Map Monday: Art and Maps, Maps and Art

Yesterday 60 minutes had a fascinating interview with Mark Bradford, an artist with an impressive array of awards including a MacArthur Fellow (2009), U.S. State Department's Medal of Arts (2014), and was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019. His artwork has also commanded commercial success including selling Helter Skelter 1 for $12 million.

Just do a Google image search on Mark Bradford art and be amazed. Here is what the editors of Artspace have to say about his work.

The resulting pictures are deceptively abstract. They are intricate and layered compositions, paper patchworks that conceptually weave a variety of urban threads. One might perceive nets, grids, and maps, yet it is difficult to draw, let alone close, a final circle. As such, they remain open to interpretation, up for grabs to viewers, critics, and collectors alike. Fully abstract they cannot be, since there is nothing autonomous, sublime, otherworldly, or detached from real life about these pictures.

Or see the description of an installation he did at then Hammer Museum at UCLA in 2015 called Scorched Earth.

The Lobby Wall features a map of HIV diagnoses in the United States as of 2009. The work was created using Bradford’s signature process of excavating through layers of paint and drywall and topography. 

If you like maps and art, Mark Bradford's work will challenge, inspire, and amaze you.