Laurie Manfra, “Maarten Baas: Furniture Iconoclast,” American Craft, October/November 2007, pp. 52-53; Tom Dixon, et al., &Fork, New York, 2007, pp. 26-27; Adam Lindemann, Collecting Design, Cologne, 2010, the front cover and pp. 262-263
Catalogue Essay
Dutch designer Maarten Baas combines crude materials and bright surfaces to joyous effect. His lacquered “Clay” chairs, first exhibited at Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 2006, are a spirited departure from “Where There’s Smoke,” his dark nativity. Those earlier appropriated works, which Baas had scorched with acetylene, celebrated wrack and ruin. Touched by hand, not fire, “Clay” represents a reversal of sorts: Baas builds up rather than tears down a wide range of furniture — chairs, tables, beds. In close collaboration with Bas den Herder, his studio fabricator, Baas hand-models industrial clay around the metal skeleton of each piece. “I also am formed out of clay,” said Elihu to Job — an age-old metaphor. Baas enlivens skin and bones with one of eight standard lacquers. But beyond color and materials, nothing is standard. Each chair dances its own way.
2006-2007 Painted synthetic clay, metal. Tallest: 28 3/4 in. (73 cm.) high Handmade by Baas & den Herder, The Netherlands. Each chair back inset with metal lettering “BAAS,” the undersides of three signed in marker with “Maarten/februari ’07,” two with “Maarten/Septembre ‘06” and one with “June ‘0[obscured]/Maarten” (6).