#conradbakker

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UNTITLED PROJECT: SMITHSON’S BOOKS, Oil/enamel paint on carved wood, installed, 2021  >> Untitled Project: Smithson’s Books is an iteration of Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club in the form of a used book store that is opening soon and/or going out of business –– installed in the storefront windows of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas from November 2021 thru February 2022.

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UNTITLED PROJECT: NEW MUSEUM BOOKSTORE [ARTFORUM /APRIL 2008], Oil paint on carved wood, 2009  >>  a carved/painted sculpture of a shopping bag from New York’s New Museum Bookstore containing Artforum magazine from April 2008.

www.untitledprojects.com

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UNTITLED PROJECT: LA CHOCOLATERIE [La Boutique] [L’Atelier] [Le Journal] @ Galerie Analix Forever, Geneva, Switzerland, 2021 >>  Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie is comprised of three connecting parts: La Boutique, L’Atelier, and Le Journal (The Store, The Workshop, and The Newspaper). Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie [La Boutique] is a storefront/art installation in Geneva, Switzerland, featuring hundreds of carved and painted sculptures of Swiss-branded chocolate bars, based on specific cocoa-consumables from the past and present. These carved and painted chocolate bars are available for sale at the price of 100.00CHF, an amount roughly equivalent to one months wages for the average cocoa farmer working in the Côte d'Ivoire, Africa. The storefront space (La Boutique) is directly connected to the secondary space, Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie [L’Atelier] is an installation of more than a hundred different carved and painted sculptures of objects and tools from the artist’s studio, revealing the process of production for each of the carved and painted Swiss chocolate bars and pointing (somewhat theatrically) to the connections between commodities and labor.  The last part of this project, Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie [Le Journal] is a free, full-color, printed newspaper featuring drawings based on headlines and images taken from a wide range of internet sources and news websites covering cocoa production and the (Swiss) chocolate industrial complex.

LINKS:

Project website w/ images/info: Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie

Chocolats (archive): Untitled Project: La Boutique

Le Journal website: Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie [Le Journal]

Le Journal as pdf: Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie [Le Journal]

@ Galerie Analix Forever, Genève, Switzerland

[conradbakker]

Untitled Project: Sign [Blockbuster] >> Oil paint on carved wood, 2.6ft x 6.2ft x 12.3ft, 2021

>> Untitled Project: Sign [Blockbuster] is a carved and painted Blockbuster Video store sign as a crashed/grounded event.  This sculptural depiction of a once popular, now defunct video rental chain is intended to function as a nostalgic platform for thinking critically about our physical relationship to both movies and corporations.

This project was paired with >> Untitled Project: Hi-Touch [VHS], Oil paint on carved wood, dimensions variable, 2021 <<  Untitled Project: Hi-Touch [VHS] was a made-to-order, digital-to-analog conversion service designed to turn one of your favorite digital videos, smartphone films, YouTube hits, animated gifs, kitten vlogs, tween Tik-Toks, vintage vines,  social media captures, or conceptual art videos, into a hand-carved, hand-painted VHS videocassette tape sculpture! 

link to project website: https://untitledprojects.com/HITOUCHVHS

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Untitled Project: COPY SHOP, Oil paint on carved wood, dimensions variable, 2025. >> Untitled Project: Copy Shop takes on the subject of making copies, performing labor, and finding forms of resistance through the guise of a carved and painted copy shop. On view at The Weather Station in Lafayette, Indiana 

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Untitled Project: Things [Georges Perec /Les choses]

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Untitled Project: Amazon Delivery Confirmation [May 22 / June 18 / July 02 / August 03 / September 11 / October 02 / November 05 / December 29 / January 05], Oil paint on wood panel(s), each 7 x 5 x 1/2 inches, 2021     

>> Untitled Project: Amazon Delivery Confirmation is a collection of small paintings documenting patterns of consumption of goods and services in 2020, during the months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Each painting is based on an ephemeral ‘proof of delivery’ image taken and uploaded by an amazon delivery driver—momentarily exposing both quarantine consumer behavior and evidence of an essential labor force. 

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UNTITLED PROJECT: MOUNTAIN/ROCK SHOP, Oil paint on carved wood, 2019  >> Untitled Project: Mountain/Rock Shop is an investigation of a particular place through objects and images — in particular, hand-carved and painted rocks based on real rocks collected in and around Sun Valley, Idaho during the summer 2019. All of these rocks have been constructed as contemplative objects—specific things that are slowly seen and/or held in order to help one connect to a knowledge of another thing. All of these rocks have also been intentionally produced and positioned as curious commodities /strange souvenirs of a specific landscape. 

What does it mean to interpret a place or value a landscape as a commodity? Unfortunately, over the past two centuries this particular Idahoan landscape has been repeatedly objectified, its value reduced to pelts, minerals, and mountain views––its capacity has become complicated. In the end, these hand-made sculptures of local rocks and paintings of mountain real estate aspire to be oblique, desirable products that move awkwardly from inception to production to transaction to display—at once imitating the commodification of place but also providing a momentary pause for considering our location in a landscape that is always changing.

Untitled Project: Mountain/Rock Shop was part of the exhibition “Marketplaces: From Open Air to Online” curated by Courtney Gilbert at the Sun Valley Art Museum  in Ketchum, Idaho. During the exhibition, all the carved/painted rocks were made available for sale at an established low price point for local buyers, and also online, at a price determined by the distance in walking hours from the online buyers physical location to Sun Valley, Idaho. 

>> LINK TO PROJECT WEBSITE <<