Video

Sharing its title with a 2010 Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie film, The Tourist (Rome) considers sculptural possibilities for the Eternal City. The video opens with shaky, hand-shot footage from the Depp-Jolie film’s press conference, over which Bader offers subtitled musings. Candid, tongue-in-cheek absurdism continues from there throughout, as the video travels to various Roman landmarks, repurposing them for “timely” sculptural considerations. Using a pared-down videographic aesthetic, Bader frames the landmarks in proximity to improbabilities and improvisations. (For example, viewers are invited to contribute their polar fleeces to fill (thereby absorbing) the waters of the Trevi Fountain.) As is his wont, Bader piles on juxtapositions, material banalities, and flights of fancy, this time in an homage to shared cultural history and a beloved tourist center.

In Proposals for Sculpture... Bader introduces forms and concepts for unrealised works in his ongoing series of ‘trash’ sculptures. In these works, he creates or appropriates existing sculptural forms, re-purposing them as sealed containers for refuse of various kinds. Presented in visual languages of contemporary advertising, Bader proposes seemingly cavalier solutions to issues such as over-consumption, waste management, and re-usability.

Sharing its title with a 2010 Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie film, The Tourist (Rome) considers sculptural possibilities for the Eternal City. The video opens with shaky, hand-shot footage from the Depp-Jolie film’s press conference, over which Bader offers subtitled musings. Candid, tongue-in-cheek absurdism continues from there throughout, as the video travels to various Roman landmarks, repurposing them for “timely” sculptural considerations. Using a pared-down videographic aesthetic, Bader frames the landmarks in proximity to improbabilities and improvisations. (For example, viewers are invited to contribute their polar fleeces to fill (thereby absorbing) the waters of the Trevi Fountain.) As is his wont, Bader piles on juxtapositions, material banalities, and flights of fancy, this time in an homage to shared cultural history and a beloved tourist center.

In Proposals for Sculpture... Bader introduces forms and concepts for unrealised works in his ongoing series of ‘trash’ sculptures. In these works, he creates or appropriates existing sculptural forms, re-purposing them as sealed containers for refuse of various kinds. Presented in visual languages of contemporary advertising, Bader proposes seemingly cavalier solutions to issues such as over-consumption, waste management, and re-usability.

13 January - 29 March 2018

1 Davies Street W1

692 productions 

© Sadie Coles HQ, London