As many familiar with my work might surmise, I have idle hands. Typing is the closest thing I have to a manual craft. So I often turn to the keyboard to escape myself. For years I had a real romance with emailing. More recently, poetry has returned as semi-routine (routinely imperfect) relief-release.
Like so many things contemporary, contemporary poetry is extensive. Myriad writers can turn a phrase, stagger a sentence, respire the muse, talk in truth. Will a reader ever find/select a poet's volume (or, perhaps more saliently, that (temporarily) salient poem within it) in the brick-and-mortar POETRY section or 'in'/'at' online libraries as endless as Google and Amazon? (Not to mention all the poetry not claiming to be such but clearly such to the eye-ear-mind of its percipient.) So goes the poetry.
Like so many other contemporary poets(/makers), I aspire to write(/make) meaningful language(/stuff). Some words(/stuff) I write(/make) make(s) it into public view. This upcoming show @ Andrew Kreps Gallery will be the most contemporary instance of that. As an alternative to in-many-ways-anonymous books/ content, I'll add more potential anonymity to the world of too many goods and meanings.
A question that remains for me: If given the opportunity to publish these poems in/as a traditional book after publishing them as I do in the show, would I?
I frequently aim to entertain
In game and name (and sometimes in shame) I've kept up/at my apparent vocation
That Pop and Concept are near in kind in my mind
That I feel for things as if they can truly and never be kept
My eye and spirit feast, and again turn enfeebled soon after
The world's harrowed laughter, intransigent glee
If you were me, how often would you reckon with reason?
Darren Bader is an aging sculpture/literature brand working in AR, elision, found object, humour, permutation/chance, poem, rhetoric, and video.
Darren Bader (Bridgeport, CT, 1978) lives and works in New York. Solo shows of his work held in institutions include (@mined_oud) Madre, Naples, (2017–2018);_ Meaning and Difference_, The Power Station, Dallas (2017);_ Reading Writing Arithmetic_, Radio Athènes-Institute for the advancement of contemporary visual culture, Athens (2015);_ Where Is a Bicycle's Vagina (and Other Inquiries) or Around the Samovar, 1857_, Oslo (2012);_ Images_, MoMA-PS1, New York (2012). Awarded the Calder Prize in 2013, Bader has taken part in numerous group exhibitions and biennials including the following: 13éme Biennale de Lyon. La vie moderne, Lyon (2015);_ Under the Clouds: From Paranoia to the Digital Sublime_, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2015); The Whitney Biennial, The Whitney Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2014);_ Antigrazioso_, Palais de Tokyo, Parigi (2013);_ Something About a Tree_, FLAG Foundation, New York (2013);_ Empire State_, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2013);_ Oh, you mean cellophane and all that crap_, The Calder Foundation, New York (2012);_ Greater New York_, MoMA-PS1, New York (2010)
We partner with the world's leading galleries to showcase their artists, artworks and exhibitions. Vetted by an acclaimed group of industry peers, our gallery membership is by application and invitation only.
Learn more about Ocula MembershipLeaders in art advisory with unparalleled visibility and access to the art world's most influential galleries, collectors and auction houses.
Learn more about our team and servicesCelebrating the people and ideas shaping contemporary art via intelligent and insightful editorial.
Learn more about Ocula Magazine