Mark Bradford, Rat Catcher of Hamelin IV
2011
This artwork is based on a series of fifty billboards gathered from the Leimert Park neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles where Bradford grew up. The LAPD had created the billboards to enlist the assistance of citizens in gathering information about a notorious serial killer. Through his signature manipulations of sanding and stripping, Bradford simultaneously obscures and reveals the narrative subtext of the political and personal assault that the billboards represented.
Mark Bradford, American, born 1961
Rat Catcher of Hamelin IV, 2011
mixed media collage on canvas
Museum purchase with funds provided by Donna J. MacMillan, the Contemporary Art Council, the Annette Bloch Acquisition Fund, the Collectors Forum, the Dorothy and Harold Meyerman Honorary Fund, Myrna Kaplan, and funds derived from a previous gift from Mr. and Mrs. Samuel H. Maslon
14‑2012