Maarten Baas - New Times

For the first time in Switzerland, the work of the internationally renowned Dutch designer and artist Maarten Baas (*1978) is being presented in a monographic exhibition. The Gewerbemuseum Winterthur is providing a broad insight into his work and is also showing his latest pieces. The solo show focuses on the overarching theme of time and the motif of the clock, which he illuminates with expansive video installations, design objects, sculptures and conceptual projects.The internationally renowned Dutch designer and artist Maarten Baas (*1978) combines conceptual art, handicrafts, (video) installation, performance and public space in his projects, always moving on the border between art and design. All his works can be characterized by an intellectual, but also rebellious and playful, theatrical and artistic style, with which he has also achieved great fame. In 2002, Maarten Baas completed his studies at the prestigious Design Academy Eindhoven/NL and received international attention with his graduation project "Smoke". In this series, he had various design classics charred by fire without destroying the function of the objects. In 2003, he founded Studio Maarten Baas in the Netherlands, which is still the center of his work today. Today, "Smoke" (2002), "Clay" (2006) and "Real Time" (since 2009) are considered his best-known works.The solo show "Maarten Baas - New Times" at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur is the designer's first monographic exhibition in Switzerland. It focuses on Maarten Baas' diverse and long-standing exploration of the phenomenon of time and the motif of the clock. He explores these themes in numerous facets and a wide variety of artistic interpretations. Since his first presentation at the Salone Del Mobile in Milan in 2009, Baas has been developing the "Real Time" series, for which he designs clocks in various forms. These are complex works in which the time is shown in video projections. Baas uses the term "Real Time", which in film refers to the correspondence between the time shown and the duration of the narrative. Accordingly, Maarten Baas' "Real Time Clocks" show performative videos that were filmed over a period of twelve hours and require the same twelve hours to be shown in full.Objects that also deal with time are also on display. For example, the charred, timeless design icons from the series "Smoke" (2002), the recollections of childhood memories in the project series "Clay" (2006) - or the object "Plastic Chair in Wood" (2008), in which Maarten Baas addresses the different amounts of time that different materials require in the production process of design objects.The exhibition "Maarten Baas - New Times" shows - in addition to a selection of his characteristic design objects - a broad spectrum of his "Real Time" room installations and video projections as well as a series of "Grandfather Clocks" and "Children Clocks". Baas combines design, art and technology, but also reality and fiction, existence and transience. In this way, he rethinks clocks and reflects on the relativity of time - and literally tempts you to watch time pass."If I had been asked to design a clock, I wouldn't have come up with this idea. I saw the video of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". He holds posters with the words he sings in his hand and then throws these posters away one by one. Kind of like simultaneous subtitles. When I saw that, I wondered what would happen if someone held time in their hands, and after a minute they threw the paper away and behind it was the new time and so on. So first there was this technical trick, which I was then able to develop further with different forms." (Baas, 2021)Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.