David Bradshaw
Encyclopedia
David Bradshaw is a multi-faceted American artist based out of Cecilia, LA and E. Charleston, Vermont. He is a painter, sculptor, and printmaker.
was a modern interior designer and his mother a classical pianist. Trained in traditional artistic skills and processes Bradshaw is best known for his use of handguns, explosive devices (typically dynamite) and steel to create large-scale, free standing sculptures; reshaping the metal through the force of controlled explosions. In addition, he carves intricate patterns and designs into sheets of steel using a plasma torch. He pursued a BA at the Hartford Art School from 1962-1965. With less than one year remaining to obtain his degree he left school and traveled throughout Europe spending his time sketching the regional landscapes and its inhabitants. Upon returning, Bradshaw became extremely active in the US Civil Rights Movement.
, Richard Serra
, Keith Sonnier
, Philip Taaffe
, Eva Hesse
, Bruce Nauman
, Tina Girouard, Laurie Anderson
and
James Surls
, among many others. During the 1960s he participated in various performance art pieces with Deborah Hay
, Steve Paxton
, Trisha Brown
, Lamont Young
, and Yvonne Rainer
, Bradshaw played an integral part in building out the exhibition space, 112 Greene Street in NYC. 112 Greene Street (now White Columns
) became a key exhibition and performance space for emerging artists and helped to catapult SoHo into the arts scene for which it has long been known. He exhibited his work there early on, along with artist and close friend Gordon Matta-Clark
.
In 1969, Bradshaw was one of seven artists commissioned by gallerist and art publisher Rosa Esman to participate in a project entitled 7 Objects/69, a limited edition artwork, that included multiples by seven process artists. The seven minimal and conceptual objects in 7 Objects/69 included sculpture by Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Alan Saret, Keith Sonnier, and Steven Kaltenbach; a record album by Bruce Nauman; and Bradshaw's painting, Tears.
In his mid twenties, Bradshaw was one of the first artists invited to create art at Untitled Press at Rauschenberg's residence and studio on Captiva Island
. He spent a number of months there creating new work in the late 1960s which was later inlcluded in an exhibit along with work by Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly
, Brice Marden
, and Robert Whitman
at the
Wadsworth Atheneum
in 1973. His early works included photography, films, drawing, printmaking and large scale minimalist paintings.
and Ileana Sonnabend
(at the urging of his close friend and collaborator Robert Rauschenberg) he was offered a solo show by Sonnabend to open her newest gallery. When Bradshaw told Sonnabend that he had shifted his focus from painting to explosion performance and chose not to paint the 12 paintings she asked for, Sonnabend expressed her opinion that explosion art was not something that could be sold. This changed the course of Bradshaw's art career, but having grown up with a passion for guns and a natural talent for marksmanship it was only a matter of time before his art evolved from painting on canvas into explosion performance and shot steel.
During the 1970s, David Bradshaw further explored the integration of his passion for shooting with his passion for creating art. He worked extensively with large sheets of treadplate steel and dynamite to create both free standing and wall mounted sculpture. He even experimented at times with blasting rock. Shooting became a more integral part of his medium. In 1972, after pounding the keys of an upright piano until they no longer made any sound Bradshaw and choreographer Steve Paxton dragged the piano into a field at which time he shot it once and declared it dead. This would be the precursor to his "fulmination" sculpture (as described by art critic and writer Jill Johnston), Piano, which he created in July 2005 over two days with the help of 2000 rounds of ammunition and 60 friends and family members.
In 1986, Bradshaw and artist Robert Rauschenberg held an exhibition of their works on paper at the Catamount Arts Center in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Rauschenberg exhibited prints from his Chow Bag series while Bradshaw exhibited drawings and other works on paper from his South America Pond series.
Bradshaw collaborated extensively with his friend, artist and writer, William S. Burroughs
over a number of years until Burroughs’ death in 1997.
Bradshaw's art had a significant influence on the direction of Burrough's own artistic creativity and development. The two created steel sculptures, paintings, and prints together which in most instances were then shot by the two marksman artists. As one of the pall bearers at Burroughs' funeral, Bradshaw placed Burroughs' favorite pistol in his hand prior to burial. Their collaboration resulted most notably in a Graphicstudio
portfolio of prints titled /Propagation Hazard/, along with a series of cut-out steel silhouettes and target paintings on canvas which were then shot and signed by both artists.
, MA and from December 12, 2009 through January 23, 2010 at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City
. His work has been critically reviewed in /Art in America/ (Dec. 2005 and 1998), /Contact Quarterly/, and /ArtForum /as
well as/ /in other periodicals and newspapers throughout the United States. His artwork has been collected both privately and publicly throughout the U.S. and Europe. Notable collections include the estates of artist Robert Rauschenberg
and writer/artist William S. Burroughs
, the National Gallery of Art
, Smithsonian Institution
, Walker Art Center
,
Whitney Museum of American Art
, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
,
Stedelijk Museum
, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
, Polk Museum of Art
,
the University of S. Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Smith College
Museum of Art, and the Sheldon Swope Art Museum.
Over a dozen of Bradshaws large scale plasma torch sculptures are in the private collection of the House of Blues
and are on permanent exhibit at their performance venues in Las Vegas, Nevada; Anaheim, California and Orlando, Florida.
Rauschenberg by Mary Lynn Kotz; 320 pages, 1990.
Ports of Entry: William S. Burroughs and the Arts by Robert A. Sobieszek and William S. Burroughs 192 pages, (Paperback - Oct 1996).
Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader by Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere, 304 pages, 2003.
The Judson Dance Theater: Performative Traces by Ramsay Burt, 204 pages, 2007.
The Artists Bluebook, Edited by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier, 2005.
Biography
Born in New York City, David Bradshaw was raised in Washington, DC and Old Greenwich, Connecticut. His fatherwas a modern interior designer and his mother a classical pianist. Trained in traditional artistic skills and processes Bradshaw is best known for his use of handguns, explosive devices (typically dynamite) and steel to create large-scale, free standing sculptures; reshaping the metal through the force of controlled explosions. In addition, he carves intricate patterns and designs into sheets of steel using a plasma torch. He pursued a BA at the Hartford Art School from 1962-1965. With less than one year remaining to obtain his degree he left school and traveled throughout Europe spending his time sketching the regional landscapes and its inhabitants. Upon returning, Bradshaw became extremely active in the US Civil Rights Movement.
Collaborations
Over the last 40 years Bradshaw has shown and collaborated with well-known contemporary artists such as Robert RauschenbergRobert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
, Richard Serra
Richard Serra
Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...
, Keith Sonnier
Keith Sonnier
Keith Sonnier is a Postminimalist, performance, video and light artist. Sonnier was one of the first artists to use light in sculpture in the 1960s, and has been one of the most successful with this technique...
, Philip Taaffe
Philip Taaffe
Philip Taaffe is an American artistTaaffe was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey and studied at the Cooper Union in New York, gaining a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1977....
, Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse
Eva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
, Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman
Bruce Nauman is a contemporary American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives in Galisteo, New Mexico....
, Tina Girouard, Laurie Anderson
Laurie Anderson
Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson is an American experimental performance artist, composer and musician who plays violin and keyboards and sings in a variety of experimental music and art rock styles. Initially trained as a sculptor, Anderson did her first performance-art piece in the late 1960s...
and
James Surls
James Surls
James Surls is an American modernist sculptor. He earned a BS from Sam Houston State University and an MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art. In 1998, he moved from Splendora, Texas to Carbondale, Colorado....
, among many others. During the 1960s he participated in various performance art pieces with Deborah Hay
Deborah Hay
-Life and work:Deborah Hay was born in 1941 in Brooklyn. Her mother was her first dance teacher and directed her training until she was a teenager. Hay moved at age 19 to Downtown, Manhattan in the 1960s, where she continued her training with Merce Cunningham and Mia Slavenska...
, Steve Paxton
Steve Paxton
Steve Paxton is an experimental dancer and choreographer. His early background was in gymnastics while his later training included three years with Merce Cunningham and a year with José Limón. As a founding member of the Judson Dance Theater, he performed works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown...
, Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown
Trisha Brown is a postmodernist American choreographer and dancer.Brown was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and received a B.A. degree in dance from Mills College in 1958. Brown later received a D.F.A. from Bates College in 2000. For several summers she studied with Louis Horst at the American Dance...
, Lamont Young
Lamont Young
Lamont H. Young was an assistant geological surveyor for the New South Wales Mines Department. He mysteriously disappeared while on field-work at Bermagui, New South Wales.Young was inspecting the new goldfields at Bermagui in 1880...
, and Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer
Yvonne Rainer is an American dancer, choreographer and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is frequently challenging and experimental. Her work is classified as minimalist art.- Early life :...
, Bradshaw played an integral part in building out the exhibition space, 112 Greene Street in NYC. 112 Greene Street (now White Columns
White Columns
White Columns is New York City’s oldest alternative non-profit space and one of its most prestigious. White Columns is known as a show case for up and coming artists....
) became a key exhibition and performance space for emerging artists and helped to catapult SoHo into the arts scene for which it has long been known. He exhibited his work there early on, along with artist and close friend Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark
Gordon Matta-Clark was an American artist best known for his site-specific artworks he made in the 1970s. He is famous for his "building cuts," a series of works in abandoned buildings in which he variously removed sections of floors, ceilings, and walls.-Life and work:Both of Gordon Matta-Clark's...
.
In 1969, Bradshaw was one of seven artists commissioned by gallerist and art publisher Rosa Esman to participate in a project entitled 7 Objects/69, a limited edition artwork, that included multiples by seven process artists. The seven minimal and conceptual objects in 7 Objects/69 included sculpture by Eva Hesse, Richard Serra, Alan Saret, Keith Sonnier, and Steven Kaltenbach; a record album by Bruce Nauman; and Bradshaw's painting, Tears.
In his mid twenties, Bradshaw was one of the first artists invited to create art at Untitled Press at Rauschenberg's residence and studio on Captiva Island
Captiva Island
Captiva Island is an island in Lee County in southwest Florida, located just offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.-History:According to local folklore, Captiva got its name because the pirate captain José Gaspar held his female prisoners on the island for ransom or worse...
. He spent a number of months there creating new work in the late 1960s which was later inlcluded in an exhibit along with work by Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly
Cy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly, Jr. was an American artist well known for his large-scale, freely scribbled, calligraphic-style graffiti paintings, on solid fields of mostly gray, tan, or off-white colors...
, Brice Marden
Brice Marden
Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
, and Robert Whitman
Robert Whitman
Robert Whitman is an American artist best known for his seminal theater pieces of the early 1960s combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making...
at the
Wadsworth Atheneum
Wadsworth Atheneum
The Wadsworth Atheneum is the oldest public art museum in the United States, with significant holdings of French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes, modernist masterpieces and contemporary works, as well as extensive holdings in early American furniture and...
in 1973. His early works included photography, films, drawing, printmaking and large scale minimalist paintings.
Explosion Sculpture
In 1970, after a visit to his studio by gallerists Leo CastelliLeo Castelli
Leo Castelli was an American art dealer. He was best known to the public as an art dealer whose gallery showcased cutting edge Contemporary art for five decades...
and Ileana Sonnabend
Ileana Sonnabend
Ileana Sonnabend was a dealer of 20th century art. She ran a contemporary art gallery in Paris during the early 1960s. After leaving Paris, she opened a Sonnabend Gallery in New York City in 1971, at 420 West Broadway, in SoHo...
(at the urging of his close friend and collaborator Robert Rauschenberg) he was offered a solo show by Sonnabend to open her newest gallery. When Bradshaw told Sonnabend that he had shifted his focus from painting to explosion performance and chose not to paint the 12 paintings she asked for, Sonnabend expressed her opinion that explosion art was not something that could be sold. This changed the course of Bradshaw's art career, but having grown up with a passion for guns and a natural talent for marksmanship it was only a matter of time before his art evolved from painting on canvas into explosion performance and shot steel.
During the 1970s, David Bradshaw further explored the integration of his passion for shooting with his passion for creating art. He worked extensively with large sheets of treadplate steel and dynamite to create both free standing and wall mounted sculpture. He even experimented at times with blasting rock. Shooting became a more integral part of his medium. In 1972, after pounding the keys of an upright piano until they no longer made any sound Bradshaw and choreographer Steve Paxton dragged the piano into a field at which time he shot it once and declared it dead. This would be the precursor to his "fulmination" sculpture (as described by art critic and writer Jill Johnston), Piano, which he created in July 2005 over two days with the help of 2000 rounds of ammunition and 60 friends and family members.
In 1986, Bradshaw and artist Robert Rauschenberg held an exhibition of their works on paper at the Catamount Arts Center in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Rauschenberg exhibited prints from his Chow Bag series while Bradshaw exhibited drawings and other works on paper from his South America Pond series.
Bradshaw collaborated extensively with his friend, artist and writer, William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
over a number of years until Burroughs’ death in 1997.
Bradshaw's art had a significant influence on the direction of Burrough's own artistic creativity and development. The two created steel sculptures, paintings, and prints together which in most instances were then shot by the two marksman artists. As one of the pall bearers at Burroughs' funeral, Bradshaw placed Burroughs' favorite pistol in his hand prior to burial. Their collaboration resulted most notably in a Graphicstudio
Graphicstudio
Graphicstudio is a university-based workshop engaged in a unique experiment in art and education, committed to research and the application of traditional and new techniques for the production of limited edition prints and sculpture multiples...
portfolio of prints titled /Propagation Hazard/, along with a series of cut-out steel silhouettes and target paintings on canvas which were then shot and signed by both artists.
Exhibition History & Collections
Bradshaw’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. His work was included in Ports of Entry, a retrospective of art and written works by Burroughs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1996. Over the years he has had various exhibitions at Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New Orleans, LA and most recently at Kolok Gallery in North AdamsNorth Adams
North Adams can refer to several places in the United States:* North Adams, Massachusetts* North Adams, Michigan...
, MA and from December 12, 2009 through January 23, 2010 at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. His work has been critically reviewed in /Art in America/ (Dec. 2005 and 1998), /Contact Quarterly/, and /ArtForum /as
well as/ /in other periodicals and newspapers throughout the United States. His artwork has been collected both privately and publicly throughout the U.S. and Europe. Notable collections include the estates of artist Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
and writer/artist William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
, the National Gallery of Art
National Gallery of Art
The National Gallery of Art and its Sculpture Garden is a national art museum, located on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, DC...
, Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
, Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
,
Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
,
Stedelijk Museum
Stedelijk Museum
Founded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...
, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum
The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, sometimes referred to simply as "The Milly", is an art museum located on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, within the university's Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. It was founded in 1881 as the St. Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts, and...
, Polk Museum of Art
Polk Museum of Art
The Polk Museum of Art is a nationally accredited art museum in Lakeland, Florida. It is a member of the Florida Association of Museums and is ranked among the top art museums in the state of Florida....
,
the University of S. Florida Contemporary Art Museum, Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
Museum of Art, and the Sheldon Swope Art Museum.
Over a dozen of Bradshaws large scale plasma torch sculptures are in the private collection of the House of Blues
House of Blues
House of Blues is a chain of 13 live music concert halls and restaurants in major markets throughout the United States. House of Blues first location was in Cambridge's Harvard Square. It was opened in 1992 by Isaac Tigrett, co-founder of Hard Rock Cafe, and Dan Aykroyd, star of The Blues Brothers...
and are on permanent exhibit at their performance venues in Las Vegas, Nevada; Anaheim, California and Orlando, Florida.
Reference Material
Prints from the Untitled Press, Captiva, Florida Wadsworth Atheneum; 72 pages, 1973.Rauschenberg by Mary Lynn Kotz; 320 pages, 1990.
Ports of Entry: William S. Burroughs and the Arts
Taken by Surprise: A Dance Improvisation Reader by Ann Cooper Albright and David Gere, 304 pages, 2003.
The Judson Dance Theater: Performative Traces by Ramsay Burt, 204 pages, 2007.
The Artists Bluebook, Edited by Lonnie Pierson Dunbier, 2005.
Links
- David Bradshaw at Madbrook Farm, Art in America, December 2005
- David Bradshaw and William Burroughs Blast Off, by Charles Giuliano
- Gudjon Bjarnason at Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Art in America, January 2007
- The Execution of II Cut Hand/Hurt Eyes, by Charles J. Dukes
- USF Contemporary Art Museum, Tampa, FL
- Ballistic Self-Expression, By D. Eric Bookhardt
- Marksman creationist practices pop, pop, pop art. by Doug MacCash June, 2009