The dynamic, shape-shifting practice of Mark A. Rodriguez borrows artistic strategies from classical conceptualism and contemporary sculpture to explore themes of Americana, subcultures, collecting, consumerism, obsolescence, valuation and time. He tends to work in contrived series (usually titling works in a uniform way using a chronological numbering system to differentiate one work from the other) and his preferred medium is sculpture, but the pictorial and painterly are never far from what he makes. The performativity and personal narrative that accompanies endurance-related serial pursuits is a conscious byproduct of Rodriguez’ thought process, and a welcome addition to the multitude of ideas imbued within the works whether taken as autonomous objects or cumulative and comprehensive groupings.

His most well-known series, 1st Gen, 2nd Gen, etc consists of a semi-exhaustive compendia of bootleg Grateful Dead cassette tapes, presented in a custom-made wood encasing against the wall. These works have many routes to entry. Whether it be painterly in relation to the ever shifting palette that is decided upon by the spines of the audiocassette covers, or the monumentality of the task through endurance and performativity, as well as the quiet monumentality found within the serial spirit of minimalism. This series speaks as much to the history and formal strategies of conceptualism as it does to the failed utopia of the nomadic and commercialized American subculture of The Grateful Dead.

His most recent body of work revolves around the US postage stamp. For this series, Rodriguez has created "frames" for stamps, which exist somewhere between painting and sculpture. Fashioned out of sculptamold and then painted with layers of acrylic paint, the frames-cum-paintings playfully read like small, multicolored cumuli, with uneven surfaces, as if they were organic forms or confectionary agglomerations of candy. Approximately twenty times the size of the stamp, the artworks all but eclipse the stamps, reducing them to details. At the same time, there is a tension built up around the subject-matter of the stamp, and in some cases the stamp overrides the formal qualities of the sculptural painting blob, almost becoming the subject of the work. This dynamic creates a question of how to analyze and appreciate the work, whether it be through painterly analysis, its ties to strategies inherent to sculpture, or to see it as a clever presentation of a found object. These are some of the many contradictions or paradoxes discreetly woven into the dense conceptual fabric of these pieces, making them, like the majority of Rodriguez’s production, hard to even begin to fathom.  

Mark A. Rodriguez (b. 1982, Chicago, IL) lives and works in northern New Mexico. A selection of solo exhibitions include: Great Recession Drawings, Gallery Paul Soto, Los Angeles, 2020; Account, Gallery Paul Soto, Los Angeles, 2019; Earth Day AF, Park View, Los Angeles, 2016; Search. Connect. Move. Review, 5 Car Garage, Los Angeles, 2015; Cup or Lovers, Park View, Los Angeles, 2015; Exclusive Power Night, metro pcs, Los Angeles, 2014; ESQ., Gridspace, New York, 2014; 18 Double Rolls, Night Gallery, Los Angeles, 2013. Some recent publications include: After All is Said and Done: Taping the Grateful Dead 1965-1995. New York, Anthology Editions: 2022; Idea Art For Kids. Belgium, Zolo Press: 2020.