The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University and Baltimore Museum of Art announce collaboration on U.S. pavilion presentation of Mark Bradford at 2017 Venice Biennale

WALTHAM, MA and BALTIMORE, MD – October 27, 2016 – The Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University and The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) today announced that they will collaborate on the presentation of Mark Bradford as representative for the United States for the 2017 Venice Biennale. The two institutions will work in cooperation with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

The U.S. Pavilion is being commissioned by BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford and co-curated by Bedford and Katy Siegel. Bedford served as director of Brandeis’ Rose Art Museum until August 1 and was appointed director of BMA effective August 15. Bedford, who is also Adjunct Professor of the Practice in Fine Arts at Brandeis, will oversee the Biennale collaboration for the Rose Art Museum and The Baltimore Museum of Art. Siegel was recently appointed Senior Programming and Research Curator at the BMA and also serves as a professor at Stony Brook University.

The new work being created by Bradford will be on view at the U.S. Pavilion of the Venice Biennale from May 13 to November 26, 2017.

“This wonderful collaboration enables us to dedicate the resources of two outstanding institutions in realizing Mark’s installation and all of the programming that will flow from it that is an essential part of his practice,” noted Bedford. “Mark’s focus on under-represented urban communities and social justice aligns with the interests of both Brandeis and The Baltimore Museum of Art, so our working together with him to advance these goals will enhance the impact of this major new work.”

Based in Los Angeles, Mark Bradford’s sweeping canvases recapture mid-century American art’s capacity to conjure the sublime and evoke deep feeling, while incorporating layers of social comment. In parallel with his work in the studio, Bradford maintains a social practice, anchored by his Los Angeles-based not-for-profit, Art + Practice, an educational platform that emphasizes practical skills for foster youth and stresses the cultural importance of art within a larger social context. These equivalent commitments to formal invention and social activism anchor Bradford’s contribution to culture at large, embodying his belief that contemporary artists can reinvent the world we share.

BMA has previously served as commissioner of the U.S. Pavilion. In 1960, the BMA was invited to organize the Pavilion by Porter A. McCray, Chairman of the International Council of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The exhibition was co-curated by BMA Director Adelyn Breeskin and Chief Curator Dr. Gertrude Rosenthal, featuring four New York School abstract expressionist artists: Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, and Philip Guston, and the sculptor Theodore Roszak.

ABOUT MARK BRADFORD

Mark Bradford was born in 1961 in Los Angeles, where he lives and works. He received a BFA (1995) and MFA (1997) from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Best known for his large-scale abstract paintings that examine the class-, race-, and gender-based economies that structure urban society in the United States, Bradford’s richly layered and collaged canvases represent a connection to the social world through materials. Bradford uses fragments of found posters, billboards, newsprint and custom printed paper to simultaneously engage with and advance the formal traditions of abstract painting. Solo exhibitions include Scorched Earth at the Hammer Museum (2015), Sea Monsters at the Rose Art Museum (2014), Aspen Art Museum (2011), Maps and Manifests at Cincinnati Art Museum (2008), and Neither New Nor Correct at the Whitney Museum of American Art (2007). In 2009, Mark Bradford was the recipient of the MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius’ Award. In 2010, Mark Bradford, a large-scale survey of his work, was organized by Christopher Bedford and presented at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, before traveling to the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Dallas Museum of Art; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His work has been widely exhibited and has been included in group shows at LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014), Whitney Museum of American Art (2013), the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), Seoul Biennial (2010), the Carnegie International (2008), São Paulo Biennial (2006), and Whitney Biennial (2006).

THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART

The Baltimore Museum of Art is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 95,000 objects—including the largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse. Throughout the museum, visitors will find an outstanding selection of American and European painting, sculpture, and decorative arts; works by established and emerging contemporary artists; significant artworks from China; stunning Antioch mosaics; and an exceptional collection of art from Africa. The BMA’s galleries also showcase examples from one of the nation’s finest collections of prints, drawings, and photographs and exquisite textiles from around the world. The 210,000-square-foot museum is distinguished by a grand historic building designed in the 1920s by renowned American architect John Russell Pope and two beautifully landscaped sculpture gardens. As a major cultural destination for the region, the BMA hosts a dynamic program of exhibitions, events, and educational programs throughout the year. General admission to the BMA is free so that everyone can enjoy the power of art.

THE ROSE ART MUSEUM AT BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY

Founded in 1961, the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University is an educational and cultural institution dedicated to collecting, preserving and exhibiting the finest of modern and contemporary art. The programs of the Rose adhere to the overall mission of the university, embracing its values of academic excellence, social justice and freedom of expression. The museum’s permanent collection of postwar and contemporary art is unequalled in New England and is among the best at any university art museum in the United States. For more information, visit www.brandeis.edu/rose/. Founded in 1948, Brandeis University is named for the late Louis D. Brandeis, the distinguished associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, and reflects his ideals of academic excellence and social justice. The only nonsectarian Jewish-founded institution of higher learning in the United States, Brandeis is one of the world’s youngest private research universities. Located west of Boston, Brandeis’ distinguished faculty are dedicated to the education and support of 3,600 undergraduates and more than 2,000 graduate students. It has been ranked among the top 35 national universities by U.S. News & World Report every year since the rankings’ inception. For more information, visit www.brandeis.edu.