Waltham, Massachusetts
Big and scaly. That’s how most people imagine “Sea Monsters,” which is also the title of Mark Bradford’s recent exhibition. Though these sculptures and paintings lack menacing teeth and constricting coils, which would only make them literal and banal, the title properly warns against hidden danger. Large and flaking, Bradford’s works allude to the stratification of meaning behind enticing billboards and advertisements such as those that punctuate the streets of Los Angeles, his home city. The King’s Mirror, a constellation of boards covered in layers of billposter ads, encrusted an entire wall. Collected, displayed, and stacked by Bradford, the ads acquired new meaning in the frame of his piece. Visible from the outside of the Rose through the monumental windows of the Lois Foster Wing, the mural’s faded images surfaced on 300 individual supports, as though the forms and colors had been washed away by water in the form of rain, waves, and mist…see the entire review in the print version of July/August’s Sculpture magazine.
