A site-specific mural, a video installation and 12 new paintings comprise Mark Bradford’s ruminative exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum, organized by curator Connie Butler. Together they form a kind of thumbnail sketch of the artist’s varied artistic approaches since he began showing regularly in 2002, launched at the former Patricia Faure Gallery.
The wall mural in the Hammer’s entry stairwell is a vast map of the United States. The contours of the 50 states are gouged into the wall, its surface sanded down to reveal ephemeral layers of earlier murals long-since painted over. Historical statistics recording HIV diagnoses are scratched into each of the union’s states -- a dry accounting made physical.