Sikkema Jenkins Gallery
530 West 22nd Street
The exhibit "Nobody Jones" by Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford includes six mammoth canvases stretching approximately 100-x-150-inches. All dated 2007, the compositions contrast swarms of irregular shapes and lines with monochromatic borders. This juxtaposition particularly conjures an ancient city seen from above in one titled
Ghost Money. Only a few passages breach its presumed wall. Another named
Boreas encloses a more relaxed or rural network in what looks like a coat of aluminum weatherproofing.
Up close, the surfaces reveal a swath of paper remnants. Portions of printed advertisements are traceable though their pitches are obscured, if not pulped and woven–perhaps through sanding and scraping. In a back chamber of the gallery a warped but decipherable paper stratification headlines James Brown's obituary.
