Hauser & Wirth mega gallery inaugurates ‘crazy project’ in Menorca with Mark Bradford

“I’m Mark. Simply Mark. When I get somewhere, that’s what people say, ‘Hey, there’s Mark.'” In Menorca, this summer, for the inauguration of his exhibition in the new space of the mega gallery Hauser & Wirth, the “people” quickly gave the lie to the (succinct) description that Mark Bradford gave us, the day before, of himself. It wasn’t just Mark who was coming, but Mark Bradford. In a circle, the audience listens religiously and with deference to one of the most important artists of our time (as confirmed by his presence in Time Magazine’s list of the hundred most influential people in the world), representing the United States at the Venice Biennale in 2017… and perhaps, for some evil materialistic spirits, “the living African-American artist” among the most bankable. That is to say, more prosaically, that his painting Helter Skelter I was sold in 2018 for $12 million at Phillips. With punch lines and intimate confessions, Mark tries to get the better of Bradford and find a little “normality”. Mark and his scathing humor (“I don’t know my father. But don’t get your idea wrong, I’m not the product of the Immaculate Conception”) imposes himself in a few minutes as the king of gestural stand-up, helped by this fascinating and frenetic body of a little more than two meters.

Five years earlier, Iwan and Manuela Wirth initiated the “crazy project” (they assume the expression) to set up their gallery on one of the micro-islands off the coast of Port-Mahon, the main city of Menorca in the Balearic Islands. And here again, it was not “simply” a new exhibition space. The gigantic rooms are now located in the outbuildings of a former British naval hospital from the early eighteenth century, which still overlooks the complex. The architect Luis Laplace – a long-standing collaborator of the gallery – spared no effort to renovate them. 

The famous landscape architect Piet Oudolf creates, as usual, a marvel, creating a delicate garden whose relevance would make the visitor believe that he has always been present on the island. Imagined as an art center in connection with local audiences, access to the galleries is by free shuttle boat from the city. Along the water and paved paths with works by Franz West, a spider by Louise Bourgeois can be discovered… The couple Iwan and Manuela Wirth once again achieved a clear round, in a very Swiss measure that commands respect. But what can be the relevance of such a lost space in the Balearic Islands? And what can the American friend Mark, invited to inaugurate it, do there?

For several years, Hauser & Wirth has been working to reshuffle the cards of geography and the gallery model. By settling in the middle of the countryside in Somerset, then on a micro-island in the Balearic Islands (two of their holiday resorts), the duo Iwan and Manuela are not only acting out of power, reversing the balance of power with the collector who now has to travel to discover the exhibitions – he who had long since become accustomed to seeing galleries set up a few metres from his loft. The Swiss are taking note of the changes in the art world: it doesn’t matter if collectors actually travel, the works of their star artists are most often pre-sold by PDF even before the opening. There remains the possibility of focusing on other essential issues: offering artists spaces that make people dream… and develop a policy of cultural democratization for the local public. The couple sincerely wants it.

In Menorca, Mark Bradford has developed an ambitious project with teenagers from a local school, which echoes the work of his own foundation in Los Angeles. More generally, the stakes of this new cartography of art could not have escaped the artist, whose work has always been committed to criticizing power structures and rethinking all established cartographies, whether geopolitical, social or racial. Its inaugural exhibition, Masses and Movements, was inspired by the first map of the world to mention the term “America” in 1507. A creation of the colonial powers representing the continents as so many approximate masses. So many islands and archipelagos between which the movements of man have slavery and enslavement as their main objectives.

Masses and Movements, Mark Bradford, Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Isla del Rey, Menorca. Until October 31, 2021.