as a National Academician in 2013, and a MacArthur Fellowship Award in 2009. In 2017, Bradford represented the US at the 57th Venice Biennale with Tomorrow Is Another Day, and in November that same year, Bradford unveiled Pickett’s Charge, a monumental, site-specific installation for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. In 2018, Bradford was commissioned to create a site-specific work for the new US Embassy in London. Entitled We The People, the work comprises 32 panels, each 10 square feet, featuring select text from the United States Constitution.
Best known for his large-scale abstract paintings that examine the class-, race-, and gender-based economies that structure urban society in the United States, Bradford’s richly layered and collaged canvases represent a connection to the social world through materials. Bradford uses fragments of found posters, billboards, newsprint, and custom-printed paper to simultaneously engage with and advance the formal traditions of abstract painting.
About Frieze Los Angeles
Frieze, one of the world’s most influential contemporary art fairs, will launch Frieze Los Angeles at Paramount Pictures Studios this February 14–17, 2019. The fair will bring together 70 of the most significant and forward-thinking contemporary galleries from across the city and around the world, alongside a curated program of talks, site-specific artists’ projects and film.
