Carapace by Maarten Baas

 
Dutch designer Maarten Baas came to fame with his “Real Time” series of clocks, and with a series of burned furniture called “Smoke,” adopted into a collection of Dutch label MOOOI, and particularly remembered from a solo-exhibition at Moss in 2004.  Since graduating from the Design Academy of Eindhoven in 2002, Baas has been committed to create conceptual, handmade furniture of unusual materials and notions in his studio in Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands. Now, he presents a new series of furniture called ‘Carapace’ at Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s recently opened gallery in NYC. The pieces in this series are crafted of a patchwork of bronze plating, dot-welded, piece-by-piece, to form a skin, which acts as a protective shield, similar to a turtle shell. Seeking to create layers, Baas suggests that Carapace reflects the idea of the protective in harmony with the beautiful, represented by the hard metal exterior, consequently conveying the evolution of the very fine interior where treasure can hide.