Craft becomes art when it mixes fiercely with the anxiety of its maker. The furniture of Mark Baumgartner is more than a hands-on feat of superb design—It is mind-on in the most concentrated and philosophical sense. These meticulous aluminum structures map the mental processes of their maker. Each piece of joinery connects disparate elements of thought. The anxiety common to perfectionism is translated into the rigorous alignment of intellectual and psychological forces. These willful acts of thinking/building can never be reduced to the object of their making.
Dennis Adams
Artist, New York City
Cube
The American poet, William Carlos Williams, insisted that there were “no ideas but in things”. We live our lives in the midst of hundreds of things every minute of the day, barely conscious of their being in our world, and, at the same time, utterly dependent on their existence.
But then, there are things that take on enormous meaning; that, in their very mysterious countenances, lodge in our memory. Mark Baumgartner’s Cube desk, enfolding within itself secret drawers, files, cubbyholes, trays, ingeniously encompassed in a perfect cube, and unfolding in different sequences is just such a memorable object. The ideas lodge there firmly, secreted in a cube that takes on the lineaments of a sculpture. This object, in its perfection, has both the rare esthetic value of a work of art, and the absolute utilitarian value of a working desk.
Dore Ashton
Art Historian and Cultural Critic, New York City
Reviews
Zentralschweiz am Sonntag
Switzerland
December 20, 2009
by Roman Elsener, New York
05401tm 12.10
USA
December, 2010
©2010 by Louis Mannie Lionni
