WEBVTT 00:00:08.134 --> 00:00:10.400 MARK BRADFORD: You know  what? Let’s just put it up. 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:11.400 SPEAKER: Then we adjust it later. 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:15.357 BRADFORD: Yeah, and if it’s a  problem, all your fault. (LAUGHS) 00:00:15.862 --> 00:00:18.836 Never on me. (LAUGHS) 00:00:19.249 --> 00:00:21.840 SPEAKER: How do you do this  because these were advertisements? 00:00:21.840 --> 00:00:24.651 BRADFORD: Yeah, on the fences. 00:00:28.712 --> 00:00:31.914 BRADFORD: I only take the advertisements  that have to do businesses. 00:00:33.360 --> 00:00:37.400 After the riot, so many buildings were burnt  down that they put this fencing around it 00:00:37.400 --> 00:00:40.110 and so everybody starts to use  the fencing for these signs. 00:00:42.520 --> 00:00:45.781 But you see the same things  all the time in the ghetto. 00:00:45.988 --> 00:00:50.280 Cash. For your houses. It’s  like cash, we buy your houses. 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:51.129 I like this one. 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:53.840 Immigration papers in 30 days. 00:00:53.840 --> 00:00:55.000 How is this possible? 00:00:56.280 --> 00:00:59.201 Locks for hair. Black people and hair. 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:04.960 I take twine, you know, string,  glue, all down around it 00:01:04.960 --> 00:01:08.600 and then I take the billboard paper  and I turn it on the back side, 00:01:08.600 --> 00:01:10.400 not the good side, but the back side. 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:15.280 I lay it on and let it dry and  it like...and then I sand it. 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:20.640 And some, I don’t, you  can’t...the language is all gone, 00:01:20.640 --> 00:01:23.474 a little bit gone, sometimes it works better. 00:01:24.920 --> 00:01:28.000 Just...yeah, it’s just information in the city. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:29.160 You see it all the time. 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:35.620 Found some...oh that’s nice. 00:01:35.620 --> 00:01:37.230 Uh-huh. A head. 00:01:38.286 --> 00:01:39.490 Put that over there. 00:01:39.880 --> 00:01:43.208 My practice is both collage  and décollage at the same time. 00:01:44.320 --> 00:01:45.601 How would that look? 00:01:47.320 --> 00:01:52.133 Décollage. I take it away, and then  collage I immediately add it right back. 00:01:54.519 --> 00:01:57.526 Sometimes you have to not put stuff on top. 00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:01.901 You got to retrieve something  that’s under the bottom. 00:02:08.600 --> 00:02:15.102 Good. Where’s that S? I saved  it. Make sure the color is right. 00:02:18.040 --> 00:02:22.534 The line of my making or my art  practice goes back to my childhood, 00:02:23.240 --> 00:02:26.840 but it’s not an art background,  it’s a making background. 00:02:29.240 --> 00:02:33.040 Me making the sign of the prices  in my mother’s hair salon, 00:02:33.040 --> 00:02:35.040 I was in charge of that so I would do calligraphy. 00:02:35.040 --> 00:02:36.320 I learned how to...teach… 00:02:36.320 --> 00:02:38.459 I taught myself calligraphy  so I could make them very… 00:02:39.400 --> 00:02:41.280 very fancy on the wall. 00:02:41.280 --> 00:02:45.513 So the hand...the hand was very early in my work. 00:02:45.880 --> 00:02:49.480 Signage, texts, but not perfect. 00:02:49.480 --> 00:02:55.160 It always got a little slimmer at the end  because I wouldn’t measure it properly. 00:02:55.160 --> 00:02:57.200 But it worked out. She always  said oh next time, it’s okay. 00:02:57.200 --> 00:02:59.106 When I raise the prices  you’ll have another chance. 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:03.325 Yeah, the make...I’ve always been a maker. 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:10.992 In DADDY, DADDY, DADDY I was  using materials that had memory. 00:03:11.566 --> 00:03:17.208 Memory from working in the hair salon,  and I was using a lot of end papers. 00:03:19.640 --> 00:03:22.718 End papers are used when  you are doing a permanent. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:29.182 I was also thinking a lot about music at the time. 00:03:29.641 --> 00:03:34.214 Music fragments, so DADDY, DADDY,  DADDY kind of came out of that. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:42.009 BLACK VENUS was one of the map-like paintings. 00:03:42.720 --> 00:03:46.912 I was really thinking of mapmaking  and also the history of abstraction 00:03:47.440 --> 00:03:50.589 because in some ways I look at maps  as sort of these abstract grids. 00:03:53.090 --> 00:03:58.158 Baldwin Hills is where the sort of black,  wealthy people of Los Angeles live. 00:04:00.200 --> 00:04:03.720 So I went driving around and came to an address, 00:04:03.720 --> 00:04:06.302 and I made up an imaginary  story about who lived there. 00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:10.505 I actually Googled and Google Mapped this address. 00:04:11.400 --> 00:04:15.696 Then it just became more and  more pushed into my imagination. 00:04:20.400 --> 00:04:24.280 I love soccer, and I decided  that I wanted to craft 00:04:24.280 --> 00:04:27.372 my own sort of imaginary league of players. 00:04:28.680 --> 00:04:30.600 GAME RECOGNIZES GAME, 00:04:30.600 --> 00:04:34.080 it was the largest piece  actually to date that I had made, 00:04:34.080 --> 00:04:37.695 and I love the fragile, heroicness of it. 00:04:38.315 --> 00:04:40.291 And it was all constructed of paper. 00:04:41.760 --> 00:04:46.760 It was the first time that I put a  painting and a sculpture in proximity, 00:04:46.760 --> 00:04:49.486 and I was trying to sort  of activate a third thing. 00:04:53.800 --> 00:05:00.929 LOS MOSCOS was really me directly wanting  to deal with issues of abstraction, 00:05:01.640 --> 00:05:05.440 modernism, abstract expressionism, 00:05:06.610 --> 00:05:08.900 it really kind of exploded for me. 00:05:11.080 --> 00:05:14.080 People say that they’re collages, I  just think that they’re paintings, 00:05:14.080 --> 00:05:16.881 you know it’s on canvas, it’s a painting. 00:05:22.320 --> 00:05:26.230 At CalArts, what I did  discover was bodies of ideas. 00:05:27.400 --> 00:05:29.640 I never knew what a postmodern condition was, 00:05:29.640 --> 00:05:30.320 I never heard of it. 00:05:30.320 --> 00:05:34.717 I never knew about Foucault  and bell hooks and Cornel West. 00:05:35.360 --> 00:05:39.280 I never read those type of writings, 00:05:39.280 --> 00:05:43.280 but I lived with people who  were living those type of lives 00:05:43.280 --> 00:05:45.200 so I remember coming home and telling my mother, 00:05:45.200 --> 00:05:46.640 oh you know you’re postmodern. 00:05:46.640 --> 00:05:47.932 She said oh, that’s sweet. 00:05:49.240 --> 00:05:53.880 So I...so I felt like I discovered friends  in these books, these writers, I felt… 00:05:53.880 --> 00:05:55.680 I discovered these revolutionary people 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:57.760 that were doing these really revolutionary things, 00:05:57.760 --> 00:05:59.280 so it was the writings that got me 00:05:59.280 --> 00:06:03.354 really, really, really, really enthusiastic. 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:18.872 I wanted to create the feeling of being  outdoors and indoors at the same time. 00:06:21.371 --> 00:06:27.120 As you walk in, one side is  just covered with information. 00:06:27.120 --> 00:06:31.920 On the opposite you have the  reflection of these merchant posters 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:34.174 in the sort of mirror corridor. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:37.219 You have this sort of funhouse effect. 00:06:40.592 --> 00:06:45.120 This type of advertising which  mainly you see on cyclone fencing, 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:46.512 has a relationship to the body. 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:52.840 It’s about the conditions that are going on at 00:06:52.840 --> 00:06:56.534 that particular moment at  that particular location. 00:07:01.760 --> 00:07:06.800 You have “100% Roaches Gone” next  to “Are you a licensed barber?” 00:07:06.800 --> 00:07:09.240 but if you put “My child says daddy” right next to 00:07:09.240 --> 00:07:13.100 “How to open a sober living  facility” and “Lifetime Indian hair” 00:07:13.100 --> 00:07:15.826 it’s really a story that starts to unfold. 00:07:19.085 --> 00:07:21.032 As you move down this corridor, 00:07:21.606 --> 00:07:26.509 you come into a smaller room and you hear music. 00:07:26.509 --> 00:07:28.680 (MUSIC) 00:07:28.680 --> 00:07:31.057 You hear people celebrating. 00:07:33.880 --> 00:07:37.170 There are two videos on opposite walls. 00:07:40.520 --> 00:07:45.000 One video is of the Martin Luther  King Day Parade in Los Angeles. 00:07:48.000 --> 00:07:52.394 And you see people who are  remembering this political figure. 00:07:56.640 --> 00:07:59.440 The other is of a marketplace in Egypt. 00:08:02.440 --> 00:08:07.886 This actual night market is only for Muslims. 00:08:12.200 --> 00:08:16.971 They’re on opposing walls but  they are facing each other. 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:21.641 I go to the parade every year. 00:08:22.903 --> 00:08:27.453 Certain details, you start to see  over and over and over and over again. 00:08:28.440 --> 00:08:30.000 Such as the policing. 00:08:30.920 --> 00:08:34.800 There’s as much policing  of the parade as a parade. 00:08:34.800 --> 00:08:38.120 Every frame and it’s not that  I tried to put police in it, 00:08:38.120 --> 00:08:39.576 they were just in every frame. 00:08:42.880 --> 00:08:49.643 To see so many black bodies in  public space, it’s always political. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:53.119 Always a political condition. 00:09:07.400 --> 00:09:10.906 On the Cairo side, there was no police, 00:09:11.480 --> 00:09:13.031 there was no policing, 00:09:13.880 --> 00:09:17.372 these were just families enjoying themselves. 00:09:18.680 --> 00:09:25.849 But the Muslim body has become so politically  charged that the space therefore is charged. 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:36.004 They’re both politicized sites. 00:09:39.286 --> 00:09:43.490 But at the same time they’re  about celebration as well. 00:10:02.680 --> 00:10:07.800 I noticed that my art practice  is very detail, labor intensive 00:10:07.800 --> 00:10:12.400 and I think that that’s a way of slowing  myself down so that I can hear myself think, 00:10:12.400 --> 00:10:14.880 so that I can hear the voices  a little bit more quiet, 00:10:14.880 --> 00:10:22.407 so I can hear maybe the decision that might  come through that’s a little less large. 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:31.051 That quieter voice has sometimes the more  interesting idea, if I can get to it. 00:10:32.772 --> 00:10:34.360 I still don’t know how this is going to hang. 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:35.400 I still don’t even know… 00:10:35.400 --> 00:10:37.680 to me, I like it with the tacks in it, 00:10:37.680 --> 00:10:40.862 but well, maybe bright colored tacks. 00:10:41.160 --> 00:10:42.833 I’m not sure how it’s going to hang. 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:46.360 I just thought to put it in  a box, send it down there, 00:10:46.360 --> 00:10:47.834 stack it up, and put it in a box. 00:10:58.920 --> 00:11:00.711 Making this piece for Brazil. 00:11:01.560 --> 00:11:02.560 And now it’s Brazil. 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:06.480 I mean you’re making a  piece in your studio in L.A. 00:11:06.480 --> 00:11:08.400 and you’re thinking about Brazil, you know? 00:11:08.400 --> 00:11:09.420 You never been to Brazil. 00:11:09.420 --> 00:11:10.140 BRADFORD: That’s it? 00:11:10.140 --> 00:11:10.760 SPEAKER: Yeah. 00:11:10.760 --> 00:11:12.725 BRADFORD: Well, I think  it...I think it kind of works. 00:11:13.000 --> 00:11:16.668 Ta da! (LAUGHS) 00:11:37.080 --> 00:11:42.215 PRACTICE was a video that  I did a couple years ago, 00:11:42.935 --> 00:11:45.607 and I wanted to do a video  of me playing basketball. 00:11:46.295 --> 00:11:49.604 But I wanted to create a condition, a struggle. 00:11:50.161 --> 00:11:54.171 I would create this huge antebellum  hoop skirt out of a Lakers uniform. 00:11:55.640 --> 00:11:59.920 My goal was to focus on dribbling  the basketball and making the shot, 00:11:59.920 --> 00:12:03.320 but obviously when you have an  antebellum skirt fanning out 00:12:03.320 --> 00:12:06.034 about four feet around you,  that's going to be difficult. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:15.440 And it was an incredibly windy day, one of those 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:18.920 Santa Anna, southern California, windy days 00:12:18.920 --> 00:12:20.241 where everything was blowing. 00:12:22.995 --> 00:12:26.365 What it created was this billowing of the wind. 00:12:26.365 --> 00:12:30.000 It would catch underneath the dress. 00:12:32.283 --> 00:12:33.947 It became almost like I was floating. 00:12:35.760 --> 00:12:37.440 And I would fall and get up. 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:41.415 I would make the shot sometimes and  I wouldn’t and I would always get up. 00:12:43.480 --> 00:12:47.920 It was about roadblocks on every level, 00:12:47.920 --> 00:12:55.138 cultural, gender, racial,  regardless that they’re there. 00:12:57.800 --> 00:13:00.166 It is important to continue. 00:13:01.520 --> 00:13:03.433 You keep going. 00:13:03.800 --> 00:13:06.200 You keep going and so that’s what it was. 00:13:06.200 --> 00:13:07.280 And I made the hoop. 00:13:07.280 --> 00:13:08.440 I made the shot. 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:09.868 I always make the shot. 00:13:10.280 --> 00:13:12.534 Sometimes it takes me a  little longer to get there. 00:13:13.080 --> 00:13:15.156 But I always make the shot.