Carpenters Workshop Gallery is pleased to announce Maarten Baas’ Play
Time, Maarten’s first solo exhibition on the U.S. West Coast. Play Time will
be held at the gallery’s Los Angeles location, opening during Frieze LA on
February 14th, 2023.
In the manner of a retrospective, Play Time combines artworks from
several of Maarten Baas’ acclaimed collections, including Real Time, Clay,
and Close Parity. Across these many series, Baas has consistently sought
to reverse the natural flow of time and rekindle the wonder of childhood
within an adult environment. This magical element is expressed through
artworks centered around playfulness and purposely naïve shapes,
resulting in a childlike signature style that has made his art instantly
recognizable and iconic.
It is clear, however, that the childlike innocence and honesty that his
artworks express does not hide their technical complexities. Baas displays
a masterful use of metal, ceramic, and videography throughout his work,
and is able to convey concepts with singular clarity.
It comes naturally to the artist to assume performative characters throughout
his work. In Play Time the artist becomes Peter Pan, signifying his life-long
balancing act between growing up and remaining a child. Grandfather
Clock – The Son is a rudimentary take on the classic grandfather clock
design, constructed from planks of wood in the manner of a treehouse.
The digital clock face shows Baas as a child inside the clock, updating
the hands minute by minute in bright paints to maintain the artwork as a
functional timepiece.
In contrast, in The Artist we see Baas as an adult, his full body visible
behind a much larger, modern, and mature clock face. With a bare upper
body and some paint, he seems to play a role as a typical artist in his
atelier. The question remains as to whether he is in control of time itself,
or if Time is controlling him.
Baas’ 720 Minutes Clock takes his childlike instincts a step further, as for
this series he asked children to draw the hands of a clock. During an intense
project involving 720 children, this extraordinary work was created. In total,
720 unique drawings are used to indicate the time across 720 minutes (12
hours), the summation of months of preparation, filming and editing. The
housing of these latest additions to Baas’ Real Time series is made as a
continuation of the artist’s iconic Clay collection, in a limited edition of 100
pieces, each in a unique color. Throughout his Real Time series, we see
Baas simultaneously keeping time moving relentlessly forward, minute by
minute, while at the same time regressing his characters through earlier
and earlier stages of his life.
Also included in Play Time, are several large bronze pieces from Baas’
Close Parity collection, which are a monumental ode to childlike illogical
shapes. According to Baas, nothing is more fun than drawing the impossible,
especially as in a 2-dimensional world he can operate without constraints
such as gravity. The artist used spontaneous sketches to inform the final
shape of the Close Parity artworks; top-heavy, asymmetrical, cabinets
that do not tip over but instead seem to effortlessly defy gravity. The
apparently uncomplicated pieces of furniture are in reality a kind
of balancing act of different extremes, executed with humorous
simplicity and characteristic flatness.
