Mark Bradford: Untitled (A–Z), 2010 at the Studio Museum in Harlem

The Studio Museum in Harlem, at 144 West 125th Street, is showing Mark Bradford's Untitled (A–Z), 2010 through January 3, 2027. The piece is an alphabet: twenty-six individual works on paper, each devoted to a single letter of the English alphabet.

Bradford, based in Los Angeles, is known for building abstract works from found, layered materials. This series grows out of his ongoing "merchant posters" body of work, for which he gathers local business advertisements from the South Los Angeles neighborhood where he lives and works.

The posters carried phrases such as "Stop Evictions" and "Affordable Daycare." Bradford layers these once-posted signs and sands them down, so that the original messages survive only as fragments. Less can be read, yet the paper's accumulated surfaces and worn edges still carry traces of the everyday concerns of the people who live there.

Pulling single letters out of that context shifts them from functional to symbolic. Running from A to Z, the twenty-six sheets allude to the social and economic systems that shape life in the community where the materials were found. With the literal wording stripped back, the structures behind it come into focus.

The presentation is organized by Yelena Keller, Associate Curator. Installation photographs by Kris Graves show the works on the museum's walls. The Studio Museum is a hub for artists of African descent locally, nationally and internationally, and the show's run into the new year makes it an easy stop on a winter walk through Central Harlem.