Darren Bader

A fortune cookie.
A fortune cookie.

Darren Bader, Actually I don’t digress any more …or I mean I don’t call my digressions ‘digressions’ any more. I call them Sympathetic –Richard Horowitz, Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, Photograph by Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

Born 1978 in Bridgeport, CT
Lives and Works in New York, NY

For the 2014 Biennial, Darren Bader has installed two donation boxes on the Museum’s ground floor. One reads, “all donations will go to something.” The other reads, “all donations will go to nothing.” Visitors are encouraged to donate accordingly.

His Biennial contribution also includes a video entitled "Things I'm (Probably) Not Going to Get Done for the Biennial."

A third work will be presented before the Biennial’s close.

Bader’s mercurial practice takes a wide variety of forms, from surreal sculptures, to durational performances, to book–length writing projects. Running through his work are questions, often of a philosophical nature, about art and contemporary life.


On View
Lower Gallery

Darren Bader’s work is on view in the Museum’s Robert J. Hurst Family Gallery (Lower Gallery).

Darren Bader
Things I'm (Probably) Not Going to Get Done For the Biennial


Works by Darren Bader

  • A fortune cookie.
    A fortune cookie.

    Darren Bader, Actually I don’t digress any more …or I mean I don’t call my digressions ‘digressions’ any more. I call them Sympathetic –Richard Horowitz, Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, Photograph by Sebastiano Pellion di Persano

  • Various kinds of vegetables and fruits on display.
    Various kinds of vegetables and fruits on display.

    Darren Bader, Fruits, vegetables; fruit and vegetable salad (detail), from Darren Bader: Images at MoMA PS1, 2012. Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery. Photograph by Matthew Septimus

  • A rabbit, in front of a table with a violin on it, looking a pile of bones.
    A rabbit, in front of a table with a violin on it, looking a pile of bones.

    Darren Bader, installation view of More Buildings About Songs and Food, Sadie Coles HQ, London, 2012. Courtesy the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London

  • A woman holding a bag of lab rats and about to put one into the fuel hole of a car.
    A woman holding a bag of lab rats and about to put one into the fuel hole of a car.

    Darren Bader, Energy study, courtesy the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London

  • A charging computer next to a toy wood house.
    A charging computer next to a toy wood house.

    Darren Bader, dovecote and/with font library, Courtesy the artist; Blum and Poe, Los Angeles; and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

  • A man talking to the phone in the streets.
    A man talking to the phone in the streets.

    Darren Bader, Holding in Kristin Scott Thomas’s pee for her, Courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York, Photograph by Katherine Cohn, Calder Foundation

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.