>> Conrad Bakker / Untitled Projects

New work produced for the group exhibition: Phantom Frame, curated by Allison Lacher and Jeff Robinson for NON-STNDRD @ The National Building Arts Center in Sauget, Illinois. This exhibition also includes the work of Alberto Aguilar, Sarah and Joseph Belknap, Danny Bracken, Juan William Chávez, Robert Chase Heishman, and Marina Peng. 

Untitled Project: Roundup [DIY Birdhouse] Untitled Project: Sign [Monsanto/Sauget] Untitled Project: Trucker Hat [Roundup] Oil paint on carved wood, 2026

Untitled Project: Blue Tarp, Folded [w/ Flashlight] Oil paint on carved wood, 2022 Untitled Project: Rocks [Replaced](1 & 2) Oil paint on carved wood, 2019/2026

Untitled Project: Ice Merchandiser

Untitled Project: Bulletin Board [Postcard], Oil paint on carved wood, 2024, dimensions: 24 x 18 x 1.5 inches  >>  a carved/painted personal bulletin board, with pinned postcard of Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada. 

UNTITLED PROJECT: ROBERT SMITHSON LIBRARY & BOOK CLUB, Oil paint on carved wood, dimensions variable, 2014—2019

>> Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club consists of carved and painted book/sculptures based on the titles from the personal library of conceptual artist and land art pioneer Robert Smithson. Smithson’s personal library is notable in that his titles reveal a wide range of subjects, providing a unique window into his research and practice—and also functioning like a time capsule featuring the culture and ideas of his time. Soon after Robert Smithson’s untimely death in 1973, all of his books were catalogued, boxed, and placed into the Archives of American Art, where they currently reside.

Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library & Book Club exists in two forms: first as a comprehensive installation, a carved and painted sculptural rendering of every single title/edition from Robert Smithson’s library. And second, as a Book Club membership program that functions like a distributed archive—with participants from all over the world who purchase the second (and final) iteration of a carved and painted book sculpture from the available titles. In many ways, this part of the project operates like one of Smithson’s non-sites, slowly marking the time, distance and trajectories between books, ideas, persons, and spaces.

Untitled Project: Robert Smithson Library and Book Club has been exhibited at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, The Wright Museum at Beloit College, The Institute of Contemporary Art (formerly the Cress Gallery) at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, The Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, and as “R. SMITHSON’S BOOKS” a faux, used bookstore in the storefront of the Famous Hardware building in Springdale, Arkansas, at Shed Projects in Cleveland, Ohio and most recently at International Objects in Brooklyn, as part of the group exhibition: Extra Taste

Untitled Project: Poster [Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles - Un film de Chantal Akerman], Oil paint on carved wood, 48 x 34 x 1 1/2 inches, 2023

>> a hand-carved and painted wood sculpture based on the original film poster of Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce 1080 Bruxelles,” one of the ‘greatest films of all time’ and an amazing cinematic meditation on time, duration, and the everyday.

Untitled Project: Climate Economies [Souvenirs, Supplies, & Sno-Balls], Oil paint on carved wood, 2022  -- @ SHED /New Orleans    >> Untitled Project: Climate Economies [Souvenirs, Supplies, & Sno-Balls] was an examination of consumer objects and behaviors related to climate change and natural disasters in New Orleans, Louisiana. Featuring carved and painted wood sculptures of hurricane supplies and souvenirs as well as double-sided paintings of shaved ice treats (sno-balls) paired with products from hurricane kits, the work in this exhibition engaged hand labor and poetic relations to push the theatre of consumption up against the perpetual threat of extreme weather.

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]

UNTITLED PROJECT: LA CHOCOLATERIE [La Boutique] >>  is a store front commercial space featuring hundreds of carved and painted, Swiss-branded chocolate bars. These chocolate bar sculptures were for sale (cash and carry) at the price of 100 CHF, an amount roughly equivalent to one months wages for the average cocoa farmer working in the Côte d'Ivoire, Africa.

Untitled Project: La Chocolaterie [Le Journal] is a free, full-color, printed newspaper featuring digital drawings of headlines+images based on online news and economic data concerning the complex relationship between the chocolate industrial complex and cocoa production on the ground.

website

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!