Mark Bradford, Artist and (ahem) Genius

Winners of the MacArthur "genius" grants were announced yesterday. Having recently been very impressed by one winner's work, I'll refrain from my usual curmudgeony response to these newly minted geniuses. Mark Bradford won one of the $500,000 prizes. He is a mixed-media artist who is sharing a show with Kara Walker (a former MacArthur grant winner) at Sikkema Jenkins in Chelsea now.

Red Painting, above, is kinda genius. It's a real show stopper right by the door. This jpeg doesn't at all do it justice. That and the one below, Orbit, are both large with a lot of small detail you can't appreciate like this. Easy solution? Go to Sikkema Jenkins and see some genius.