Scorched Earth serves as an exhibition catalogue reimagined as a reader that contextualizes the artist’s practice more broadly. Texts include an essay by the exhibition’s curator Connie Butler; a conversation between Mark Bradford and A.L. Steiner and Wu Tsang; performance notes by Bradford, reprinted essays from 1987 to today; and a chronology detailing the intersection of queer activism and Black Los Angeles from 1970 to 1995. The publication tracks a timeline that marks the artist’s own development, reinscribing the artist’s studio-based production with the more political and social desires and realities of projects such as Art + Practice, the artist’s foundation which opened in 2015.