Conrad Bakker, Des Moines Art Center Gift Card. |
Conrad Bakker, the Economy of Objects and Their Facsimiles |
Conrad Bakker, Untitled Project: Commodity [Bauhaus], 2007, Courtesy Lora Reynolds Gallery.
Conrad Bakker, Untitled Project: MUSCLE CAR, 1969 Pontiac GTO Judge) is a 3/4 scale carved and painted muscle car that points to a uniquely American of large cars and powerful engines. This car sculpture was specifically sited for the garage exhibition space of Suitable Gallery in Chicago and made available for sale via the classified ads in the Chicago Sun-Times and Deals on Wheels, a classified car collector magazine and website. It was subsequently exhibited at Revolution Gallery in Detroit, Michigan and Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art (2005).
Conrad Bakker, TV. |
Des Moines Art Center Downtown This 10-year survey exhibition features Conrad Bakker’s ongoing series of Untitled Projects — thematically organized bodies of work that explore a variety of social, institutional, and consumer contexts utilizing humor, situational awareness, formal play, and interventionist strategies. Interested in operating beyond the art-world vacuum, Bakker distributes his imperfectly-carved and clumsily-painted facsimiles of everyday objects and known consumer products through alternative markets — in auctions on eBay, for barter on Craig’s List, dropped onto store shelves, and grouped into his own functional mail order catalog. Whether snatched, exchanged, or purchased (often times at the real object’s going rate), the unpredictability of its final destination is a key component of the project. Conrad Bakker lives and works in Chicago and Urbana, Illinois. Bakker's ongoing Untitled Projects engages a variety of social, institutional, and consumer contexts, utilizing humor, contextual awareness, formal play, interventionist strategies, and imperfect carving and painting techniques. Bakker has exhibited nationally and internationally at Tate Modern (London), Galerie Analiz Forever (Geneva), New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), Renaissance Society at University of Chicago (Chicago), Fargfabriken Center for Contemporary Art and Architecture (Stockholm), Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery (Saratoga Springs), Blanton Museum of Art (Austin), Soap Factory (Minneapolis), Southern Exposure (San Francisco), Art in General (New York City), Revolution (Detroit), Lora Reynolds Gallery (Austin), Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies, Dorsky Gallery Curatorial Program, in mailboxes, and on his front lawn. His work has been reviewed in Chicago Tribune, Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), New York Times, Contemporary, Flash Art, Sculpture, Dwell, and ReadyMade magazines. In 2000 he received a Creative Capital Foundation project grant, which enabled the production of the Untitled, Mail Order Catalog, a fully functional order catalog that sold carved and painted replicas of conventional mail order objects. Recent and upcoming projects include: Branded and On Display at the Krannert Art Museum (January 2007), *The Price of everything for the Whitney Independent Study Curatorial Program exhibition (May 2007), Untitled Project: Commodity Fetishism at Lora Reynolds Gallery (August 2007), Transactions for the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin (September 2007), The Irresistible Force, at the Tate Modern, Level 2 Gallery, London (September 2007), Air Kissing: An Exhibition of Contemporary Art about the Art World, guest curated by Sasha Archibald for Momenta Art (November 2007), and finally Conrad Bakker: Objects & Economies (Untitled Projects 1997-2007), a survey of the past 10 years of Untitled Projects at Des Moines Art Center Downtown (December 2007). Conrad Bakker: Objects & Economies [Untitled Projects 1997–2007] is accompanied by an exhibition catalogue. |
Conrad Bakker, Untitled (Kitchen Bags). |
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