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Contemporary Silver - Wouter van Baalen



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SILVER IS A MESMERIZING MATERIAL, Especially in the hands of a modernist designer like Wouter van Baalen. The Dutch contemporary designer is known for precision craftsmanship and a style that is recognizable, at least in the circles of high-end silver design. Vases and candlesticks fit together like pieces of a seamless three-dimensional puzzle. Some zig and zag. Others swirl. The designer is said to enjoy quoting John Ruskin, who said, "Fine art is that in which the hand, the head and the heart of man go together." Van Baalen may not need to quote Ruskin when he lectures at the Corcoran Gallery of Art on Thursday evening. His silver, which was recently on display at the Dutch ambassadorial residence, speaks for itself. Sleek and ultra-reflective, it is worthy of being considered fine art for the table. Linda Hales, Washington Post, June 15 2005 THE INTERNATIONAL ART + DESIGN FAIR NEW YORK CITY - Brian Haughton cannot suppress his enthusiasm for the eye-popping, up-to-the minute creations that make the International Art + Design Fair 1900-2004 the stimulating catchall that it is. Sweeping through the aisles of the Seventh Regiment Armory, where the show that he organizes with his wife Anna opened for a week on October 7, the specialist in Eighteenth Century English and Continental porcelain stopped to admire, unabashedly and unapologetically, a five-part silver candle holder that - heaven forbid - was weeks, not centuries, old. The centerpiece was by Dutch silversmith Wouter van Baalen, one of several contemporary artists who travel to New York to participate in the International Art + Design Fair. In his small-scale sterling sculptures, Van Baalen, whose Studio Eligius is in Schoonhoven, near Gouda, manipulates the reflective qualities of silver - its ability to appear liquid and solid at once - along with the mesmerizing movement suggested by light on gleaming surfaces. The interlocking candlesticks were part of Van Baalen's "Sinus" series. As the artist explained, sinus is Latin for "curve" or "fold," an apt description of the ingenious way the candlesticks fit together. The exuberant mingling of inspired design, whether it be new or not so new, is what makes the International Art + Design Fair so rewarding. Although the exhibitors were largely the same as last year, their dedication to entertaining and enlightening the public means that the floor is filled with new discoveries each round. Excerpt from an article by Laura Beach in Antiques and the Arts Online, October 26 2004 Full article: http://www.antiquesandthearts.com/TT-2004-10-26-11-01-05p1.htm ON MELENCOLIA I The essence of the Melencolia could be defined as a pyramid searching for its disappearance. That at least is what a spectator could see. But what about the intentions of the architect of this indirect demonstration? The title of this piece refers to one of the icons of hermetic philosophy, Albrecht Dürer's copper-engraving from 1514. The original could still be conceived as the representation of the tragic realisation of the loss of theological certainties and also of the limitations of science in grasping the order of the world around and in ourselves - a knowledge which makes us feel melancholic - while Dürer's suggestion that what theology and logic leave incomprehensible, must be solved through the practice of art makes us cheerful. In that sense this pyramid is, with its inner emigration of mirror effects and rotations, a radicalisation of the hermetic canon. No brooding over the loss of logical or theological certainties, as with Dürer, but a hymn on the harmony of absurdities: what descends, ascends; what ends, must yet begin; what tapers, fans out again. The enigma is the synchronism of the counterparts. Time and number play an eminent rôle in both Melencolias. In the renaissance version it is the 'concrete' symbolism of the hour-glass, sun-dial and magic-quadrant. In the modern version it is the 'abstract' time which is concerned with continuation and interruption, musically speaking: the rhythmic movement of the leaping perspective and the reflection of form. To see: a pyramid searching for its disappearance, absurdly said; its origin.To prove: a perspective in search of its causation, absurdly said; its effect. The third dimension, the depth, unlocks what the first dimension, the lines, and the second, the planes, enclose. The disclosure is enclosed in the reciprocal of the three dimensions: what the first two can not close, the third can not open. As a figure of speech the "split" pyramid is an oxymoron ("concord in discord'). The pyramid which loses itself by reflection is mathematically, free after Proust, "à la recherche de la géometrie perdue". Lost, not through a tragic misunderstanding, or the limits of the ratio, but as a proof of capability, à la Houdini. With that the enigma is defined but not explained. What ends in a fairy-tale for Alice in Wonderland when she steps through a mirror is here the reflection of a pyramid which steps outside itself and so becomes reality: a Maya-temple of silver and gold. The power of this construction lies in the conveyance of hermetic philosophy: it prompts time and space outside itself and disappears with it, like a fragment of piano-music touching a court-yard or a silent street through an open window and then blowing about. The mirrored pyramid has the power of a chromatic scale from Bach's Musikalisches Opfer. Music, language or architecture? Wouter van Baalen's creation is an exercise in contrapuntal logic. It is the sublimation of Dürer's assignment. Arthur F.P. Wassenberg, 2003 THE PRESENT From the town of Schoonhoven H.R.H. Prince Willem-Alexander and his bride-to-be (Miss. Máxima Zorreguieta) received as a present a set of silver candleholders, designed and made by Wouter van Baalen. The set was given the title Sinus II (Latin: curve, wave, inner feeling, secret heart). Van Baalen: "Sinus in the sense of curve not only refers to the curved line of the simple contour of the couple joined into unity, but also to the - in contrast - complex folded wave, which are shown as soon as they are moved apart. In this way the hidden and divided core, the secret heart is revealed. The candleholders show two perfectly matching en reflecting planes, who independent of one another still form an alliance and share their essence". Edelmetaal, december 2001 (translation)

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