Trade Show artist to speak at MASS MoCA

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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.
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Crosby/Conte Statement of Interest Gets OK From Council

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff

Architect Carl Franceschi and Superintendent Joseph Curtis address the City Council on Tuesday.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — With the approval of all necessary bodies, the school district will submit a statement of interest for a combined build on the site of Crosby Elementary School.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously gave Superintendent Joseph Curtis the green light for the SOI to the Massachusetts School Building Authority by April 12.

"The statement I would make is we should have learned by our mistakes in the past," Mayor Peter Marchetti said.

"Twenty years ago, we could have built a wastewater treatment plant a lot cheaper than we could a couple of years ago and we can wait 10 years and get in line to build a new school or we can start now and, hopefully, when we get into that process and be able to do it cheaper then we can do a decade from now."

The proposal rebuilds Conte Community School and Crosby on the West Street site with shared facilities, as both have outdated campuses, insufficient layouts, and need significant repair. A rough timeline shows a feasibility study in 2026 with design and construction ranging from 2027 to 2028.

Following the SOI, the next step would be a feasibility study to determine the specific needs and parameters of the project, costing about $1.5 million and partially covered by the state. There is a potential for 80 percent reimbursement through the MSBA, who will decide on the project by the end of the year.

Earlier this month, city officials took a tour of both schools — some were shocked at the conditions students are learning in.

Silvio O. Conte Community School, built in 1974, is a 69,500 square foot open-concept facility that was popular in the 1960s and 1970s but the quad classroom layout poses educational and security risks.  John C. Crosby Elementary School, built in 1962, is about 69,800 square feet and was built as a junior high school so several aspects had to be adapted for elementary use.

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