FORT WORTH, TX.- With the support of Clear Channel Outdoor, the Education Department of the
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth announces the summer season of the public program, Modern Billings. This iteration is curated by the artist Mark Bradford, whose work is the focus of the Modern's current special exhibition, Mark Bradford: End Papers. The billboards are on view through early July 2020.
Using space from Clear Channel Outdoor as programming sites, Assistant Curators of Education Jesse Morgan Barnett and Tiffany Wolf Smith work with artists to situate imagery and text onto billboards, elements of the city that traditionally present commercial advertisements rather than cultural curiosities. For Modern Billings, artists place works into under-served communities along the periphery of downtown Fort Worth.
By featuring works from a variety of artists along Jacksboro Highway and the Lancaster corridor, Modern Billings extends the reach of the Modern and the Education Department into new communities.
Mark Bradford is a Los Angeles-based artist best known for his large-scale abstract paintings created out of paper. Beginning with the selection of an image to use as a base, the artist accumulates paper in thick layers before tearing, ripping, sanding, power-washing and gouging through the surface to reveal complex intersections among the layers of meaning.
To accompany Mark Bradford: End Papers, the artist's historic exhibition at the Modern, Bradford has selected three images for Modern Billings from the archives of his long-time friend, Cleo Hill-Jackson. The three images portray the late Mr. LaMarr, a former hairdresser to St. Louis high society and a dear friend to Hill-Jackson during his life.
Modern Billings serves as a platform for artists' work despite the current isolation of the general population and institutional closures. The billboard format allows the community to view these works from vehicle windows. MODERN BILLINGS continues to build access between artists and the community outside the museum walls.
