The Shanghai Riddle - Maarten Baas    Aug 15 - Sep 4, 2008

No. 133 Middle Sichuan Road, 5/F / Shanghai, China 200002
Vernissage: August 15, 2008 / 6pm-8pm

SHANGHAI - Contrasts Gallery will present The Shanghai Riddle, Dutch designer Maarten Baas’ first solo exhibition in China from August 11 – 30, 2008 (TBC). Featuring works inspired by the designer’s experiences in China, the exhibition will include the latest iterations of his Sculpt, “Hey, chair, be a bookshelf!” and Smoke series, as well as new versions of his carved wood interpretations of plastic furniture. The exhibition will be on view at Contrasts’ Sichuan Road gallery (No. 133 Middle Sichuan Road, 5/F) and will open with a vernissage on August 15, 2008, from 6pm – 8pm.

While participating in Contrasts’ residency program, which brings Western artists to China to study local artistic and cultural practices, Baas became fascinated with traditional Chinese woodcarving; this exhibition is dominated by the results of this interest. His work pushes the boundaries of this time-honored Chinese craft, while also revealing the designer’s playful imagination.

Baas says: “Shanghai is a city full of contradictions: old/new, high-tech/low-tech, tradition/revolution, fake/real, cheap/expensive, original/copy, etc. Together, all these contradictions seem to form a big and interesting paradox, the complexity of which you can't exactly define. What you can feel is the atmosphere, the energy coming from it, a kind of chemical reaction to what's happening. This was what encouraged me to develop the exhibition ‘The Shanghai Riddle,’ also full of paradoxes and experiments, inspired by a city in which everything seems possible.”

The intersection of traditional craft and China’s contemporary culture of mass production are addressed with Baas’ wood carved furniture. Pieces like Plastic Chair In Wood, which reproduces a basic plastic lawn chair in luxurious hand-carved elm, reference the contrast between disposable, mass-produced goods and treasured, handcrafted objects. Baas’ Transformation installation plays with traditional Chinese furniture forms; handcrafted elm and camphor wood furniture look like they are melting into a wooden pool.

Baas’ original “Hey, chair…” series consists of found furniture and other objects assembled to form sculptures that act as multi-functional bookshelves. Baas made a unique piece from this series especially for Contrasts Gallery. The piece is made up of various objects, handpicked by Baas from the streets of Shanghai during his visits, and finished with traditional Chinese red lacquer. Chinese Objects Object is based on the “Hey, chair…” series. Baas made an assemblage of different kinds of wooden Chinese objects, which was then carved out of solid wood by local Chinese craftsmen.

The lighthearted, purposefully imperfect Sculpt series, which Baas began in his Netherlands studio in 2007, has evolved in China with the addition of two new works. The concept behind the series is to capture the spontaneity and roughness of a sketch in a fully realized, life-sized object. The Sculpt concept, which was initially applied to furniture, has expanded to include two musical instruments: a typical Chinese “pipa” and a western piano. Baas hopes the instruments can be played during the exhibition.

Mutation is a surreal carved wood installation, derived from Odds & Ends, Baas’ first collaboration with Contrasts Gallery in 2006. Everyday objects seem to have mysteriously mutated—a comb is rendered useless when it sprouts a second row of extra teeth that point every which way, wooden clothes hangers appear to be cloning themselves by growing out of each other and chairs protect themselves with spiky clothespin armor.

New additions to the designer’s celebrated Smoke series will also be on view. The series, which began as Baas’ graduation project at Design Academy Eindhoven, consists of pieces of wooden furniture that have been set alight. The remaining charcoaled pieces are preserved in a clear epoxy.