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ALDO BAKKER DESIGN AT COURBET TONUS URUSHI

TONUS URUSHI

ALDO BAKKER DESIGN AT COURBET TONUS URUSHI

Designer

Aldo Bakker

Manufacture

Sergej Kirilov

Circa

2010

Description

One of the Dutch designer's most iconic designs, Aldo Bakker’s Tonus series belongs to the permanent collections of the Centre Pompidou and the Centre National des Arts Plastiques in Paris, the Vitra Museum, the Zuiderzeemuseum Enkhuizen, and the Design Museum of Gent. As Trish Lorenz writes in her Financial Times article about Aldo’s Urushi pieces presented in his exhibition at Les Ateliers Courbet: “The Art of Urushi lacquering is slow, laborious, repetitive and risky as there is no way to erase mistakes.” The centuries-old Japanese lacquer, Urushi, envelops objects or furniture pieces with a soft and yet extremely resistant skin. The lacquer must be perfectly stretched onto the surface intensifying and bringing depth to its color. Aldo has developed work layered with a pure Urushi finish since 2005. “I fell in love with Urushi on my first encounter with it, and I think I will keep working with it for the rest of my life,” says Bakker. “I like the fact that it is one hundred percent natural and ages beautifully and has a real depth and quality of surface and color. Even very new and contemporary pieces have a sense of maturity and age to them.” EXHIBITIONS Mudac Museum - Lausanne, 2017 CID Grand Hornu Museum, 2017 Galerie Vivid, 2014 Cuypershuis Roermond, 2015

Aldo Bakker

Born in the Netherlands in 1971 to Dutch designers Gijs Bakker and Emmy Van Leersum, Bakker grew up in an environment infused with a strong aesthetic sensibility. Rather than a formal design education, he forged his own path by training as a silversmith. Bakker set up his own studio in 1994, later moving into furniture and product design.

Bakker is interested in organic forms and movements that defy time, zeitgeist, functionality, and purpose. Those who see Aldo’s design for the first time are often drawn to the form or the materiality before they wonder what their purpose is.

This engaging and intriguing moment is important to the designer who grew his own unconventional approach to design in the scholarly household of two Dutch design icons. As opposed to most designers, Bakker rarely starts a design idea from the desire to solve a problem or address practical needs. Most of his objects start from the fascination for the timeless beauty of a form and the movement it may suggest; the form and its movement would then inspire a function. The cleverness and oddity of Aldo’s designs give his objects some type of natural legitimacy and timelessness.

Bakker’s pieces result from the dexterity of his master craftsmen collaborators — silversmith Jan Matthesius, ceramicist Frans Ottink, woodcrafter Rutger Graas, urushi master Sergej Kirilov or metalsmith Andre van Loon among others.

Widely published and exhibited in Europe today, Aldo held his first large exhibition at the Amsterdam Gallery ‘Binnen’. Invited by Ilse Crawford of the Eindhoven Design Academy in 2002, Bakker has fulfilled a successful tenure at the Design university for over ten years. Today the designer continues selected collaborations with renown manufacturers while further completing his personal collection with master craftsmen and galleries around the world.

Born in the Netherlands in 1971 to Dutch designers Gijs Bakker and Emmy Van Leersum, Bakker grew up in an environment infused with a strong aesthetic sensibility. Rather than a formal design education, he forged his own path by training as a silversmith. Bakker set up his own studio in 1994, later moving into furniture and product design.

Bakker is interested in organic forms and movements that defy time, zeitgeist, functionality, and purpose. Those who see Aldo’s design for the first time are often drawn to the form or the materiality before they wonder what their purpose is.

This engaging and intriguing moment is important to the designer who grew his own unconventional approach to design in the scholarly household of two Dutch design icons. As opposed to most designers, Bakker rarely starts a design idea from the desire to solve a problem or address practical needs. Most of his objects start from the fascination for the timeless beauty of a form and the movement it may suggest; the form and its movement would then inspire a function. The cleverness and oddity of Aldo’s designs give his objects some type of natural legitimacy and timelessness.

Bakker’s pieces result from the dexterity of his master craftsmen collaborators — silversmith Jan Matthesius, ceramicist Frans Ottink, woodcrafter Rutger Graas, urushi master Sergej Kirilov or metalsmith Andre van Loon among others.

Widely published and exhibited in Europe today, Aldo held his first large exhibition at the Amsterdam Gallery ‘Binnen’. Invited by Ilse Crawford of the Eindhoven Design Academy in 2002, Bakker has fulfilled a successful tenure at the Design university for over ten years. Today the designer continues selected collaborations with renown manufacturers while further completing his personal collection with master craftsmen and galleries around the world.