An Interview with Darren Bader
Aimee Resnick (she/her) - May 21, 2023
Darren Bader
May 15 – June 21, 2014, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Image courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
Darren Bader is a New York-based conceptual artist famous for his bizarre, absurdist found object works. His work has been displayed across the world in more than 40 solo exhibitions and more than 160 group shows. Bader has also published 9 books ranging from photography journals, comedy ramblings, and critical essays. This week, we sat down to discuss theoretical art, goats, and artistic humor.
NAR: Let’s start with the concept of the ready-made. Can any item truly be “found?” What distinguishes art from object?
Bader: How else can items be if not found? Art is art, nothing but itself (I can go on and on about this, but let's keep it simple).
Darren Bader, Chad Ochocinco
February 26 - March 26, 2011, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York Image courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
NAR: I love the idea of animals being an extension of the ready-made. In 2011, you released two goats and two cats into a New York art gallery. Unfortunately, the cats attacked the goats Your statement in response read, “cat predator, goat prey.” Considering this basic limitation of nature, to what extent can conceptual art overcome reality?
Bader: As the years pass, I regret exhibition[al] animal-as-sculpture more and more. I don't think I was wrong to do what I did, but I don't feel I was right. I regret thinking a housecat might attack a caprine as a wildcat could (though maybe they would?).
Basic limitations of nature: abundance, imprecision, mutable immutability, atemporality. Conceptual Art can't do much—an idea is an idea and an idea framed as art can only be understood as such under quite limited circumstances. Also of note, if/once one finds a material form for an idea, that form will never attain Conceptual primacy, though it could become an (art) object with unConceptual qualifications. Object and art. Idea and word. Object and word. Art and idea (these 2 are less binary).
NAR: You recently displayed Fruits, Vegetables; Fruit and Vegetable Salad at the Whitney. The work consists of produce on wooden pedestals that, once ripe, are prepared into salads for guests to eat. Is there any deeper, pretentious meaning about the consumptive nature of art under capitalism? Or is it just for funsies?
Bader: Funsies way more than critique. It's primarily a formal presentation that attempts to manage its materiality with some degree of responsibility (whatever that may mean). And like much of what I do/make, it inelegantly struggles to be independent of language.
Darren Bader
fruits, vegetables; fruit and vegetable salad
dimensions variable
Image courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York
NAR: Tell me about Lasagna on Heroin. How can objects function as people, or, in this case, addicts? I also find it hilarious that purchasing the piece represents buying the rights to reproduce it. If I inject my own lasagna with heroin, will you sue me?
Bader: "How can objects function as people?"—you tell me. No, I won't sue you.
NAR: Your idea of sending Tom Cruise into space with an unsuspecting five-year-old and immense amounts of egg salad is particularly keen. If this project is funded as requested, will you take credit? Or are you too modest?
Bader: I'm terribly immodest. I sometimes prefer not to take credit.
NAR: You write that “art has been inherited.” Can any new art ever be produced? Continuing down this path, from where does randomness derive? Can any idea be truly random?
Bader: New art is endlessly produced, i.e. recognized as art. It's a cycle (or some like term). As far as historically anointed novelty, we then get into questions of defining (and likely critiquing) history and considering epistemology and all that. Randomness lives outside consensus (I do not intend this to be definitional!). Nothing can be truly anything (I do not intend this to be poetic!).
Darren Bader, eBay Sculpture
October 16 – 24, 2020, Société, Berlin, Germany
Image courtesy of the Artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York and Société, Berlin
NAR: More than anything, your work makes me laugh. Do we need to find meaning in art, or is this enough?
Bader: What is meaning? Enough is generally enough, though you never can be sure.
Please note: this interview has been edited for length and clarity.
