Dutch artist

Born in Curaçao 1970
Lives and works in Amsterdam

David Bade’s work makes itself artlessly. It is the continuation of the adolescent’s angry doodles, a direct reaction to the environment, an automatic extension of the artist’s perception of the world.

Young and exuberant, Bade has made a significant impact on the art world – winning the Prix de Rome, representing his country at the Venice Biennale and holding numerous exhibitions in Europe’s most prestigious Museums. Yet he would just as readily exhibit in parking lots, railway stations or building sites. That his works should crumble or suffer being white washed, concreted over or demolished, matters not in the least to him.

What matters to Bade is the singular moment of creation or, even prior to that, the moment of epiphany that allows a glimpse into another dimension, an alternative insight. Such visions are fleeting and context bound rather than “Revelations of the Eternal”. Hence – to Bade’s mind – they offer nothing of particular value for the future.

We need not agree with Bade. The demonstration of a thought process which encourages the viewer to participate, think and explore alternative avenues, however whimsical or cynical, is intrinsically valuable.

During his visit to Muka Studio in Auckland, Bade worked with a group of primary school students. He had made a number of paper pulp structures connected to a branch fallen from a pohutukawa tree. The children were given the instruction to draw what they thought was important. Out of the branch grew slogans, stylized trees and people – messages along a time line: “Please save our world”, “ Life is a death trap”, etc.

In twenty years time it is quite likely these children will have forgotten the slogans themselves, but they will remember having thought and drawn them.

The process is important, not the finished product.