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Graphic: Bank of America presents Masterpiece Moment
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On-screen text: Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Video: The Mark Bradford artwork 150 Portrait Tone, 2017
On-screen text: Mark Bradford (American, b.1961), 150 Portrait Tone, 2017, mixed media on canvas
Video: Michael Govan standing in front of the artwork Mark Bradford, 150 Portrait Tone, 2017
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On-screen text: Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director, LACMA
Audio—Michael Govan:
Hi. I'm Michael Govan, CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Welcome to Bank of America's Masterpiece Moment.
Today, I'd like to talk about a contemporary masterpiece from our collection—with a timely message—an artwork titled 150 Portrait Tone by Mark Bradford.
This monumental, mixed media on canvas work was specially created for LACMA in 2017 and it stands 20 by 25½ feet in our Resnick Pavilion.
The idea for this commission came after I visited Mark's studio and viewed his large-scale studies for a series of paintings he was making for the U.S. Embassy in London. As we discussed exhibiting the Embassy studies at LACMA, we also talked about the possibility of a new artwork.
Later, Mark threw out the idea that resulted in this mural size painting. At first, he proposed to make the painting directly on the wall but working inside the museum, at our entrance, proved too logistically challenging.
Mark's technique involves paper, glue, paint, cutting, sanding and jet blasting with water. Instead, the painting was made in three large sections in Mark's studio and then stretched and installed here by LACMA's skilled team of art preparators.
Mark Bradford is a quintessential born and raised Los Angeles artist. Throughout his early life, his mother ran a hair salon. And upon graduating from high school, Mark received his hairstylist license and worked on and off at his mother's salon. It wasn't until he was in his 30s that he attended and graduated California Institute of the Arts, also known as CalArts, with an undergraduate and then a master's degree in 1997.
His work spans painting, sculpture, film, and multimedia installations. The many subjects of Mark's art include communities, migrant populations, history, race, gender, and popular culture.
In addition to being an artist, he also operates his own public art exhibition space and an adjacent program to support foster youth in his native South Los Angeles neighborhood, which he’s helping to preserve.
Mark believes deeply in the power of art to inspire and shape lives. And he's received too many honors to count, including the MacArthur Genius Award and the U.S. State Medal of the Arts, as well as representing our nation at the International 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. His art has been shown around the world.
150 Portrait Tone is based on the July 2016 murder of Philando Castile by a police officer in St. Paul, Minnesota. Castile was driving, and when pulled over for a broken taillight, he was fatally shot.
Part of the incident was live streamed by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, who was sitting next to him, horrified, with her four-year-old daughter in the back seat.
The title of the painting, 150 Portrait Tone, refers to the name of the pink acrylic "skin tone" color that's used throughout the painting, but also makes a commentary on the vestiges of racism and racist labels that persist all around and are deeply etched into our culture. The tone of a human portrait isn't only pink. Years ago, Crayola removed the name "flesh" from their peach-hued crayon, recognizing our diversity.
Like many of Mark's works, this mural-size composition contains both abstraction and graphic symbolism. This new painting feels old in some ways, with layers of manipulated paper and paint rendering this text almost illegible in places.
For me, the dark form in the background evokes the horrific shooting, perhaps Castile's twisted arm and the dark-red bloodstain spread across his white shirt, both prominent in the live stream feed.
Much of Reynolds's voiceover dialogue is inscribed over the entire surface of the painting. The artist was moved by the power of her words and the different audiences Reynolds addressed simultaneously.
"Stay with me," she says to her boyfriend, but I think the artist is also using that phrase at the top left of the painting to talk to us, and to ask us to pay attention.
Reynolds addresses the officer: "Please, officer, don't tell me that you just did this." She addresses the Lord: "Lord, please, Jesus, don't tell me that he's gone."
And she addresses us, the unknown audience, on the other side of her live stream: "Please don't tell me he just went like that."
This far-reaching artistic statement reminds me of another of my favorite works of art.
Video: The painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso
Audio: Pablo Picasso's Guernica, painted in 1937 to protest the bombing of Guernica and the loss of so many innocent lives.
Video: The painting The Third of May by Francisco Goya
Audio: Or Francisco Goya's 19th-century masterpiece, The Third of May, documenting the massacre of Spanish freedom fighters.
Video: Michael Govan standing in front of Mark Bradford’s 150 Portrait Tone, 2017
Audio: Mark Bradford is similarly crying out about the widespread injustice of so much police brutality against Black Americans. This work fits into an extraordinary tradition of art calling for justice.
I want to thank you for taking the time to watch today and to learn more about 150 Portrait Tone by Mark Bradford. I encourage you to join the conversation and discuss the work with family and friends. And please visit the Bank of America Masterpiece Moment website to sign up for alerts and ensure that you never miss a moment.
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On-screen text:
Title treatment art:
Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859 – 1937)
The Arch, 1919 (detail)
Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Alfred W. Jenkins, 32.10 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 32.10_SL1.jpg)
Chris Burden (American, 1946 – 2015)
Urban Light, 2008
Sculpture
Two-hundred and two restored cast iron antique street lamps
© 2020 Chris Burden / licensed by The Chris Burden Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Robert Irwin (American, b. 1928)
Miracle Mile, 2013
Installation Art
Lightwork
© 2020 Robert Irwin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Vera Lutter (German, b. 1960)
Installation images from Vera Lutter: Museum in the Camera
LACMA
Images: © 2020 Vera Lutter / Licensed by Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Mark Bradford (American, b. 1961)
150 Portrait Tone, 2017 (detail)
Mixed media on canvas
240” x 310” (609.6 x 787.4 cm)
© 2020 Mark Bradford
Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Photo: Joshua White
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Spanish, 1881 – 1973)
Guernica, 1937
Oil on canvas
© 2020 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Additional Camera: Isiah Donté Lee
Additional footage courtesy the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
“Take the “A” Train”
Written by Billy Strayhorn
Performed by Oscar Peterson
Courtesy of Verve Records under license from Universal Music Enterprises
© 2021 Bank of America Corporation.
