Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

The Rockbund Art Museum is pleased to present the first major museum exhibition in Asia of the celebrated Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford. Commissioned specifically for this presentation, three monumental collage paintings will fill each of the gallery floors of the museum. These exuberant new works titled The Tears of a Tree, Falling Horses and Lazy Mountain are inspired by the artist’s visits to Shanghai and what he found to be the dynamic melding of disparate cultures, economies and functions in the city—the sprawl, heavy industry, old port city, the French Quarter, and the glamour of the nouveau riche.

Coming across old colonial era maps of Shanghai at a local market, the artist became interested in the partitioning of the city during the international zone period; the changes to the Chinese address system under the imposed Japanese system; as well as the pre-industrialization landscape of the city—in other words, the mapping and remapping of the city, and the molding and remolding of the physical landscape over many decades. The paintings are informed by this context, and the massive change in the urban landscape that he witnessed in the two visits he made over the last five years.

Each of the 12-meter long paintings,created by the nuanced layering and removal of paper, will be installed in RAM’s galleries which will be stripped down in its architecture, exposing the windows of the building normally covered up to create an enclosed white cube. This simple gesture, conceived by the artist as part of the installation, will not only bring daylight into the space but will create a physical and symbolic connect into the city, bridging Bradford’s art with RAM’s early 20th century building and the waterfront of the Bund—the historic center of the former British and American concession.

Additionally, the exhibition will also include a grouping of new sculptures titled The Loop of Deep Waters. Suspended on the fifth floor gallery, the buoy-shaped forms made up of his signature materials—paper, caulking agents and cords are characterized by rugged surfaces that seem to contain the layers of time while floating in space. Together, the works evoke an otherworldly universe, where perspectival shifts and forces of gravity operate by an alternate set of rules to imagine a poetic, almost magical landscape of abstraction.

本次展览是这位生活工作于洛杉矶的艺术家在亚洲的首次美术馆大展。艺术家为这次展览特别创作了三件尺幅巨大的绘画作品，分别占据美术馆二到四层展厅。这些具有勃然生机的作品包括《树的眼泪》《坠落的马》《慵懒的山》，它们的创作灵感源自艺术家造访上海期间的见闻，即各异的文化、经济和功能的杂烩与交融——城市扩张、重工业、老港口城市、原法租界，以及新富阶层的魅力。

在沪期间，艺术家在本地市场上找到了租界时代的老地图，继而对上海租界时期的分割状态发生兴趣，同时也关注外来的日本地址系统对中国地址系统的改变，以及这座城市在前工业时代的面貌——也就是说，上海的城市实体在百余年来的布局和变局，成型与再造。他此番展出的绘画作品与这一上下文相谙，亦关乎他在过去的五年中两次造访上海亲眼所见其城市景观的剧变。

每一件绘画作品都有12米之长，凭借纸本的微妙层叠、刮割和揭除创作而成，而美术馆的展厅将恢复如初，露出常因营造“白立方空间”而被遮挡的窗户。这种简洁的姿态来自于艺术家的构想，是作品装置的一部分，此举不仅能使自然光进入空间，还能够让后者与城市本身建立起物质性和象征性的联系，在布拉德福德的艺术与上海外滩美术馆20世纪早期的建筑和外滩的江岸——前英、美租界的历史中心之间造起桥梁。

此外，展览还将包括一组新创作的雕塑《深水循环》。这些悬挂在五楼展厅浮标状的作品由艺术家标志性的材料组成——纸、填料和灯芯绒线，它们构成了雕塑凹凸不平的表面上，似乎在悬浮于空间中的浮标上又增加了时间的层次。展览中的绘画与雕塑作品一道，唤醒了一个超脱尘俗的宇宙，在那里，视角发生了改变，万有引力的力量由别样的规则轮流控制，想象着一个诗意、近乎魔幻般的抽象景观。