hand-carved chocolate bar sculptures by conrad bakker comment on cocoa labor
this storefront artwork in geneva features hundreds of hand-carved and painted sculptures of swiss chocolate bars from past to present.
untitled project: la chocolaterie
conrad bakker continues his untitled projects series with a storefront artwork in geneva, switzerland, called ‘la chocolaterie’. the work features hundreds of hand-carved and hand-painted sculptures of swiss chocolate bars from past to present along with a lifelike depiction of bakker’s own studio/factory.
the artwork is a commentary on commodities and labor, specifically related to cocoa production and the industrial chocolate complex. furthermore, each chocolate bar sculpture is on sale for 100CHF, an amount roughly equivalent to one month’s wages for the average cocoa farmer working in the côte d’ivoire.
CONrad bakker connects COMMODITIES AND LABOR
the storefront space (la boutique) is directly connected to the secondary space (l’atelier) and features an installation of more than a hundred different carved and painted sculptures of objects and tools from the artist’s studio, pointing, somewhat theatrically, to the disparate connections between art commodities and the labor that produces them.
the last part of this project (le journal) is a free, full-color printed newspaper featuring drawings based on headlines and images taken from a wide range of internet sources and news websites covering cocoa production and the (swiss) industrial chocolate complex.
conrad bakker created this project specifically for galerie analix forever in geneva, working for months to create the chocolate bars and also the tools from his studio and spending weeks in geneva building la chocolaterie. every object in the images of the boutique and the atelier, including the storefront signage, is constructed by hand from wood and paint. more information about conrad bakker and his untitled projects can be found here.
1/20
project info:
name: untitled project: la chocolaterie
artist: conrad bakker
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
