Trade Show artist to speak at MASS MoCA

Print Story | Email Story
North Adams - Pyramid schemes are among the most emotionally and financially damaging cons in the country, yet they’re also the most comical. Artist Conrad Bakker’s pyramid marketing scheme pitches a functionless product with the straight face of scam marketeering. The Untitled Product Distribution Network is the latest in Bakker’s series of Untitled Projects, whose past forms included sculptures for sale on streetside folding tables and paintings for auction through ebay. The sale of these commodities comes bundled with implicit (and sometimes hilariously blatant) critiques of the business paradigms they are modeled after. Bakker, one of the artists featured in MASS MoCA’s current exhibition Trade Show, will discuss his work and answer questions at MASS MoCA on Saturday, April 30, at 1 P.M. in MASS MoCA’s Club B-10. Conrad Bakker lives and works in Urbana, Illinois, teaching at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the School of Art and Design. He has exhibited his work nationally and internationally in places like the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago, Fargfabriken Center for Contemporary Art and Architecture (Stockholm, Sweden), Southern Exposure (San Francisco, California), The Soap Factory (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and Art in General (New York City). In 2000 he received a Creative Capital Foundation project grant, which enabled the production of the Untitled Mail Order Catalog, a fully functional mail order catalog selling carved and painted replicas of typical mail order items (binoculars, nose-hair trimmers, etc.) Bakker’s ongoing Untitled Projects engage a variety of social and consumer contexts. With his formal play and imperfect carving and painting techniques, he intends to evoke humor and a sense of contextual awareness. Ultimately Bakker views his work as an attempt to identify the complexity of what it means to exist in a society based on consumption and the artifice of popular culture. Organized by Rebecca Uchill, an intern from the Williams College-Clark Art Institute Graduate Program in the History of Art, Trade Show is part of the continuing series of MASS MoCA exhibitions presented in collaboration with the Clark Art Institute in support of MASS MoCA and the Williams/Clark Graduate program in the History of Art. Admission to In Conversation with Conrad Bakker is free with museum admission but reservations are required and can be made by calling the MASS MoCA Box Office at 413.662.2111 from 11 A.M. until 5 P.M. (closed Tuesdays). Members are admitted free to the gallery and the talk.
If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."
 
The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School. 
 
The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday. 
 
The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season. 
 
The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations. 
 
"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said  interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.  
 
"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."
 
View Full Story

More Stories