Exhibition Review-Darren Bader: Images

Darren Bader: Images

Darren Bader’s exhibit, “Darren Bader: Images,” is currently showing at MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York.

“Darren Bader: Images” was curated by Peter Eleey, Curator of MoMA PS1 with Christopher Y. Lew, Assistant Curator of MoMA PS1.

The show was made possible by the Annual Exhibition Fund with support from Hoor Al Qasimi, Richard Chang and Tina Lee, Adam Kimmel, Peter Norton and the Peter Norton Family Foundation, Jennifer McSweeny, Beth Swofford, David Teiger, Agnes Gund, Dana Farouki, Sydie Lansing, John Comfort, Philip E. Aarons and Shelley Fox Aarons, Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, and Enzo Viscusi, with additional funding from The Director’s Circle of MoMA PS1, The Contemporary Circle of MoMA PS1, and MTV.

He opens the exhibit with quotes from Marx and Ford, respectively.

“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana,” to quote Marx. And to quote Ford: “Stuff: the precise affinity between the generic and the specific.”

Mr. Bader goes on to say the following in the statement that precedes his show:

“This stuff is way to infuse space. Art is not sculpture somehow. Sculpture comes to establish a place; art subsists on space, but also transcends it. Art might be sleeping in the parking lot, but could also drive up and take you out for dinner. Art somehow happens inside of you-it’s any of your proverbial hands being guided by art’s specific and unlocatable contours.”

“Art is a beautiful thing. I love it more than I’m able to express. Trying to find a home for it (or in it) is a strange thing nowadays. I don’t know if you know what I mean.”

-Darren Bader, 2012.

Several highlights of Darren Bader’s exhibit included a bright, white-washed room that housed three live cats. Aside from the cats and their food and toys, the room included a yellowish couch (where the cats seemingly enjoyed stretching and napping). The walls were blank, except for one large photograph of a detail of a silk scarf, as well as an assortment of other miscellaneous objects. The exhibit was preceded by a small, typed description (in lowercase and no punctuation) mounted to the wall: “cat made out of human flesh.”

A wall label explains: “The three cats in this show have been abandoned. They need better homes. They are 100% ready to be adopted. As soon as one is adopted, off it goes to its new home (so if you only see one cat, it means the other two have been adopted!). As soon as all three cats are adopted, the Health Department will allow us to bring in three more. So with your help and the help of many others, there are many more opportunities to save the lives of these cats and more cats and more cats.” Bader goes on to say that “Each cat is also an artwork (titles are on the wall labels). So each cat-adopter will get an artwork. If you don’t want your cat to be an artwork, I won’t force it on you! But please don’t let the titles influence your decision-the cats didn’t sign off on them).” This description also includes information on the cats, and the SaveKitty Foundation in Queens, which is overseeing the adoptions. The description concludes with contact information (email addresses) for the artist himself and SaveKitty Foundation (it is noted that a $100 donation is asked for to help cover the cost of food, medical and foster care), regarding the adoption of the cats. Darren Bader says “There are way too many cats on death row.”

When I visited the exhibit, I was greeted by only one cat, meaning the other two had been adopted. Viewers are encouraged to interact with the cats, though the room with the cats is limited to only three visitors at a time.

The second room was also bright and white washed, and completely empty except for another mounted wall description. This “description” consisted of several paragraphs where Bader discusses his ideas about “names,” famous names in particular. He discusses what it might mean to “know” Elle Fanning versus Roy Halladay, and what it would mean (socially? culturally?) to possibly have these two people standing side by side in that room. He poses the idea of a “celebrity sculpture,” which would mean a “famous person” doing “his/her own thing” in that room, documented by a photograph and the participant’s signature on the wall. He then goes on to ask the viewer, “If you consider yourself a famous person and want to be part of one of these sculptures, please write me here: celebritysculpture@gmail.com. He then concludes with “Celebrity sculptures aim to raise lots and lots of money for environmental charities.”

Upon my visit on Friday, March 2^nd, the wall was completely blank.

The next room was similar to that of the room with the cats, except this time a live (caged) iguana was featured, preceded by a mounted wall label that read “iguana and croissant.” A croissant was resting on the floor outside of the iguana’s cage. The iguana’s name was also mounted on a wall label: “very old cat.”

Much like the cat(s), this iguana is also up for adoption, though ONLY if you reside outside of New York City, as it is illegal to own an iguana as a pet in New York City. Bader explains that “Reptiles are often brought into homes on a whim, without their owners understanding the full needs of their new pets. This often leads to neglect and/or to owners consigning the animals to shelters.” The description concludes with information regarding the Sean Casey Animal Rescue, an organization that works to find abandoned reptiles suitable homes outside of New York City (including the iguana featured in the exhibit).

The last two rooms of the exhibit feature food on display. “Real fruit/veggies on pedestals” consists of various vegetables on display, almost regally, on tall, wooden pedestals. The interactive nature of the preceding rooms almost immediately gives way to a more formal exhibition model, i.e. one looks and does not touch. However, this is juxtaposed with another mounted wall label which reads “Fruit and vegetable salad is served on Saturdays starting at 3:00 PM and on Mondays starting at 2:15 PM.” Though the fruits and vegetables are displayed as if they are “objects,” the wall label reminds us that we are indeed observing food that is about to be served, and consumed.

As I attended the show on an early Friday afternoon, I was not able to participate in the eating of the fruit and vegetable salad.

The final room is the brightest of all, with several windows looking out onto the busy intersections of Long Island City. The walls are completely empty and white-washed. It was a particularly bright afternoon when I attended the show; I mention this only because the brightness of the room almost made me miss the two burritos sitting in the corner of one of the window sills, side by side. They are preceded by a small, mounted wall label that simply reads “chicken burrito, beef burrito.” An endless loop of the opening blare of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” greets you as you enter the room, and follows you as you exit the room.

This exhibit brought to mind several key points that were discussed in this course over the last six weeks. Commodity fetishism: “To fetishize commodities is “to reverse the whole history of fetishism.” For it is to fetishize the invisible, the immaterial, the supra-sensible. The fetishism of the commodity inscribes immateriality as the defining feature of capitalism. Thus, for Marx, fetishism is not the problem; the problem is the fetishism of commodities.”[i]

It was interesting, then, that Bader chose to reference the other Marx, (Groucho), at the start of the exhibit, with the quote “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” “Time is invisible, or “immaterial,” but described as “an arrow.” Though this quote can be read as humorous, it is an interesting way to start to think about the idea of commodity fetishism, and raises a few questions: Are the animals in the show being “fetishized” as “commodities,” or “objects?” What is the difference between interacting with the cat in an art gallery versus on the street or in someone’s living room? Viewing the iguana in a zoo versus in an art gallery? Bader pleads with visitors to adopt these animals (or buy his art?). It seems to me that this is a bit unclear, or certainly open to interpretation. In a sense, the animals are “fetishized” as “commodities,” or “objects” the moment they are placed in the gallery. While adopting the abandoned animal is a noble deed, is one still simply “purchasing an artwork?” Or an object?

Dematerialization, a brief definition: “Dematerialization drew on various sources, most clearly the early theorization of Conceptual Art by such artists as LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth. LeWitt’s ‘Paragraphs on Conceptual Art’ appeared in the Summer 1967 Artforum, the special issue on sculpture. In it, LeWitt argued that the emergent tendency proposed an art which could take any form. What mattered was the idea, not the execution. ‘When an artist uses a conceptual form of art,’ he wrote, ‘it means that all of the planning and the decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.’”[ii]

“The fruit and vegetable salad” could certainly fall into the category of Conceptual Art. It is not simply the food on display that is “art,” but the act of chopping up the fruit and vegetables and creating a salad that is to be shared amongst friends and strangers. As Bader suggests in his opening statement, from above: “Art might be sleeping in the parking lot, but could also drive up and take you out for dinner.” The idea of the food as something other than an “object” in a gallery (a social event perhaps, or a shared moment between two people, for example), is what eventually “makes the art.”

This could also be said of Bader’s “celebrity sculptures.” The art is the “idea” of these people coming together in a room and “doing his/her own thing.” The photograph, or the signature, is perhaps an afterthought, or not totally the point-rather, it is simply the idea of getting these people in a room together.

Jane Bennett’s discussion of “Thing-Power” in “Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things,” came to mind when considering the final room in Bader’s exhibit, the empty room save for the chicken and beef burritos, and the endless loop of the opening of Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” In “the force of things,” Bennett discusses the “thing-power” of debris she encounters on the street: “Was the thing-power of the debris I encountered but a function of the subjective and intersubjective connotations, memories, and affects that had accumulated around my ideas of these items? Was the real agent of my temporary immobilization on the street that day humanity, that is, the cultural meanings of “rat,” “plastic,” and “wood” in conjunction with my own idiosyncratic biography? It could be (p.10).”[iii]

As I mentioned above, the brightness of the room made me nearly miss seeing the two burritos in the windowsill. When I did notice them, and observe them, while listening to the opening melody of Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone,” I was distracted by the music, and what that song means to me personally and culturally.

Initially, I found the placement of the burritos in the windowsill to be amusing, as that is an unexpected place to find burritos. However, as I exited the exhibition, I thought about how that was the only point where I was simply “observing” (and listening). I felt no desire to touch the burritos (nor did I feel that I should touch the burritos).

This was an incredibly interesting and entertaining exhibit. Key questions to consider: Does placing an “object” in a gallery necessarily transform it? Even if one “does not want your cat to be an artwork,” is it still just that the moment the cat enters the gallery? What is the difference between listening to Dylan on your iPod versus in the gallery? The difference between observing a burrito in the garbage can versus a windowsill in an art gallery?

I think many of the points discussed in this exhibit can be traced back to dematerialization, or Conceptual Art. The ideas, and not necessarily the “objects,” (or animals, or food) is what matters here.

Darren Bader was born in 1978 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He currently lives in New York City. You can further explore his work here.

“Darren Bader: Images” is on view at MoMA PS1 until May 14^th, 2012.

Images from the exhibit are posted below:

“real fruit/veggies on pedestals”

“chicken burrito, beef burrito”

image of the burritos:

“cat made out of human flesh”

References:

1. Lynn Festa, Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France
   (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006): 117.
2. Richard J. Williams, After Modern Sculpture:  Art in the United States and Europe, 1965-70(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000).
3. Jane Bennett, “The Force of Things” and “The Agency of Assemblages” In Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010): 1-38
4. http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/349/