ticketsMember | Make a donation

Crack Between the Floorboards

Mark Bradford American
2014
Not on view
This work was inspired in part by Gustave Caillebotte’s 1875 painting Les raboteurs de parquet (The Floor Planers), now in the Musée d’Orsay, in which three shirtless laborers are seen from above stripping varnish from a bourgeois apartment’s floorboards. As an early depiction of the urban working class and the eroticized male nude, rendered so the picture plane tilts up toward the viewer, Les raboteurs de parquet shocked the art establishment. Bradford translates these themes into an abstract, kaleidoscopic work that alludes to contemporary issues of class, location, and space. Using advertising posters and other material gathered from abandoned buildings and empty lots in his South Central Los Angeles neighborhood, Bradford collaged papers atop gridlines of paste, string, and tape then gouged and sanded the surface of the picture to reveal passages of bright color.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Crack Between the Floorboards
  • Artist: Mark Bradford (American, born Los Angeles, California, 1961)
  • Date: 2014
  • Medium: Printed and painted paper, masking tape, and acrylic media on canvas
  • Dimensions: 132 x 120-1/4 x 2-1/8 in.. (335.3 × 304.8 cm)
  • Classifications: Paintings, Works on Paper
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Aleksandar Pesko Gift, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.236
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Mark Bradford
    Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

More Artwork

More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Untitled, Mark Bradford American, Etching, photogravure, and chine collé
Untitled
Multiple artists/makers
2012
Duck Walk, Mark Bradford American, Mixed media on canvas
Duck Walk
Mark Bradford
2016
Red Roses Sonata, Alma Thomas American, Acrylic on canvas
Red Roses Sonata
Alma Thomas
1972
Andrea Motley Crabtree, the first, Henry Taylor American, Acrylic on canvas
Andrea Motley Crabtree, the first
Henry Taylor
2017
Untitled, Ed Clark American, Acrylic on canvas
Untitled
Ed Clark
1966

Related Content

Publications

Books, guides, and catalogues published by The Met.

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.