Darren Bader, »11.62 EUR«, 2014

11.62 EUR, 2014
Dimensions variable
Edition of 100 + 5 APs, signed certificate (below)

At the 2014 Whitney Biennial in New York, Darren Bader showed two transparent, cylindrical donation boxes. Visitors could either donate money to “something” or “nothing”. Expressing a sometimes absurd freedom of choice in connection with tasks or instructions, Bader’s works often don’t follow a direct purpose or meaning. Including the audience and making them accomplices to his idea of art, he expands the historical notion of the readymade. Just as common ideas of authorship are rendered absurd, so too are the mechanisms of the art market. As stated on Bader’s certificate, the “11.62 EUR” can be spent, saved, or even forgotten. Independent of the fluctuations the work may experience in the art market, it remains at its nominal cash value. The “11.62 EUR” thus becomes a placeholder that resists market gain – at least on a formal level.

Darren Bader was born in 1978 in Bridgeport, Connecticut and lives in New York.