Mark Bradford

Beginning 26 September, Hauser & Wirth will present ‘Exotica,’ a solo exhibition of new, formally innovative works by Mark Bradford. In an exhibition that extends the artist’s recent formal and thematic investigations while pushing his practice towards distinctly new inventions, Bradford probes the enduring impact of colonialism and concepts of ‘otherness’ through the lens of individual experience.

The exhibition’s title references a 1968 encyclopedia that catalogued exotic plants from a western perspective, for a western reader. The text took on special significance for Bradford in the way it reflects a colonial impulse to document and categorize the things perceived as ‘other,’ and the idea that naming something equates to understanding. Bradford took this catalogue as a starting point to consider how we create, imagine, and internalize such concepts of the ‘exotic,’ turning inward to examine his own preconceptions of what things are, and how those same preconceptions define his reality and experience.

The exhibition is anchored by four large-scale figurative works centered on the agave plant. A monocarpic variety, agave plants bloom only once, at the end of their lifecycle. Bradford was drawn to the idea that agave exposes its richness and full embodiment only once within its life, as a metaphor for peoples whose colonized conditions require them to conform and adapt to their circumstances, rather than to flourish.

Notably, this new body of works signals a significant shift in perspective, setting the viewer eye-to-eye with Bradford’s compositions and the fictions of the ‘exotic’ they contain.

In July 2024, participants explored Bradford’s ‘Merchant Poster’ body of work in a series of workshops designed to introduce young creators to the processes of screen printing and photo emulsion. Bradford will collaborate with the student participants to realize a mural in the Bridge+ space depicting a map of Hong Kong. The students will install the ‘Merchant Posters’ they create during the workshop in the Bridge+ space, adjacent to the mural.