Mark Bradford: Tomorrow Is Another Day

Originally presented at the U.S. Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale, Tomorrow Is Another Day was born out of Mark Bradford’s ongoing interest in the inherently social nature of the material world we inhabit. In its U.S. debut, the exhibition takes on new meaning within the context of the Baltimore community and speaks to the artist’s belief in art as a platform to examine contradictory histories and effect positive change. Among the works from Venice are Spoiled Foot, a behemoth collage installation suspended from the ceiling that literally bears down on visitors, pushing them to the periphery of the room, and "The Odyssey" series, a suite of three shimmering black-purple paintings made of endpapers. Medusa, a tangled sculpture of black, bleached paper, is inspired by accounts of her as a beautiful and powerful woman wronged by Poseidon. A new suite of monumental abstract canvases created with commercial paper that the artist molded by hand includes the exhibition title’s namesake, Tomorrow Is Another Day. The exhibition concludes with Niagara (2005), a video that takes on new meaning as the national perception of Black identity continues to evolve in relation to ongoing conversations around the Black Lives Matter movement.