Mark Bradford made Jungle Jungle at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic using only materials immediately available in his studio. Grappling with the uncertainty of that moment, he produced the work as part of a series of grand-scale collages that brought him into new territory. Bradford explains, “I just played with a crowded spatial relationship that felt immersive, that you could walk in it, like a child playing.” What emerged, in his words, was a “fantasy jungle” in which overlapping colors and forms evoke humans and animals amid a dense landscape.
Bradford collaborated with MoMA curators to choose works in the Museum’s collection from across the last century to join Jungle Jungle. The artist’s fantastical vision casts this broad range of artworks in new light: from Jackson Pollock’s strands of paint, to the abstracted figures of Louise Bourgeois, to the tenor of threat and vulnerability in Wilson Bigaud’s Murder in the Jungle.
Organized by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture, and Lydia Mullin, Manager, Collection Galleries, with Abby Hermosilla, Curatorial Assistant, Curatorial Affairs
