Roman Ondak
Bad News, 2018
Newspaper papier-mâché, revolving worktable
114 x 81 x 81 cm

Bad News consists of a round table with three papier-mâché spheres placed on its tabletop. As is characteristic of Roman Ondak’s practice, the table, formerly a revolving worktable showing signs of wear, is a found object that most likely originates from an artisan’s workshop in Bratislava, where the artist works and lives.

The three spheres were made by Ondak using pages from three different widely-read newspapers, the American The New York Times, the Russian Izvestia and the Slovakian SME. The artist collected the newspaper issues for the work throughout December 2018. The diameters of the spheres was determined by the number of printed pages of each newspaper. While the surface of each sphere appears as a cacophony of article headlines and text quotes, the artist’s selection of the visible headlines was deliberately random. It is the observer who, subtly nudged by the work’s title, might assume “bad news” when in fact they may not be any.

The work alludes to the relative and subjective nature of information: what is “bad” news in one paper, might be “good” in another, what is troubling for one person, might be a relief to the other. By extension Bad News also invokes how the daily output of information through mass media channels may influence our outlook.