Across 110th Street

Mark Bradford layers found materials that conjure the history of abstract painting as well as constructed environments. Bradford builds up the surface of the canvas with comic books, foil, advertisements, and all manner of collected matter, then peels, grinds, and rips away the layers to reveal a composition. Across 110th Street gets its title from the eponymous 1972 Blaxploitation film, as well as from the social and physical dividing line between Harlem and the rest of Manhattan. The work has a gritty surface recalling a map of the city. Items found on the street become a representation of New York itself, generating urban character through an accumulation of visual fragments. The topography of the collage is at times logical and regulated and at other times haphazard and random, much like how the fabric of a city develops, combining formal planning and improvisational growth.