Maarten Baas – New Times

For the first time in Switzerland, the work of the internationally renowned Dutch designer and artist Maarten Baas is being shown in a monographic exhibition. Its central focus is on his diverse and long-standing exploration of the phenomenon of time and the motif of the clock, which he expresses by means of large-scale video installations, design objects, sculptures and conceptual projects.

In his work, Maarten Baas straddles the boundary between art and design. His creations demonstrate his famous style – one that is intellectual yet at the same time rebellious and playful. Since 2009 he has been developing the series “Real Time”, for which he designs large-format clocks in a wide variety of forms. In these complex works, he depicts the current time in performative videos, thus merging the time being represented with the actual time taken to show it.

The solo show at the Gewerbemuseum Winterthur presents a broad spectrum of these “Real Time” room installations and video projections alongside a series of “Grandfather Clocks” and “Children Clocks”, as well as a number of other brand new works exploring the concept of time. It illustrates how Baas rethinks clocks in diverse ways that combine technology, art and design, as well as reality and fiction. He thus reflects on the relativity of time – inducing the viewer, quite literally, to watch time pass.