02-2023 | Carpenters Workshop Gallery - Maarten Baas Play Time

Carpenters Workshop Gallery
7070 Santa Monica Boulevard CA 90038
Los Angeles

14 Feb - 13 May 2023

Tuesday - Friday 10AM - 6PM

Saturday 11AM - 6PM

EXHIBITION STATEMENT

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.

On view will be his latest Children’s Clocks. This new body of work consists of 101 unique pieces, each crafted in Baas’ signature clay and part of his Real Time series. Baas’ work is centred around playfulness, childlike expression and purposely naïve shapes and Children’s Clocks takes this idea one step further. Maarten worked with 720 children in the Netherlands and asked them each to create one of the 720 drawings illustrating the time in these clocks.

“My work is often a self-portrait of my inner journey, finding a balance between the wisdom you gain and the open-mindedness you lose along the way”

720 Minutes Clock: 720 children, 720 drawings, 720 minutes.

“As an adult you develop a lot of qualities. But hardly anyone can make a nice drawing. Yet, every child makes the best drawings time and time again. Their purity and originality is often better than any respected artist. That’s why I’ve always been interested in artworks of Dadaism and Art-Brut.”

Throughout his career, Maarten Baas has often worked with deliberate naivety and a focus on playful experimentation.

Baas’ 720 Minutes Clock consolidates these childlike instincts into his Real Time series, as for this series he actually 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 colour.