Mark Bradford Installation

September 2018 – March 2021

The Mandeville Gallery is proud to exhibit Untitled (buoy) by acclaimed artist Mark Bradford in the Beuth Atrium of the Schaffer Library. Board of Trustee member, Kelly Williams, has generously loaned the artwork to the College in honor of President Harris’ 2018 inauguration.

Bradford drew inspiration from maritime buoys, used in the shipping trade to protect the sides of cargo ships when docked. The sculpture conjures natural and man-made environments, simultaneously evoking neighborhood streets, arterial veins, and woven snares. Mapping as a means of tracing cultural history and communities is a common theme throughout a number of Bradford’s works. Bradford’s insight has established him as one of the most significant and influential artists of his generation. He has been widely exhibited internationally as well as the recipient of numerous awards including the US 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 United States at the 2017 Venice Biennale with a major solo exhibition Tomorrow Is Another Day, which later travelled to the Baltimore Museum of Art. He also presented a monumental commissioned cyclorama of paintings at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, which served as Bradford’s largest site-specific work to date. In 2018, Bradford was commissioned to create a site-specific work for the new US Embassy in London. Entitled We The People, featuring select text from the United States Constitution.