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 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 local 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 as a commercial artist for
Rei Yoshimura, 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 | 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. 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. 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 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. Cage
agrees to perform the work. Photographs the event. This begins the friendship
with Anastasi, Cage and Bradshaw. Cage invites Anastasi to play chess
which within a couple of years develops into a daily game when they are
both in the same city . They become like members of Cage's and Cunningham's
family. Begins having macrobiotic dinners that Cage prepares and learns
to cook from him. Plays round-robin chess whenever a fourth comes for
dinner, sometimes Dorothea Tanning, Grete Sultan or Teeny Duchamp. Cunningham
does not play chess. With Cage, Anastasi and Bradshaw attend concerts
and exhibitions together and Cage sees all her work that she regularly
shows to him till the end of his life. 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 Untitled in which a framed sheet of newsprint is dated with
each material and the length of time it remains stable in museum conditions.
Installs Break to Activate by screwing a sheet of glass over
the printed words on a wall at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, New York.
At Alanna Heiss’ invitation, puts it outside the main exhibition
space on the ground floor. 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. |
| 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 into earrings and pins in silver and gold. Claims a hygrometer
at the Kunstmuseum, Dusseldorf, by affixing a label when she travels there
for an exhibition of Anastasi's work, Incidents and Coincidents.
Helps to curate the show along with Dr. Stefan Von Wiese. Makes guerilla
postcard in 2002 at invitation of Danish gallerest and invites local artist
to plant cards, finally titling it A(claimed) Object. In retrospect
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 artist/drummer Monika Baumgartl. |
| 1981 | Begins making first serious two-dimensional work. Invents a removal process by using tape covered with various chance-placed media either thrown or left to fall on it, (dust or blades of dried grass randomly thrown on it). The tape is then adhered to a sheet of carbon paper and with pressure its surface is removed wherever it is not obstructed. 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 the Constructivists' thinking. Buys from Carus Gallery a page from Explodity by Olga Rosanova, a wood block print which has on it one of Krushyeneck's poems painted 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 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 buys three miniature oils from this exhibition. For his first New York exhibition, shows four works by Carl Kielblock (most extraordinary student William Anastasi had in 18 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 Roarotorio. Cage has constructed the piece with random sounds gathered in places mentioned in Finnegans Wake and their numbers reduced 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. With Anastasi
stays two weeks with Teeny Duchamp in Sous Grez. Together they travel
to Sicily to visit Rondazzo, Anastasi’s ancestral home. 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. It involves making surfaces prepared with 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 at Washburn
Gallery in Soho. Meets Ulay and Marina Abramovic at Cage’s house.
Within a couple of weeks Anastasi and Bradshaw stay with Marina and Ulay
in Amsterdam for a week 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 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 "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 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 Semi Firingioglu, Time and Space develops a work
based on the piece . Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein 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 uncolored 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:MethodStructureIntentionDisciplineNotationIndeterminacyInterpenetrationImitationDevotionCircumstancesVariableStructureNonunderstanding Contingency InconsistencyPerformance. 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 held until the early ’90’s when the artists invite others to design. Travels along with Anastasi and Cage to Angers, France for the first piece titled Phrases which premières at Théâtre Municipal D'Angers. For costumes, uses primary colors, turquoise, white and grey influenced by Mondrian’s moveable architectural squares. Provides black lines with dance accessories, and white clothes to accommodate Cunningham’s request for three costume changes. Anastasi continues the idea in the backdrop by stretching rope at a right angle, its corner not visible, and then cocked at 45°. 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, 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. 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 from which the
set is taken. 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. 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 a 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 travels with Anastasi to Copenhagen working
on oil on vellums 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 Children’s
Drawings. Later that year shows first Contingency works
in 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 the Works catalogue, published in 1993. At first Cage likes
the piece because it is amorphous but when it changes and the grid emerges
he admits to McEvilley he doesn't like it. He says he refuses 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. It is titled I, Nothing, series. The Art Institute of Chicago buys 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 I Ching notation from1951 (Cage's gift after he transferred his chance operations to computer). His notations shown on the title wall, forms the nexus of the exhibition. Bradshaw travels to Austin, Texas for MCDC for the design taken from vellum paintings and lighting of Cargo X. Though normally a taboo for the company, she creates a great dynamic range of visibility in the costumes. Visits 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 passive resistance and anti-war rallies. Bradshaw suggests Sergei Bugaev (Afrika) to do the décor and costumes for MCDC's August Pace, which premièred at City Center and Bradshaw and Anastasi choose Carl Kielblock to do the décor and costumes for Inventions, which premièred at City Center, New York. |
| 1990 | 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 ‘80’s Part II,
Selections from the Permanent Collection. 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. At Cage’s suggestion the title
simply 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 he volunteered for 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. During the Venice Biennale Bradshaw travels to Venice
for Anastasi’s inclusion in Casino Fantasma 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 designed
by the artist. Also shows Full, a series of pigment paintings
bound in varnish on stretched linen. Uses titanium dioxide pigment in
a painting titled Boundary. The title is taken from a two-fold
source—her own 'boundary' or body height and shoulder width, as
well as the definition of painting she found in the Shou Wen (first century
Chinese dictionary). It states that “To paint is to make boundaries”.
Bradshaw views this as an ever relevant definition of the avant guard. |
| 1992 | Makes first print with Evans Editions,
NY and Renaissance Press, Vermont. It is a photogravure 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 can use it as a material the way pigment is for a painter.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York publishes their legitimate postcard
version of Performance (the Fire Hose). 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 exhibition Works, 1963-92
at the Anders Tornberg Gallery in Lund. 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.
Cage unexpectedly dies 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. Two thousand people attend over the
course of the day. 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
to present each flower one at a time. |
| 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. 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 exhibited 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 small 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 published
in Denmark. 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 & '89), 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 area on moveable screens,
and may later be hung again. 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 finally the artist met her in 1987 at the Duchamp
Centennial. They were reintroduced by Teeny Duchamp on the occasion of
this exhibition. In Ojai at her home after lunching off of her Raku fired
silver plates and goblets, Bradshaw realizes the Contingency
works are influenced by her Raku work in ’71 and ’74. She
makes her first 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 sealis 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, one Autobodyography
(WA) with Indeterminacy (DB) at Werner Kramarsky, and the other,
Unsighted Drawings (WA) with Contingency (DB) at Sandra
Gering. 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 in that exhibition. Makes Do Not
Touch, first Indeterminate sculpture 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 though. 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.
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’s 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. 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 in a meadow a quarter mile away. When the sun rises on the
solstice a shaft lights the corridor striking the tomb. In this moment
the souls are meant to rise to heaven. 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 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.
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. Decides for next work to use rock
salt (first executed in 1998) and granulated industrial grade salt (in
2001) in place of stone. 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. Bradshaw determines to
use it all. |
| 1997 | Exhibits S (paintings), Indeterminacy
(stones) and Indeterminacy [film] at Barbara Krakow
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 Prague for the first time. They
travel to Italy and stay with her brother in Bisticci, Bradshaw with his
assistance takes three marble boulders found on the Carrara mountain to
make Indeterminacy stones. They are united with pyrite sent from
New York and left at the Home Gallery outside Bisticci. After a few months
they are photographed 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 she has an extensive survey
at Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge, MA accompanied by a catalogue which
she designed. 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 appeared 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 will exhibit two work in Choosing,
curated by Robert Barry at the Andrée Sfeir-Zemler Gallery, Hamburg
in November. |
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