BIOGRAPHY

BRIEF

 

Beginning in 1969, Dove Bradshaw pioneered the use of Indeterminacy in sculpture, painting, performance and film. Her persistent relinquishment of control took Conceptual Art in a sensuous direction. By enlisting the unpredictability of life forces she first embraced Indeterminacy in a 1969 installation introducing a pair of mourning doves to bicycle wheels and floor mounted targets. Some of her other gestures toward Indeterminacy have embraced the chance positioning of work, the use of materials particularly susceptible to weather and indoor atmosphere, the gradual erosion of water, or the use of inherently unstable substances such as acetone, mercury and sulfur. Anticipating the Museum Interventionist Movement, an ongoing 1976 Indeterminate work, titled Performance, involves her “claim” of a Metropolitan Museum of Art fire hose. After mounting a guerrilla wall label, her self published postcard was quietly placed in the museum shop. In recognition of her gesture, a 1992 official museum postcard was issued and in 2006, Rosalind Jacobs, a collector of Dada works, acquired the updated label claiming the hose as a work of art. After a brief interval she donated it to the museum which, completing the circle, accepted it into the permanent collection. Bradshaw’s equally early fusion of scientific exploration with art practice has been broadly incorporated into the Weathering and Science/Art Movements. In this vein she made the silver and chemically activated Contingency Paintings sensitive to atmospheric conditions. Weather serves as a catalyst slowly capturing transient metamorphoses in marble, pyrite and copper, in the Indeterminacy, Material/Immaterial and Notation series. In the Negative Ion, Six Continents, and Waterstone works Bradshaw plots the gradual erosion of salt and stone with water as the transformative agent. Time is no less significant a factor. She has said “Poetry is everywhere evident and therefore one only need present materials”.

John Cage, a long time champion, talked about her work with Thomas McEvilley in Dove Bradshaw, Works, 1969-1993, which appeared as a chapter in McEvilley’s 1999 Sculpture in the Age of Doubt and in a 2003 monograph The Art of Dove Bradshaw, Nature Change and Indeterminacy, Batty Publisher, for which Mr. McEvilley wrote the text. Cage selected her to accompany him in his 1991 Carnegie International presentation and she was represented in the similarly scored Rolywholyover Circus, 1993-5, consisting of his selection of Twentieth Century works. Appointed in 1984 as Artistic Advisor with William Anastasi for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, she designed sets, costumes and lighting for a decade of the company’s stage and television productions around the world. They were accompanied by the music of John Cage, David Tudor, Takahisa Kosugi and Emanuel Dimas De Melo Pimenta. In 1984 an early survey titled, Works 1969-1984, was shown at Syracuse University, Utica, New York and she has had two mid-career exhibitions, one in 1998 titled Dove Bradshaw at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the other, in 2003 titled Dove Bradshaw, Formformlessness, 1969-2003, at City University of New York. Represented in the permanent collections of numerous American, European and Russian museums, she also regularly exhibits internationally. Born in 1949 in New York City, she continues to live and work there. A graduate from the College of General Studies, Boston University, she received a BFA from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts and Tufts University. She has had residencies at the Sirius Art Center, Cobh Ireland, 2000, the Statens Vaerksteder for Kunst, 2000 and Niels Borch Jensen, '00, 05, 08 in Denmark, the Pier Center, Orkney, Scotland, 1995, the Defesa Della Natura, Bolognano, Italy,2003, the Spirit of Discovery 1 and 2, Trancoso, Portugal, 20056 , 2007 and the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art, 2007. In June of 2006 Bradshaw was commissioned by the Baronessa Lucrezia Durini to execute Radio Rocks as a permanent installation in Bolognano, Galena and pyrite tuners continuously draw local, short wave and outer space signals echoing the Big Bang. A computer chip randomly selects stations; the outer space signals are live. In the fall of 2006 sponsored by Shu Uemura of Shu Uemura Cosmetics, she traveled to the Asia for the first time exhibiting in Tokyo’s Gallery 360°. For the 6th Gwangju Biennale in South Korea she presented Six Continents, with salt taken from each of the continents. In 1975 she won a National Endowment of the Arts Award for Sculpture and in 1985 The Pollack/Krasner Award for Painting. In 1986 she designed the costumes for the Points In Space video that won the Prague d’Or the following year. She was awarded a 2002 Furthermore Grant for The Art of Dove Bradshaw and a 2006 National Science Foundation Artists and Writers Grant for collection of Antarctic salt.

1949
Born September 24th, Katherine Loveday Bradshaw in New York City at 436 East 88th Street. Goes by the name of Dove. Mother, Jean Kathryn Cormack, of Portland, Oregon and London and David Nelson Bradshaw of New York City. Mother studied Egyptology at London University and Queens’s College, Cambridge University for three years. Assisted on the Maiden Castle dig in Dorset and Vercingeterix’ Refuge in Brittany under Sir R.E.M. Wheeler, Keeper of the London Museum. Returned to the US during WWII, met in New York and married her father at Fort Benning, Georgia in1942, abandoning plans as an archeologist. After her last child was in middle school, she began a full time job (from 1964 to until 1984) as secretary to Mrs. Webb, founder of the World Crafts Museum and World Crafts Council in New York. Worked as a volunteer and assitant organizer of the World Crafts Council international Conferences. Administrator for the World Dance Aliance from 1985-1990. From 1992 to the present, volunteers as the Administrator for DiCapo Opera Company, New York. David Bradshaw, grew up in New York City, receiving a Masters in Art and Education from City College of CUNY.  As a First Lieutenant he was called into the army in WWII and rising to Lieutenant Colonel. Stationed in New Guinea in the Special Services involved with entertainment. Returning to the US, he founded the Directors Art Institute in 1950, a commercial art business. Among others, he represented Andy Warhol during Warhol's commercial phase. In 1970 he joined Freelance Photographer’s Guild and independently researched and published a Source book on World Photography. In 1979 he became Director of the Research Library for Grolier Encyclopedia. Died 1984.
1946
Jonathan Cormack was born at 175 East 75th Street, NYC, home of Olive Barrows Bradshaw, their grandmother. Lives in Elverson, PA with his wife, Diana Cormack. He formerly owned a construction business and now retired, is currently involved with the restoration of an18th Century farmhouse, and its grounds and garden.
1951 Alison Louise was born at 88th Street. In 1977 she became an auctioneer in the Jewelry Department at Sotheby's, New York and significantly expanding their department. In 1981, at age 30 she became a Vice President of Sotheby’s. Shortly afterwards she moved to Christies, New York becoming their first woman auctioneer. Retired at age 37 to have son, Alexander Fabry and at age 42, daughter Merrill. Living with Peter Fabry in NYC. Designs jewelry, some works commissioned by Fred Leighton, New York.
1954

Timothy James Barrows was born at 88th Street. At age seventeen, he left to travel in East Africa for seven years. Studied African History in local libraries, learned several tribal languages while traveling in the local countries. Graduated in 1982 from Cremona Violin Making School, Tuscany where Stradivarious and Guinarious had developed schools. Bought a priests house and deconsecrated chapel outside in Bisticci, Tuscany, near Florence, making violins, cellos and lutes from 1982 to 2002. In 1982 they were exhibited, along with full-size plans at the Amsterdam Gallery, Lincoln Center in an exhibition organized and co-curated by his sister, Dove. Currently lives in NYC at East 88th Street with their mother.

At age five Bradshaw knows she wants to be an artist motivated by a book her father makes to teach her to read. Each day he adds a new word and then draws a picture of it. Right away she realizes that she was more interested in the drawings.

'54-'65
In ’54, ’58, ’62 with her mother and siblings takes a month each summer to drive round trip from New York to summer at her maternal grandparents' brazil and hazil nut ranch outside Newburg, Oregon. The family crisscross the country six times through the northern, middle and southern routes. In ’62 sees Old Faithful and sulfur pools in Yellowstone, N. Dakota, Craters of the Moon, Idaho, and visits Carlesbad limestone caves, all of which influences her later work.
'56-'59
For six years produces plays for each major holiday of the year. She writes, directs, designs, stages and acts with siblings and friends and invites a formal audience including teachers and once Major General Van Fleet, her great Aunt's employer. Attends NYC public school PS 77 from 1955- 1959.
'60-'65
1960 attends Nightingale Bamford School, NYC, an all girls’ school, until graduation (with the exception of Eleventh Grade). Begins a classical education. Studies literature, Greek and Roman culture, Latin, sciences (chemistry) and math. From ’60 – ’67, privately involved in medievalism, studying alchemy. In’65 takes fencing lessons and competes in weekly matches. Makes small oil paintings. Summers every year in the Endless Mountains, Laporte, PA from birth to age 17. Stays in the family home, a Greek Revival Victorian mansion, built in 1840, in need of constant repair. In 1963 performs a surrealist act— brings her Mexican burro (of 10 year's) into the house leading the unusually awed donkey (a kicker and biter) through the breakfast room, kitchen, lunch room, dining room, sitting room and parlor where she plays a made up composition on the piano which the donkey seems to recognize. The donkey winters at a local farm.
1965 Sees Duchamp's work and DADA at MOMA. Particularly struck by the Bicycle Wheel and the absurdism of the Dadaist Manifesto. That summer with her family tours Belgium and England for the first time. Visits Stratford on Avon, Dorset chalk figures, Stonehenge, Avebury, Bronte family home. Takes O levels (11th Grade) for one year at Stover School near river Teign, Newton Abbot, Devon accompanied by her younger sister. The school was chosen to be near their maternal Aunt and Uncle’s home in nearby Shaldon on the Teign.
1966
With fifteen year old sister, leaves boarding school the day it ends on a hitchhiking trip to Ireland. From Fishguard, Wales, ferries to Cork, travels from Cork to Limerick, County Wicklowe, and Dublin. During the two-week trip, sleeps on the deck of the ferry, in haystacks, barns and youth hostels. Flies to London, stays several weeks, then travels to Paris for a month each time staying with family friends.
1967
Graduates Nightingale-Bamford School, New York and in the fall enters Boston University, studying Liberal Arts. Lives off campus in a South End apartment. Summers in Woodshole working as a laboratory assistant for a marine biologist.
1969
Completes two years at Boston University while living in an apartment in Cambridge. Applies, but fails to enter Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. Summers in New York working as an assistant to a stained glass designer and fabricator. Reads Antonin Artaud Theater and Its Double, and The Theater of Cruelty. Attends BAM, La MaMA and other Downtown Theater. Does not continue with a Liberal Arts program but returns to Cambridge in the fall to reoccupy old apartment. Develops a portfolio by attending an evening life-drawing class and jewelry course at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts in order to reapply. In the jewelry class learns about liver of sulfur (a patina for silver) which later becomes a central material. A miscast becomes an important precursor to increased reliance on chance in work. Given a pair of mourning doves from the stained glass maker, she lets them fly free hanging a bicycle wheel for a perch. Shows it as a piece for student review. Accepted by the Museum School day program for the spring term.
1970
Does not matriculate at the Museum School however until the fall. Instead takes spring term in NYC to study with Jolyon Hoffstead, ceramist, at the Brooklyn Museum School, New York. Takes summer course at Katherine Gibbs Typing School as parent’s final insurance against the artist’s life. Meets Howard Guttenplan, Director of Millennium Film Theatre. Makes super 8 films. In fall begins attending the Museum School until graduation in 1974 with a BFA. Principally studies ceramics with William Wyman, lithography with Nicolas Hondrogen, life drawing and photography. Reads Silence, by Cage and Centering, by M.C. Richards. Her work is influenced by Duchamp, Dada and the Surrealists, particularly Dali, Tanguey and Buneul. Reads the Russian novelists, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol.
'71-'72
Summers in Berkley, CA; studies with Pete Voulkos and Vaea Marx at the University of California at Berkeley. Lives in a hippie commune on Panaramic Way with paintings done by members of the commune nailed to the outside of the house. Makes raku sculpture in kilns fired with Eucalyptus leaves. Appears in Vaea Marx’s film which is shown at the opening of his one person exhibition of ceramic saddles at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Sees a recreation of the Ryoanji Garden at the University of California at Berkeley. Returns to NYC, attends opening of Castelli and Sonnebend Galleries in Soho. Suffers from a severe identity crisis beginning in California due to association and comparison with older very established artists. Returns to school in Boston in fall and through Transactional Therapy is able to recover. Learns Maharishi Mahesh Yogi meditation practice encouraged by Dr. Larry Domasch, a NASA scientist and friend. Dr. Domasch, having written a paper comparing quantum mechanics to meditation, comes to the attention of the Maharishi. Together the Maharishi and Dr. Domasch found the Maharishi University of Management in Iowa which offers an undergraduate and graduate program. Many years later the artist's first monograph is used as a textbook in its art department. Designs and makes water clock (later titled 2v0) at Massachusettes Institute of Technology with the help of their scientific glassblower. Assists Jay Jaroslav, Conceptual artist and teacher at the Museum School, by creating 'identities' for his exhibition in Brussels. The FBI arrests Jaroslav. Speaks on his behalf in school-wide meeting organized to consider his dismissal. He is retained and eventually cleared of FBI charges. Inspired by Maya Deren’s Haitian dance film and Divine Horseman, her book on the Voodoo religion, Bradshaw travels to Haiti with filmmaker Howard Guttenplan. Spends Easter week in Port au Prince and appears in Guttenplan's film Haitian Diary. In early summer returns to New York and works for Rei Yoshimura, advertizing designer of the new Coca Cola campaign and bottle design. Learns a great deal about graphic art and design. Later that summer for a couple of months travels with Guttenplan to Copenhagen, Venice, Rome and attends the Independent Film Festival in Vienna. Returns to BMS in the fall.
1973 Visits Iolas Gallery over the years seeing works by Duchamp, Cocteau, de Chirico, Braque, Picasso, Man Ray, Magritte, Ernst. Summers with Guttenplan in Denmark, Vienna, Venice, Milan.
1974
Frequents The Turtle, local blues bar, where Bradshaw meets Howling Wolf, Big Mamma Thorton, and Muddy Waters, among others. Invites Howling Wolf to dinner with blues pianist, Teo Leijasmeir. Travels to Jamaica for Spring break with Leijasmeir. Hears local reggae. In Cambridge for income works as an artist's model and gives children’s parties. The Dadist parties are written up in the Boston Globe. On holidays in NY, photographs exhibitions for the art history class at Museum School. At Ivan Karp Gallery photographs William Anastasi’s Six Sites (on stretched canvas photo-silkscreen images of a ten percent reduction of the wall on which they are hung). Graduates with BFA from the Boston Museum School. Leaves Cambridge apartment where she's stayed since 1968. Summers again in Berkely, studying ceramics with Voulkos and Vaea. September returns to New York and works at Millennium Film Theater transcribing tapes of filmmakers talks. Attends premières of Stan Brackhage, Jack Smith, Anthony McCall, Michael Snow, Hollis Frampton, Paul Sharits, and Stan Vanderbeek, among others. At request of Jack Smith, photographs him dressed as 'Lobster Prince' reigning over his 'Arab slaves', the local Hispanic crowd at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park (lost). Makes papier-mâché frames for his film stills (never completed). Attends avant guard concerts at Carnegie Recital Hall, MoMA, St. Marks Church. Sees theater at Richard Forman's Ontological Theater, La MaMa, The Wooster Group, and Mabou Mines. Meets William Anastasi on August 15th and at the end of October, begins a life-long relationship with Anastas at first living at his apartment, 640 Riverside Drive (141st Street). They stay at this address until the fall of 1990. The social make-up of the neighborhood called Washington Heights, is Dominican and African American. Meets Joe Wilder, jazz musician, and Ingram Fox, classical composer, in their building. Learns of Anastasi’s idea of photographing himself once a day for a year. Suggests a double portrait which prompts them to start. Twenty-five years later the couple completes another year beginning and ending on the same dates. Begins a life-long routine of running 3 miles five or six days a week, with a mile run on off-days.
1975
Competes without success in the Boston Museum School Fifth Year Competition while living in New York. Begins anti-resume. Has her first solo exhibition at Razor Gallery in Soho, New York. Presents porcelain sculptures and Reliquaries of Duchamp, Cornel, Chaplin, Deitrich, Jean Cocteau, Bob Dylan along with a self-portrait. In a series of evenings at the gallery Patti Smith reads her poetry and Kurt Vonnegut reads excerpts from Slaughter House Five. Wins National Endowment of the Arts grant in Sculpture from a spring 1974 application. With Anastasi travels to Italy for his first trip. (All four of his grandparents are Sicilian and emigrated to US in the early part of the 20th Century.) They visit Milan, Venice, and Rome.
1976
January they visit Bradshaw's cousin Lance Lindabury in Cairo to reunite with her younger brother Timothy. He travels up from Tanzania to meet them. By then Timothy has been traveling for five years in East Africa and Madagascar. Climbs the Great Pyramid. Together with Anastasi and Timothy travel for a month up the Nile by boat, donkey and train (sometimes third class) to Kartoom. Back in New York claims  (her coinage) fire hose as a work of art at the Metropolitan Museum, New York by affixing her label (titled Performance in 1992).
1977
Suggests John Cage for the composer for Anastasi’s You Are at the Clock Tower, New York. Anastasi had met Cage 12 years before when he was preparing his Sound Objects for exhibition at the Dwan Gallery, but did not develope a relationship at that time. Cage agrees to perform You Are. Bradshaw photographs the event. This begins the friendship amongst them. Cage invites Anastasi to play chess which develops into a daily game when they are both in the same city. Bradshaw joins them a couple times a week when a fourth, such as Teeny Duchamp, Dorothea Tanning, the Surrealist painter and sculptor, or Grete Sultan, the pianist who premiered many of Cage's important works, is present. Cunningham does not play chess. Anastasi and Bradshaw become members of Cage's and Cunningham's family dining together several times a week.Cage prepares Macrobiotic food and Bradshaw learns to cook from him, including preparation of the Tassajara bread made from production of yeast from spoiling food. Anastasi and Bradshaw attend concerts and exhibitions together with Cage. Cage sees all Bradshaw's work that she shows to him regularly till the end of his life. Bradsahw rereads Silence and adds M, X, and Kostelanitz’s biography of Cage. Has second exhibition at Razor Gallery of clay sculpture though her work is changing and this new side of her work is as yet not shown. Pursues conceptual work such as Indefinite in which a framed sheet of newsprint is dated with each material and the length of time it remains stable in museum conditions. Inivted to show Break to Activate by Alanna Heiss at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York. Told she may put it where she likes, the artist installls it outside the ground floor main exhibition space by screwing a sheet of glass over the printed words. Six months later it is activated by a visitor who breaks the glass. Teaches an evening class of stained glass at the School of Visual Arts, New York until 1981.
1978
Continues with conceptual work such as Homage to Thoreau, a pencil shaving; and Painting, paint peeled from a sheet of glass. Photographs fire hose, makes postcard, plants stacks of 50 at a time in Metropolitan Museum Shop amongst Twentieth Century artists and buys two. Over the next few years continues to supply cards to the museum whenever visiting. Bradshaw meets artist/ddrummer, Monika Baumgartl who introduces her to Klaus Rinke. Bradshaw introduces them to Anastasi. Rinke arranges his Stuttgart dealer, Max Hetzler, to see Anastasi's work. Hetzler invites Anastasi for a solo exhibition and Bradshaw and Anastasi travel to Stuttgart for Anastasi's exhibition later that year. Hetzler introduces both artists to Dr. Stephan Von Weise at Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf. Visit Vienna and Venice.
1979
Influenced by John Cage’s remark, “I’m more interested in self alteration than self expression,” makes 50% Better dressed as a nun. Tabulates the difference a smile makes begging on two successive days in the subway. Makes Spent Bullets, by shooting .38’s at the NYPD firing range and casting them in silver and gold into earrings and pins to be worn outside the body as a political statement. Claims and titles a hygrometer, A(claimed) Object, at the Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, by affixing a label when traveling there for an exhibition of Anastasi's work, Incidents and Coincidents. Helps to curate and expand the exhibition from one to five rooms along with Dr. Stephan Von Wiese. Makes guerilla postcard of A(claimed) Object in 2011 and exhibits it in Thomas Rehbein Gallery in Cologne in her first solo exhibition in Germany. Realizes it is an unconscious precursor to humidity based works. Photographs edge of Manhattan Island (the idea of circling the island was conceived at age 9) by sighting the farthest point where water and land meet. Travels to that point, photographs ahead and behind to the next and previous points. To present work constructs ringed book so that it has no starting point.
1980

The Metropolitan Museum acquires Performance, photograph of the fire hose used to make the guerrilla postcard. At Merce’s recommendation takes tap dance at a class for Broadway hoofers with Monika Baumgartl.

1981

Begins making first serious two-dimensional work. Invents a removal process by using tape covered with various chance-placed media either swotted, dropped, thrown or left to fall on it such as fleece, dried grass, twig tea, dust. The tape is then adhered to a sheet of carbon paper and with pressure its surface is removed wherever unobstructed. Shows this series at Ericson Gallery, NY and is taken on as a member of the gallery at the recommendation of Theodoros Stamos. Later meets Stamos and George Costakis, who also frequents the gallery at the time that Costakis' collection of Russian Construstivism is shown at the Guggenheim Museum. Bradshaw's work is Influenced by Constructivist thinking. Buys from Carus Gallery a page from Explodity by Olga Rosanova, a wood block print which has one of Krushyeneck's poems painted on it in water color. Meets Leo and Toiny Castelli with Anastasi and begins friendship. They, along with Cunningham, Cage and Alanna Heiss attend the opening of her Carbon Removals. John Cage buys two “dust” carbons. The exhibition is reviewed by Peter Frank. Cage encourages return to this work ten years later when he declines to lend his two Removals to a exhibition the artist curates in 1991. Instead he asks her to “make more.” Bradshaw curates Eight Painters. Cage also buys her three miniature oils from this exhibition. For Carl Kielblock's first New York exhibition, shows four works of his works. Anastasi calls him his most extraordinary student in his18 years of teaching. He remains a close family friend. Edward Albee buys one of Kielblock's works. Anastasi and Bradshaw travel to Amsterdam for Cage's Sound Day and then travel with him to Brussels and Waterloo Battlefield to record sounds for Cage's Roarotorio. Cage has constructed the piece with random sounds gathered in places mentioned in Finnegans Wake which he selects by chance operations.

1982
Travels to Paris for Cage’s 70th birthday. Participates with Cage and Anastasi in a three-person exhibition at The American Center organized by the Director Judith Pisar. Anastasi amd Bradshaw stay two weeks with Teeny Duchamp in Sous Grez. Together they travel to Sicily to visit Rondazzo, Anastasi’s ancestral home which is grandfather left in 1904 and never returned. They visit catacombs in Palermo where the tradition of desiccation continues from the 18th Century. Bradshaw has second solo exhibition at Ericson Gallery of Works on Paper, involving a process she invented similar to the carbon removals, involving a prepared surface of white caran d'aches that could be added to with graphite, ink and other crayons or removed.
1983
At Wave Hill, shows drawings made in the last two years of plants found there. Virginia Dwan buys one. Simultaneously works on collages mounted on wood placing in chance arrangement images found in old medical and mathematical books. A selection of them is shown along with works of Anne Ryan curated by poet Ann Lauterbach, then director at the Washburn Gallery in Soho. Meets Ulay and Marina Abramovic at Cage’s house. Within a couple of weeks Anastasi and Bradshaw stay with them in Amsterdam for a week, assisting in a memorial for their friend ? at De Appel and accompany them to Brussels and Antwerp to attend a couple of their performances. In NY through Abramovic and Ulay meets Thomas McEvilley who becomes a champion of her work writing criticism, interviewing Cage for a first book in 1992 a month before Cage's death and later the text for her first monograph. After traveling with Abramovic and Ulay again stay with Teeny Duchamp in Sous Grez for two weeks. Spend one night in Duchamp’s studio in Neuilly amongst the editioned Readymades. Asks Anastasi to photograph her looking up at the Bottle Rack with hands together, titling the photograph, "Praying for irreverence". They travel to Cadequez, stay with Katy Monnier, Teeny Duchamp’s granddaughter, and meet Richard Hamilton. Visit Barcelona and Madrid particularly to see Gaudi architecture. Back in New York through Cage, Bradshaw meets Linda Mussman and Claudia Bruce, Founding Director and actor, respectively, in Time and Space Limited. From an idea in 1979 Bradshaw camouflages the walls and floor of their storefront theater with WWII dazzle patterns received from the Camouflage Department of the US Navy. Accompanied by music by Turkish composer, Semi Firingioglu, Time and Space develops a work based on the piece. Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein, John Cage, Leo and Toiny Castelli attend and are enthusiastic. The following year Bradshaw is invited by Cage to design for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In 1985, deconstructing space by removing the ceiling panels and using raw canvas cut in dazzle forms, she adapts Camouflage for a performance at Syracuse University, Utica NY.
1984

Begins Contingency series using pure silver on paper treated with liver of sulfur. The liver of sulfur causes an immediate reaction and renders the work susceptible to atmospheric conditions. Later, surfaces stretched linen or works directly on the wall with silver. Ultimately uses solid silver sheets adhered to or embedded in the wall. From this point on becomes principally involved with indeterminacy. Bradshaw decides to use as titles the fifteen words Cage has identified as ingredients of Composition: MethodStructureIntentionDiscipline NotationIndeterminacyInterpenetrationImitationDevotionCircumstancesVariableStructureNonunderstandingContingencyInconsistencyPerformance. That fall, Bradshaw is invited by John Cage to be co-Artistic Advisor along with William Anastasi for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. The position is actively held until the early ’90s, then later invites other artists to design. Travels along with Anastasi and Cage to Angers, France for their first piece titled Phrases. It premières at Théâtre Municipal D'Angers. For costumes, Bradshaw uses unitards of primary colors, turquoise, white and grey influenced by Mondrian’s moveable architectural squares. Provides black lines with dance accessories, and white shirts to accommodate Cunningham’s request for three costume changes. Dresses Cunningham in gray. Anastasi continues the idea in the backdrop by stretching rope at a right angle, its corner not visible, and then cocked at 45° reminiscent of Broadway Boogie Woogie. With Anastasi, travels to Laval, Brittany, the birthplace of Alfred Jarry. Five years later reads Le Surmale, recommended by art historian, Charles F. Stuckey for containing Duchamp references. Jarry becomes an important influence and fellow anarchist. Anastasi and Bradshaw tour Carnac and Neolithic tombs. They return via Paris visiting with Cage, Sam and Judith Pisar. The Pisar’s acquire a Carbon Removal. In the fall at Syracuse University, Utica College, Syracuse University at Utica N Y has an extensive mid-career exhibition titled Works 1969-1984. It consists of 45 conceptual works along with a rotating slide-presentation of Phrases).

1985
Designs and lights Arcade for MCDC, at City Center (two months later remakes it for Pennsylvania Ballet). Costumes Deli Commedia for video and Events for stage. Continues Contingency series. Exhibits collages on wood at Lorence Monk Gallery in Soho, NY. Told that Caroll Dunham strongly supports work although they have not met. Cage acquires a minimal white work from this series.
1986

Anastasi and Bradshaw are invited by the BBC, London to prepare for MCDC's Points in Space, made directly for video. Cage writes the music and Anastasi designs and paints three sets with BBC assistants. Bradshaw makes two sets of costumes. One is based on rubbings of sedimentary rock from Pennsylvania river bottom, the other is made up of multiple dippings set at different depths of the leotards into colored dyes. Gordon Mumma tells the artists 23 years later that the piece and video are classics and one of the best collaborations the company has done. Anastasi and Bradshaw stay a few days with Richard Hamilton and Rita Donnaugh in Oxford. That summer designs, lights and costumes MCDC’s Carousal for Jacob’s Pillow by using weathered underwear from Endless Mountain scarecrows. Continues with collages on wood, again shown at Lorence Monk. Adapts Points for City Center, New York.

1987
Designs, lights and costumes MCDC's Fabrications which premièred in winter at Northrop Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota. For the set, reworks a collage on wood in oil on vellum. The Brooklyn Museum buys the original vellum. Fabrications is revived in 2002 for MCDC's 50th Anniversary at Lincoln Center. It is one of four historical pieces to accompany a new work and becomes one of the most performed of Cunningham's repertory. Later at Cage's home meets Emanuel De Melo Pimenta, the composer for Fabrications, as well as an architect, poet, author, and photographer. They again collaborate on Trackers with MCDC and becoming close friends collaborate on many performances and exhibitions thereafter. They form an anarchic musical and performance group called Group in 2003. An exhibition based on MCDC and his collaborators at Lehman College, NY is curated by Nina Sundell, daughter of Leo Castelli and Ileana Sonnebend. Meets Charles F. Stuckey, after his lecture on Nothing at the Philadelphia Museum Centennial Celebration of Duchamp’s birth. Begins close friendship. Teeny Duchamp, Beatrice Wood, Jasper Johns and Cage also attend the Centennial. Begins large-scale series in oil on vellum using projected chance arrangements of found children's drawings. Later the artist collects drawings from Copenhagen, Kenya, a Harlem day care center and an Upper East Side, NY, primary school. The drawings are used by the artist to loosen her gesture and thinking. Makes Birth series from Harlem drawings on the occasion of the birth of her nephew, Alexander Fabry. One is acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Anastasi and Bradshaw stay in NY for the summer occasionally visiting Alanna Heiss and Fred Sherman in Patchogue, LI. In the fall, they travel to Frankfort for the première of John Cage’s Europera which they attend with him and Cunningham. The preceding week, they visit with Cage, see an important exhibition of Frieda Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Orozco and others, play chess and prepare homemade meals together. Before leaving Europe, Anastasi and Bradshaw visit Venice, their favorite city,.
1988
In summer they move into the Stone House in the Endless mountains. Spend half or almost all of each summer thereafter. The house, built and designed by the artist’s father and uncle, begun in 1932 when they were children, is based on a German Medieval half-timbered cottage (unheated) with a turret, gabled roof and sedimentary rock floor taken from a nearby river bottom. All materials except nails, timbers and cement were found or donated to the youths. It was finished just after WWII when they returned. The house retains aspects of childlike craft and vision. Bradshaw prepares twenty-three oil-on-vellum works from the past three years for her second exhibition at Utica College. She does not attend the opening, instead traveling with Anastasi to Copenhagen working on oil-on-vellum works to be shown at Stalke Gallery in the spring of the following year. Concurrent with the Utica exhibition in October, opens the inaugural exhibition at the Sandra Gering Gallery, 11th Street, NYC. Exhibits Heads, based on the children's drawings. Later that year showsContingency works for the first time in a group exhibition at Sandra Gering. Cage telephones to say how much he likes one from 1985. At Christmas Bradshaw gives it to him. Later it becomes a subject for conversation with Cage and Thomas McEvilley in Works 1969-1993, her first monograph. In the conversation Cage says that at first he likes the piece because it is amorphous but when it changes and a grid emerges he admits to McEvilley he doesn't like it. He says he refused to exchange it with another work rather feeling that he needs to live with it because it is teaching him to accept the changes that are going on all around him. Bradshaw learns of this only after Cage's death when the tape recording of their conversation is first heard. In an edition of 25, Bradshaw makes a catalogue raisonnè of works from 1969 to the present titled Nothing. It consists of an open electrostatic boxed book which is continually added to at irregular intervals. It is later acquired in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, The Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Whitney Museum of Art, NY, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Getty Museum, Malibu, The Beaubourg, The Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, Moderna Museet, Stockholm and The Russian State Museum, St Petersburg, among others.
1989

Recreates Plain Air (from student days) at Sandra Gering Gallery with a mated pair of Mourning doves. After a three-month exhibition with no egg production, casts the two halves of an eggshell in 18 karat gold for the first time. It is titled I, Nothing, series. The Art Institute of Chicago buys number IV shown later that year. Participates in Chaos, Signs of Attractors, curated by Laura Trippi at the New Museum, New York with two works. Additionally lends John Cage’s original 1951 I Ching two-page notations which he gave the artist after she had admired them visually (he had thumbed them so heavily that they had become oil stained ovals rendering some of the notations unreadible. When Bradshaw asked Cage about the missing information he pointed to his head noting that it had been committed to memory. By that time he had long since transferred his chance operations to computer for swifter working practice). His notations, shown on the title wall of Chaos, form the nexus of the exhibition. Bradshaw travels to Austin, Texas for MCDC's Cargo X.  The design and lighting is taken from the vellum paintings. Though normally a taboo for the company, Bradshaw creates in the costumes a great dynamic range of visibility making some of them electric pink and chartreuse while others become deep gray, purple and forest green. Visits former President Lyndon Johnson's library (though all the dancers were born after his presidency) and experiences a very different view from her 1968 anti-war platform as a volunteer for Students for a Democratic Society. She and fellow students had held two soldiers AWOL in the Boston University Chapel for three days while attending round-the-clock lectures on anti-war rallies and passive resistance. Federal marshals were called in to seize the soldiers and the students witnessed the power of government. Bradshaw suggests Sergei Bugaev (Afrika) after attending an exhibition at Paul Judelson Gallery, New York, of his and 9 other fellow Solviet artists works which he premiered in the country. Sergei Bugaev was one of the first Soviet artists to leave Russia before glasnost. Bradshaw had met him at Cage's home at dinner. Cage had met him in St. Petersburg when he had sought Cage out to show him the city. Bugaev had been invited to New York by Andy Warhol after Warhol had seen a photograph of the artist which he had sent him holding above his head his painting of the word "life" in Russian drawn in cement. Anastasi and Bradshaw later interpreted Bugaev's décor and costume sketches sent on a torn sheet of wallpaper for MCDC's August Pace. It premièred at City Center, New York. Bradshaw and Anastasi next choose Carl Kielblock for décor and costumes for Cunningham's Inventions. It also premièred at City Center. Cunningham invited Kielblock back for his 1991 Loosestrife.

1990

Bradshaw executes Plain Air for the Mattress Factory Museum, Pittsburgh with Roller pigeons. A 1987 oil-on-vellum children’s drawing (based on a Harlem drawing) is acquired by the Museum of Modern Art and exhibited in Drawings of the ‘80s Part II, Selections from the Permanent Collection curated by Bernice Rose. Suggests Cage curate an exhibition based on the chance determined work in his collection. He agrees to lend his Anastasi, Bradshaw, (Tom) Marioni, Rauchenberg, Toby and his own work for an exhibition at Sandra Gering Gallery. At Cage’s suggestion the title lists the artist's names. Bradshaw invites Richard Kostelanitz to interview Cage for a small catalogue. With great clarity, he describes the different chance methods used by each artist and afterwards verifies the information with the artists before publication. Meets Edward Albee who buys Anastasi’s unsighted drawing from the exhibition and begins a friendship. A year later the artist learns that Cage is also preoccupied with preparations for an ambitious international-five-city tour of his Rolywholyover circus. It is an extensive exhibition based on his selections from Twentieth Century painting, sculpture, film, dance, performance, and literature along with a presentation of a group of 18th Century Enzos. His choice of a library of books was also made available for the public as well as a chess nook for a dozen players. A competition against a 'blind' chess master and live performances of music were scheduled. For additional programming during the Venice Biennale, Bradshaw and Anastasi attend Anastasi's work with the word "JEW" in the Casino Fantasma which was curated by Alanna Heiss in the Winter Casino (formally Wagner’s home and where he died). Ms. Heiss says she cannot show Plain Air–though the Piazza St. Marco is home of the pigeon–because it is too destructive of the palazzo's watered silk walls. Anastasi and Bradshaw stay with her younger brother in his home in Bisticci, Tuscany (a priest’s house and deconsecrated church). In the fall Anastasi and Bradshaw purchase an apartment and move to 924 West End Avenue (105th and Broadway) where they continue to live, maintaining their studio at Riverside Drive.

1991
For his contribution at the Carnegie International Cage invites three women artists, Bradshaw, Mary Jean Kenton and Marsha Skinner to exhibit along with him. Scoring the space for a daily rotating hanging program, and the placement of a number of chairs, he selects twelve large Contingency works on paper, twelve of Kenton's scatter pieces, twelve of Skinner's paintings and twelve of his Ryoanji Drawings. With Cage and Anastasi attends opening dinner where Richard Hamilton is also an exhibiting artist. Executes Plain Air at PS1 Contemporary Art Center in an exhibition Alanna Heis launches in response to the Whitney Biennial. In an attempt to deflect market influences, she invites two Eastern Europeans, Zadenka Gabelova and Richard Wasco, to curate a survey of American art. For the large ground floor exhibition space the artist increases the size of this work: two wheels (penny/farthings), two targets, and two pairs of flight pigeons. First solo exhibition devoted to the Contingency series of paintings and large-scale works on paper is shown at Sandra Gering. Accommodates the chemical changes of the paper works by placing them between two sheets of glass in a steel frame of her design. Also shows Full, a series of pigment paintings bound in varnish on stretched linen in which she announces that one painting will be "redusted" upon each exhibition while the other will remain with its "scars." Uses unfixed titanium dioxide pigment in a painting titled Boundary. The title is taken from a two-fold source—her own boundary/body height and shoulder width, as well as the definition of painting she found in the Shou Wen (first century Chinese dictionary). It states, “To paint is to make boundaries”. Bradshaw views this as an ever relevant definition of the avant guard.
1992
Makes first photogravure with Evans Editions, NY and Renaissance Press, Vermont. The image is of a Honey Locust thorn twisted around the arm of MCDC dancer, Victoria Finlayson. Its title Medium comes from realizing that the dancer's pain acts as a kind of medium to his or her performances. Bradshaw observes that the dancer may use pain as a material the way pigment is for a painter. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York publishes a legitimate postcard version of Performance (the Fire Hose) in an edition of 10,000. It becomes a best seller and within a few years sells out. Completes large scale Contingency [Book] bound with a silver clasp, housed in a silver-over-copper case stamped with its title. It consists of six leaves oxidized with liver of sulfur with a seventh left untreated. Anders Tornberg and his future wife, Inger each buys one painting of the diptych titled Generation from that year. The images are complementary checkerboard patterns. Travels to Sweden for Anastasi’s first exhibition there titled, Works, 1963-92 at the Anders Tornberg Gallery in Lund. Bradshaw photographs Anastasi performing a "Blind Drawing" at the opening. Bradshaw and Anastasi choose Carl Kielblock to do the décor and costumes for MCDC's Loostrife which premiéres at Théâtre De La Ville, Paris. Cage gives one of his final most extensive interviews to Thomas McEvilley about work for the artist’s first monograph, Works 1969-1993 published by the Sandra Gering Gallery. Cage unexpectedly dies less than two months later on August 12th. Bradshaw begins practicing Yoga. On October 13th Anastasi, Bradshaw and her mother attend Cage's wake at the MCDC studio at Westbeth. Merce Cunningham oversees the invitations and arrangements. Roarotorio performer Joe Heeny arrives from Ireland to play traditional drums with bones accompanied with a ululation by an Irish singer who had also performed Cage's music. Without being dark she interspersed the soulful song at chance determined intervals accompanying live performances played by composers Cage had chosen for the company over the years. Flowers were brought and individually placed in dozens of wine bottles as Cage himself had done eschewing bouquets. Two thousand people attend over the course of the day.
1993

Exhibits Contingency paintings at Sandra Gering accompanied by Works 1969-1993, (the text: A conversation between John Cage and Thomas McEvilley), published by Sandra Gering Gallery. It is republished in McEvilley’s Sculpture in the Age of Doubt, Allworth, New York in 1999. Shows a drawing in William Anastasi’s Drawing Sounds for John Cage, a memorial exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum. Anastasi invites fifteen artists close to Cage to record the making of a drawing. It is then shown on a lucite clipboard with an attached micro-cassette tape recorder. Bradshaw begins powdered zinc sulfate paintings, a material used in coloring cement. Observes that zinc sulfate changes with humidity faster than the silver works. Photographs this first 17 x 14 inch painting from its first month and continues photographing it once a month for the next two years. The series of photographs are reproduced in a small book titled Inconsistency published in Denmark in 1998. Attends opening of Cage’s posthumous exhibition Rolywholyover circus opening at the Museum of Contemporary Art, LA. Cage has included six works of Bradshaw’s—a large Contingency painting (1993), two Contingency works on paper (1985 & 1989), Boundary (1991), and two Carbon Removals (1981). All the works in the exhibition are hung according to a changing score developed by Cage. Retired works are temporarily placed in a visible storage on moveable screens, and may later be rehung. Anastasi and Bradshaw spend a day with Beatrice Wood in her home in La Jolla. Miss Wood was first introduced by letter in 1974 by Bradshaw's mother who had roomed in Rio and traveled with her to Manchu Pichu during a World Crafts Council International Forum. At the time, Bradshaw's mother had hoped that she would apprentice with Ms. Wood as a ceramist, but instead the artist had chosen sculpture and painting. She finally met Ms. Wood in 1987 at the Duchamp Centennial. They were reintroduced by Teeny Duchamp at this exhibition where Ms Wood invites Anastasi and Bradshaw to visit her when they are out West for the Rolywholyover. In Ojai at her home after lunching off of her Raku-fired-silver plates and goblets, Bradshaw realizes for the first time that the Contingency works are influenced by her early Raku work in ’71 and ’74. She makes a volatile indeterminate sculpture, a lump of liver of sulfur sealed in a laboratory bottle titled with the chemical formula of the two ingredients, AgK2SX + K2SO3. When acquired in Japan by the Director of 360° the action is begun by the recipient who places the ingredients in the bottle, then seals it with a ground glass lid. Executes Passion, consisting of a vertical bar of copper embedded in the wall and treated with acetic acid. It is set in her bathroom in order to take advantage of maximum humidity.

1994
The twentieth anniversary of living with William Anastasi is celebrated by dual exhibitions, Autobodyography (WA) with Indeterminacy (DB) at Werner Kramarsky Opus Posthumus, New York, and Unsighted Drawings (WA) with Contingency (DB) at Sandra Gering Gallery. Both are concurrent with John Cage's Rolywholyover circus at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Eight works of Anastasi's and six works of Bradshaw's are included. Makes Do Not Touch, with seven drops of mercury secured in a miniature glass vial with sealing wax. At the end of the year makes first land sculpture, titled Indeterminacy consisting of pyrite and Cararra marble. Leaves it in Sandra Gering’s garden in New York to weather. Travels to Paris for Anastasi’s lecture on Jarry’s influence on Joyce delivered at the École Normale Supérieure, Sorbonne. Stays a week in Rouen with Teeny Duchamp, Richard Hamilton, Rita Donauch, and Calvin and Dodi Tomkins for a Duchamp symposium. All visit Duchamp’s idyllic childhood home in the mayoral house in Blainville at the invitation of the current mayor. Two of Duchamp’s father’s watercolors still hang in the study. In summer begins herb and woodland garden in the mountain house.
1995
Spring, travels to the marble quarry in West Rutland, Vermont to make large scale Indeterminacy stones (one to two tons) for fall exhibition at Sandra Gering. Shows three-part 16 mm film at this exhibition. Part one, the 2v0 is filmed in action as both a clock and level; part two, the mechanics of film are shown in their most primitive form as they may have been first discovered: a stream reflects a beam of sunlight into a dark cave projecting its movement onto the rough stone wall; part three, liver of sulfur dissolving in a bowl of water. Anastasi and Bradshaw take a one-month residency in Orkney, Scotland to produce an exhibition at the Pier Center. The Museum, founded by a gift of an important collection of the mid-century St. Ives group, is unexpectedly devoted to cutting edge work. Bradshaw learns about it from Allan Johnston, a well known Scottish artist who lives in Edinburgh, and Lawrence Weiner at the 1992 Cage Memorial. Becomes interested because of her maternal great grandfather who had come from Orkney. Charles Carpenter, Bradshaw's collector, attends the opening traveling from New Canaan, CT. Bradshaw leaves two permanent pieces in the Pier courtyard: Passion (1993), designed originally for an outdoor work is shown for the first time embedded in one of its exterior walls and left to weather; and Indeterminacy V, a local sandstone boulder is combined with New York pyrite. The artists visit Scarabrae, a Megalithic village built from the same sandstone where nearby the Indeterminacy stone was found. The village, half underground, follows the form of a rabbit warren with a network of tunnels running between homes. Anastasi and Bradshaw visit Maes Howe, a tomb with a 30 ton sandstone block forming one side of its corridor. The corridor aligns with a menhir set in a meadow a quarter mile away. When the solstice sun rises a ray lights the corridor striking the headstone of the tomb set deep inside. In this moment the souls are meant to rise to heaven once again. They also visit the Ring of Brogdar, two concentric circles of standing stones of similar scale, but more complete than Stone Henge. Visit Oxford to see Richard Hamilton and Rita Donaugh. Row on the Isis.
1996
Introduces Contingency paintings, Indeterminacy stones and Indeterminacy [film] at Stalke Gallery Copenhagen. Travels to Sweden for Anastasi’s second exhibition at Anders Tornberg Gallery. Anders and Inger Tornberg buy Ag + K2SX + K2S03, Spent Bullets and Survival (acupuncture needles placed in a wax cast of a bird heart). Tornberg, gravely ill, has immediate identification with the piece. He insists that Anastasi use his blood in his performance at the opening titled, Whitness. Starts Waterstones using Indiana limestone cubes cut to size and separatory funnels. Limestone is used because of its relative softness. Has funnels made by a scientific glassblower and begins a slow and steady dropping of water that has continued until the present. After a decade a slight indentation has been created. Also conceives of using rock salt, but executes it in 1998, and executes the use of granulated industrial grade salt in 2001, though this idea too was conceived this year. Starts large paintings titled S, made up of powdered sulfur bound in varnish. Large quantities of sulfur had mistakenly been shipped from a sulfur factory in New Jersey. Bradshaw determines to use it all.
1997

Exhibits S (paintings), Indeterminacy (stones) and Indeterminacy [film] at Barbara Krakow Gallery in Boston (a familiar gallery from student days). Completes second large-scale Contingency [Book] bound with steel clasps and housed in a steel case stamped with its title and the artist's name. Five leaves were treated in ’95 by placing them in contact with previously oxidized sheets and left to print one on the other for two years while two sheets were left unoxidized. When the book was bound, the leaves immediately act on one another and when open, the air and light act upon it. Travels to Vienna for Anastasi’s retrospective exhibition with Hubert Winter. Anastasi and Bradshaw visit Berlin, Munich and for the first timePrague. They travel to Italy and stay with her brother, Timothy Bradshaw, in Bisticci, Bradshaw with her brother's assistance takes three marble boulders found on the Carrara mountain to make Indeterminacy stones, uniting them with large chunks of pyrite shipped from the States. They are left at the Home Gallery outside Bisticci. After a few months Timothy photographs them with a deep iron/rust bleed. Anastasi and Bradshaw return to NYC via Rome staying there for a few days.

1998

Exhibits Irrational Numbers a two gallery exhibition, one at Sandra Gering in Soho and the other at Linda Kirkland in Chelsea. Negative Ions (1996/98) and Contingency [book] (1995/97) are shown at Sandra Gering Gallery and Contingency (sheets of silver treated the day before the opening) and Indeterminacy stones (limestone cubes with pyrite) at Linda Kirkland Gallery. For Gering, the rock salt boulders are shipped directly to the gallery from a Cleveland salt mine. At the opening, Bradshaw begins dropping water from glass funnels and continues for the month-long exhibition. In the front room of the Linda Kirkland Gallery exhibition are the four Indeterminacy stones in which one foot pyrite chunks are set on 12” limestone cubes which together have previously weathered outdoors for one year; in the second room, the four chemically treated silver sheets were shown with 2v0. In July the Indeterminacy [film] (1995) is shown with Smithson’s Spiral Jetty at Millennium Film Theater, New York. At the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, Bradshaw has her first significant solo museum exhibition. Three Indeterminacy stones ('95 and '97), three Contingency paintings (‘91-’97) and two Contingincy works on paper (’85 and ’89), Contingency [Book] (1995-97), two Carbon Removals (’92), S (1997), Passion (’93) and Ground (’88) plaster on wall executed in situ are shown. Just over half the works were either made or executed in situ for the exhibition. With Anastasi takes the Silver Bullet from New York to Los Angeles. They stop in Winslow, Arizona for a few days. Trek on horseback with host, John Gross and a Navajo guide in Canyon DuSchellie. Its giant basin is weathered with black iron stains spilling down the rock face. With host and Hopi guide see traditional Hopi dance on Mesa not for tourists. Fall, begins regime of raw food which continues until the present. Makes a series of paintings using kitchen staples that are no longer used—white and whole wheat flour, salt, brown and white sugar, spirits, caffeine tea, coffee, etc. The artist stated that since they would no longer be consumed she might as well use them art materials. Returns in October to LAMOCA to give a series of classes to less-advantaged children organized by the museum's development committee in order to create future audiences. Bradshaw is overwhelmed by the childrens’ unspoiled enthusiasm.

1999
Spring, shows Guilty Marks at Stalke Gallery consisting of paintings from the last two years made by pouring salts, chemicals and inks on wet varnish. The title betrays the fact that the work does not rely solely on chance for composition. Does not attend the opening. Accompanies Anastasi to makes prints with Niels Borch Jensen by pouring acid on the etching plates as well produces a photo-etching of Spent Bullets. Number 1 of the edition is acquired by The Metropolitan Museum, New York. Travels to the University of California at San Diego for a group exhibition titled Nature/Process in which she shows Negative Ions I this time with red rocksalt from Salt Lake. Meets Kathleen Stoughton, the Director and plans to return with a future exhibition.
2000

Shows Waterstones using rainwater collected during the two month exhibition at Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. Travels to Virginia for Millennial exhibition at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Shows one Waterstone at the Bayly Art Museum and executes Notation II by embedding a copper cube in an Alberene soapstone boulder (from a local quarry) for private collectors. The sculpture is left to weather outdoors on their Jeffersonian plantation built in 1815. There are a number of other artist's works placed on their grounds. With Anastasi takes a month’s residency in Cobh, Ireland at the Sirius Arts Center, built in 1750 as a Yacht Club. Cobh, formerly called Queenstown, was the Titanic's last port. Works on copper pieces and creates a sculpture court in its stone piazza, initiated by Notation III. It consists of a milled equilateral copper prism set onto a local limestone cube and left to weather. Travels back-to-back to a three-month residency at Statens Vaerksteder for Kunst at Gammeldok, Copenhagen. Prepares for two exhibitions in Denmark opening on two successive days three months later.

2001
The first is an extensive solo exhibition at Stalke Gallery, a five room gallery presenting seven new series. Negative Ions II (’96/’01) three salt mounds with water-filled dropping funnels is shown for the first time. Self Interest (’99/01), also a première, consists of the twenty-three principal body elements isolated in Pyrex flasks in their proportion by weight. A chemistry laboratory in Copenhagen assists in filling the flasks. Also premièring Quarter Equals Half (’00), raw pigment paintings on equilateral canvases with champhored sides, Material/Immaterial (’00) land sculptures with local spring and aged calcspar, Notation IV (’00) cube of German limestone with a milled copper prism left outdoors for three months, Infringement (’93/01) a vertical copper bar embedded in the wall touching the floor, which is then treated with acetic acid until its verdigris stain flows onto the floor, Nothing Series II (’00) a goose eggshell cast in gold. The only piece shown earlier was Passion (’93) . All the work was made in Denmark except the flasks and gold egg are shipped from the US. Opening the next day, the second exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde is titled Anastasi Bradshaw Cage. It involves three generations of pioneers each working with his or her own method of chance. Twenty one of Cage's works from 1950-1989 from the Anastasi/Bradshaw collection are shown, made by the use of what Cage called chance operations. Sixteen of Anastasi’s unsighted works from 1961-2001, and sixteen of Bradshaw’s weather or chemical interactive works from 1969-2001 were also shown. Returning to NYC in the new year Bradshaw exhibits Waterstones (’96) at Stark Gallery. This time uses tap water. Also included are Without title, copper treated with acetic acid (’01, made in Ireland), and Ikkyu (’01, made in Denmark) a brass scroll treated with ammonia and acetic acid. That summer plants first vegetable garden and for a New Yorker enjoys her first home grown food.
2002
With Anastasi travels to Lisbon to lecture at Diferenca Gallery as part of a symposium titled Thought as Design. Artists and scientists from the US, Europe and South America are invited to participate for one week in a Benedictine Monastery in the hills of Arrabida, an hour outside Lisbon. Bradshaw is Invited to return in 2003 for a solo exhibition at Diferenca Gallery. The medieval monastery was approachable only by sea up until the 1930’s. Anastasi and Bradshaw meet Daniel Charles there and stay with him in Antibes for a week to work on a ’02 monograph dedicated to John Cage which is scheduled to appear this year a decade after his death. Bradshaw shows first oil paintings titled Angles (equilateral painting) in Summer white, some are not at Larry Becker Contemporary Art. In spring with Anastasi travels to Berlin, Cologne, Stuttgart, Paris, and London preparing exhibitions. Completes in Cologne Art and Life (’00/02) a miniature sculpture: one a pyrite crystal 3/8 inches square, accompanied by its copy in 24 Karat gold, having been given permission by Malevich's miniature children's blocks painted white. This Malevich piece was included in the exhibition The Century of Innocence: The History of the White Monochrome (2000) in which Bradshaw also participates with Boundary. Acts as Associate Curator along with Evelina Domnitch for Willoby Sharp's H20, an exhibition involving twenty five artists working with water. The exhibition follows thirty years after both his Earth Art, and Air Art exhibitions. Makes second vegetable garden expanded to include asparagus, and hemp. Reads Neitszche's Thus Spake Zarathustra and Will to Power, and stories from The Thousand Nights and One Night. Mark Batty Publisher, LLD, New York, agrees to publish a monograph on her work with text by Thomas McEvilley. It includes the republication of the 1992 Cage and McEvilley conversation. A Furthermore grant assists this publication to be released in March ’03. It will accompany a retrospective at The Sidney Mishkin Gallery, Baruch College, City University of New York in March, ’03. The ten year memorial concert for John Cage is organized by Emanuel De Melo Pimenta at the Tatinsian Gallery in December. Creates INFINITY an anti-war performance on the eve of the Iraq war. Invites audience members to select a spent bullet from a FIRE bucket, then bags it in a velvet bag, signing and numbering each successively beginning with number 1/INFINITY before giving it away. Does first photographic work with Evelina Domnitch as a model, asking her to pose nude with the names of the body elements painted on her back in descending order by weight.
2003
The mid-career exhibition, Formformlessness at The Sidney Mishkin Gallery opens in the spring. The publication of the monograph, Dove Bradshaw: Nature Change and Indeterminacy is supported by the production of a Limited Edition Box in an Edition of 40. The Box includes the monograph, two original works similar in each box with a third unique to each and four editions. Also in March at the inception of the Us/Iraq War, along with a team of visiting Irish students assists Anastasi camouflaging the floor, walls, and ceiling of the White Box Annex for his Blind 1966/03. Conceives of an anti-war poster involving the camouflaging of Anastasi nude with body paint, and then having him photographed in Blind. Anastasi attaches a Dwight D. Eisenhower quote to the poster, "We have all heard the term preventive war, I don't believe there is such a thing." Bradshaw convinces a paint company to donate the body paints and Art Forum along with collectors, Ost/Kuttner to donate the funds for a full page add. The Whitney Museum of Art purchases the poster in 2004. In June travels to Lisbon to prepare a solo show titled Angles at Diferenca Gallery at the invitation of Irene Buroaque. The gallery itself is in the shape of a triangle with a triangular courtyard. In the garden Notation V. with local limestone and a copper prism is placed. Anastasi and Bradshaw stay at the home of Emanuel De Melo Pimenta in Cais Cais. The artists travel to Rome and then Spoletto to stay a month in the home/studio of Sol LeWitt and are invited to use his Fabriano paper. They meet Marina Mahler, granddaughter of Gustav Mahler, who introduces them to the local artists, composers and a choreographer. Anastasi and Bradshaw travel to Bolognano near Pescara at the invitation of Baronessa Lucrezia Durini to exhibit work at the Defensa Natura Festival organized by Emanuel Pimenta. Baronessa Durini is a champion of Joseph Beuys's work and during his life offered him patronage and a summer home near by. Bradshaw makes three outdoor sculptures from salt, stones and thorns gathered locally. Stays in a medieval house formerly built for serfs, one of many that circle the Baronessa's Palazzo. She owns a dozen of these surrounding houses which have their ground floors transformed into glass 'virtines' devoted to the work of individual artists. Like an Italian Marfa, each evening the vitrines are lit up until dawn. Some of the works are surrealist, others kinetic and poetic. Meets Lita Albequerque there, an artist born in Tunisia living in LA. Bradshaw executes her first Daguerreotypes.
2004
Makes Performance [Fire Hose] book at the suggestion of Carl Andre. Casts second goose egg in gold. Makes first guerrilla postage stamps and successfully mails them around the US and Europe. Exhibits principally editioned works, photo-etchings, gravures, photographs, inkjet prints, multiples, the LTD Box, along with a salt sculpture and an Angle painting and the "O" dress at Volume Gallery, NY. A nude model, one of Alvin Alley's dancers, wears the sheer net dress with the names of the body elements printed on its back, like the Domnitch photograph, but with the spelling of "oxygen' continuing down its front. The model slowly turns on a pedestal at the opening. Uses portrait photographed by Emanuel de Melo Pimenta in Diferenca Exhibition for the Volume poster. The Whitney Museum of Art purchases the Performance book and Volume poster. Travels to LA for Anastasi’s exhibition with the SolwayJones Gallery. Meets Tony Ganz. (in ’05 he acquires Anastasi’s Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, 1966). Makes self portraits reviving childhood involvement in alchemy by portraying herself as a medieval alchemist with skulls. Notices without communication that Adam Fuss and Marina Abramovic, also in a self portrait, use skull imagery. Makes a print of the Daguerreotype image of a skull and egg using it for a flag to be flown at the inauguration of the Rubin Museum, NY. An iris print of the image made at Pace Editions is donated to their permanent collection. Executes a five month Negative Ions II with local salt for The Invisible Thread: Buddhist Spirit in Contemporary Art shown at Snug Harbor in Staten Island. Travels to Washington, DC, to ask the National Science Foundation scientists to collect salt from Antarctica. They agree to do so. Meets director of the Women’s Museum to discuss possible future work.
2005

In January mounts the Anastasi Bradshaw Cage Cunningham exhibition at the University Art Museum, The University of Virginia in Charlottesville which she has curated. Gives a lecture on the concept of the exhibiton and the friendship and collaboration amongst the artists. Makes a DVD of the exhibition with a sound track of the lecture, overlayed with Cage’s Roarotorio, Anastasi’s execution of a half hour Sound Drawing, and Evelina Domnitch and Dimitry Gelfand, performing as musicians imitating the sound of Anastasi's Sound Object (the deflating innertube) shown in the exhibition. Post production work is done by CC Elian Studios. The Anastasi Bradshaw Cage Cunningham exhibition shows concurrently with Anastasi Bradshaw at Les Yeux du Monde Gallery in Charlottesville. Michael Straus, collector of both their work travels to Charlottesville to see the exhibitions. The artists travel to Berlin to exhibit in the inaugural exhibition of Shering Gallery. Bradshaw discusses exhibition possibilities with Dr. Eugen Blume, Director of the Hamburger Banhoff Museum. Makes a suite of seven prints with Niels Borch Jensen in Copenhagen. Adds five more Material/Immaterial stones that are set outdoors at the Kirke-Sonnerup Gallery in town of the same name. The dealer, Sam Jedig, tars the outside of his gallery to set off the black and white sculptures. The original five stones from The Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde join them. Eventually there will be fifteen stones to match the number in the Ryoanji Garden in Kyoto. Spends three weeks traveling in Germany, Blankenese (one week while Anastasi prepares Blind for art agents in Hamburg). Meets with Wulf Herzogenrath, Director of the Art Museum,in Bremen and draws a page for his book while he writes for her Performance [Fire Hose Book]. In Heidleberg meets with Director of the Kunstvereign, in Stuttgart Anastasi and Bradshaw stay with Nikolas Koliusis a friend and photographer of Anastasi's 1979 Kunstmuseum exhibition titled Coincidents. In Cologne they stay a week while Anastasi prepares for his exhibition at Thomas Rehbein Gallery. Bradshaw visits Bonn Museum of Art, and meets with Dr.Adolphs, curator. Returns to the States and a month later opens Six Continents at Larry Becker Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. It is the inaugural exhibition of salt taken from the six continents and subjected to a steady dropping from water-filled funnels. In the second room the inaugural exhibition of Angles Twelve Rotations is hung on one wall. It is the most visited show in twenty years of the gallery's history, Larry Becker reports. Bradshaw and Jakob Holder, playwright and videographer, make a DVD of the salt sculptures. Collector Michael Straus purchases twelve Limited Edition Boxes, six to donate to museums at mutual agreement and six to give to the artist in exchange for commissioning a Notation outdoor sculpture (similar to the Ost/Kuttner work in Charlottesville). It is to be executed in Birmingham Alabama using Alabama White a local marble in 2007. Nick Lawrence of Volume Gallery purchases the remaining thirteen Limited Edition Boxes. Batty Publisher keeps one. Anastasi and Bradshaw summer in Laporte. Bradshaw plants four pear and three peach trees and grows an Italian garden of tomatoes, peppers, parsley and basil. Writes article for Sullivan Review titled Noise Murders Thoughts (grass roots revolution to advocate clean air and quiet mowing machines). Prepares a large Contingency for her first SolwayJones Gallery exhibition in the fall. Travels to San Diego for Anastasi Bradshaw Cage Cunningham and to LA for Six Continents. The dealers report that it is the most visited exhibition in their five years of existence. Raises money and designs adds for the first double spread page with Art Forum for the solo exhibition in LA and Anastasi Bradshaw Cage Cunningham in San Diego. Begins asking artists for exhibition she is curating of Americans to be held at Kirke-Sonnerup Gallery in Denmark and a museum to be announced in 2007. The artists are William Anastasi, Marcia Haffif, Gene Highstein, Sol LeWitt, Richard Nonas, Janet Passchle, Robert Ryman, Merrill Wagner and Bradshaw.

2006 In 2005 Jakob Holder, hears of Bradshaw's one year score to rotate an Angle painting once a week and asks to be the first to execute it. Bradshaw designs a score for 2006 which begins and ends on a Sunday and designates each Sunday as the day for rotation. Holder selects one of the Angle paintings and hangs it on the first day, a Sunday, of the year. Four months later while on a five week writing retreat in Finland he takes it with him to continue the rotations. The Whitney Museum acquires both her posters of Anastasi Bradshaw Cage Cunningham, Six Continents, Anastasi Exhibiton for Ressle Gallery, New York, and Time and Material posters for Trancoso, Portugal. After thirty one years from the initial claim, Rosalind Jacobs buys Performance [Fire Hose], at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a significant amount of money, taking ownership in the form of Bradshaw’s guerilla label which identifies the title, materials, text, purchase attribution and mention honoring Mr. Melvin Jacobs of the piece. Gary Tinterow, Chief Engelhard Curator in Charge of Nineteenth-Century, Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art accepts Ms. Jacobs donation of Bradshaw's label giving the museum the right to call their Grand Mezzanine NW Corner hose a work of art. Participates in the Spirit of Discovery 1, Trancoso, Portugal with Time and Material, in the Ingrejo do Convento, with Eurasia, an erosion salt work, Crack In the Air (thorn), and other works. Commissioned by the Bar.ssa. Lucrezia Durini, Anastasi and Bradshaw each execute a permanent vitrine for the town of Bolognano in June. Bradshaw installs Radio Rocks first conceived in 1999. It consists of three hand made radios embedded in local stone which are computer programmed to bring in random signals. Acting as non-linear mixers galena and pyrite crystals continuously draw in local and distant short wave radio signals. The third radio detects microwaves. The National Science Foundation agrees to officially fund the gathering of more salt from Antarctica. Invited by Mr. Shu Uemura, of the Cosmetics Company of the same name, Bradshaw travels to Asia for the first time with Anastasi to exhibit in Gallery 360°, in Tokyo. From there Bradshaw travels to South Korea to participate in the 2006 Gwangju Biennale with her Six Continents.
2007 Exhibits at BjÖrn Ressle Gallery, New York in April new large scale Contingency Paintings made in the summer of 2006 in the country studio, along with Contingency [Book], a Waterstone, II series, Nothing 2 (gold cast of a goose egg shell) and Crack In the Air (thorn). Continues with a new series of works on paper called Quick Constructions, made with titanium dioxide pigment, silver, liver of sulfur, varnish and beeswax on paper. In January travels to Birmingham, AL to select a stone from the local marble quarry of Alabama white, a commission for Michael Straus, collector and board member of the Birmingham Museum of Art. Mr. Straus also curated his first exhibition, Anastasi Judd Sandback, at the Birmingham Museum which occasioned the timing of the trip. In April travels to Los Angeles for the opening of Anastasi's first exhibition with the Michael Benevento, Orange Group. Participates in the Spirit of Discovery 2, Art and Science Symposium in Trancoso, Portugal presenting in the Ingrejo do Convento new work titled Constructions consisting of 2 reliefs (now permanent), a limestone and copper sculpture and the 60 posters of past exhibitions. In October she had a two week residency at Pont-Aven Graduate School. Her first exhibition in Italy was in November at Senzatitolo in Rome titled Time & Material. In December she was the curator of an exhibition at Ressle titled ONE (each work and its presentation is constructed of a single material). The exhibition was dedicated to Sol LeWitt who died earlier that year and involved the minimal/conceptual artists Anastasi, Andre, Barry, Bradshaw, Hafif, Highstein, LeWitt, Nonas, Wagner and herself. December 31, the Metropolitan Museum of Art formally accepts Performance, the fire hose into their permanent collection.
2008 From February to May Bradshaw has an extensive survey at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge, MA accompanied by a catalogue with text by Charles Stuckey. In May ONE traveled to Esbjerg Museum of Modern Art, Esbjerg Denmark under the title ONE More with the addition of Lawrence Anastasi, Janet Passehl, Cordy Ryman and Robert Ryman. The exhibition will travel to Thomas Rehbein Gallery, Cologne in January 2009. June and July Radio Rocks, 1998-2008 exhibited at Larry Becker Contemporary Art, Philadelphia comprising an installation in which live reception of radio storms from Jupiter were picked up via radio telescope through pyrite crystals mounted onto stone cairns. Weather, world band short wave and local signals were received through hematite, galena, fluorite and pyrite crystals. Micro-waves, echoes of the Big Bang were intercepted through a microwave receiver. Bradshaw exhibited two work in Choosing, curated by Robert Barry at the Andrée Sfeir-Zemler Gallery, Hamburg in November.
2009

Bradshaw traveled with Lawrence Anastasi, William Anastasi’s son, for ONE More which she curated at the Thomas Rehbein Gallery in Cologne. Part of the shipment did not arrive for the first opening; Lawrence completed a painting that day. The shipment arrived for the second opening. Bradshaw hung the exhibition and exhibited her Negative Ions II using local salt. She and Lawrence traveled to Hamburg to the Andreé Sfeir-Semmler Gallery for the exhibition Choosing curated by Robert Barry in which she was included. In the spring at the opening of the Manzoni exhibition at Gagosian Gallery in New York Bradshaw met the Milanese curator Diora Fraglica where one of her Manzoni works was on display. Ms. Fraglica introduced Anastasi and her to Getulio Alviani and Enrico Castellani, two of the Italian Geometric and Op artists involved with experiments in visual perception and psychology. Fraglica will include the three Americans, Anastasi, Tom Shannon (to whom Bradshaw introduced her) and Bradshaw in an exhibition with other Italian artists including Fontana and Masseroni.  In May Bradshaw traveled to Modena with Anastasi for his painting exhibition and the publication of his first monograph by Richard Milazzo at the Emilio Mazzoli Gallery. Milazzo was also curator of the exhibition. Anastasi and Bradshaw attended the Venice Biennale where they visited Nasim Weiler of Art Agents, their German dealer, and Francesca Pietra Paolo, an independent curator and former MoMA assistant to Gary Garrels. In Copenhagen Bradshaw mounted the second version of ONE Copenhagen: Six Americans and Six Danes. All the artists were present except Robert Barry whose work she installed.  In Hamburg, Barry had overseen the installation of her two wall works Oracle and Zero Space, Zero Time, Infinite Heat. The Copenhagen exhibition brought Carl Andre to Denmark after a hiatus of fourteen years.  Bradshaw accompanied Anastasi to Esbjerg for his retrospective at the Esbjerg Museum of Modern Art. The previous year ONE More had opened in the same gallery. Bradshaw and Anastasi spent the summer in the Endless Mountains painting and drawing as has been their custom for the past couple of decades. In December the first of two auctions of the John Cage and Merce Cunningham collection was offered for sale at Christies.

2010 Work on oil paintings, Quick Construction works on paper, begin a DVD film of the clock and level in performance, produce Limited Box Editions of 10: Contingency 1984-2010, Copper & Stone 1993-2010; Zero Space, Zero Time, Infinite Heat, Angles 12 Rotations and Quick Constructions 1988-2010; Images 1969-2010; Multiples & Objects 1969-2010; Merce Cunningham Dance Company Decor and Costumes 1984 -1990; all of them including Paper & Paintings 1981-2010 which only exists as an on-line version, were made into on-line versions in addition. April attended William Anastasi's  Drawings, Sandra Gering Gallery, New York.  In October Bradshaw and Anastasi performed in memory of the1968 Reunion Chess Match: Marcel Duchamp and John Cage who performed Cage's on electronically wired chessboard to create a live composition as the pieces were moved. For this recreation titled, The Night of Future Past, the artists first performed on the electronically wired board creating their own composition played by David Behrman, Gordon Mumma, Malcolm Goldstein. They later engaged in Raw Canapé Chess designed by Fluxus artist Takako Saito in which they ate the captured pieces. They played simultaneously with Canadian Chess Champions, Jennifer Shahade and Pascal Charbonneau, who played Wine Chess also designed by Saito in which those players drank from 8 kinds of white and red wine from identical glasses distinguished by color and aroma only that represented the different pieces. The performances took place at the Ryerson Theater during Nuit Blanche, the yearly all night Contemporary Art Event hosted by The City of Toronto Special Events, Toronto. In November Bradshaw was Invited as a guest lecturer and artist in residence for Graguate Students at SCAD, The Savanah School of Art and Design, Atlanta, Georgia.
2011 Bradshaw traveled to Philadelphia for Elements: Artists Imagine Chemistry at the Chemical Heritage Museum. Outside, a 12 foot banner advertizing the exhibition, reproduced Song of Which, her image of the body elements painted on a veil covering the artist Evelina Domnitch. Bradshaw will have her first solo-exhibition in Germany titled, art is a way of life, at the Thomas Rehbein Gallery, Cologne in June to coincide with the opening of the Basel Art Fair.