Knoll Lecture: Aldo Bakker

‘TO CREATE’ with designer Aldo Bakker 

Each year, through the generosity of an endowment from Knoll International, the Knoll Lecture Series at Cranbrook Academy of Art brings a renowned designer to campus for a free public lecture to promote the importance of design and build discussions with the Academy students. 

Aldo Bakker will deliver this year’s lecture, ‘TO CREATE.’ Bakker’s designs become an expression of ontological questions, where objects become something more like characters with their own sense of being. Bakker claims that by positioning his works as individual characters, he forces his audience to shift its perception. “We are no longer looking at an inanimate object on which we project our knowledge of style, shape or material value. Instead, these creatures invite us to engage in a conversation about their behaviour, their uncertainties, their beliefs, and their native tongue. We do not approach them as buyers or even as art historians. We become their fellow travellers, questioning ourselves as much as they question us,” Bakker says. 

Many of Aldo Bakker’s works are unique pieces. Several are produced in small editions. Next to his independent studio production Bakker has also created commissioned works for companies like Georg Jensen, Karakter, Puiforcat, Sèvres and Swarovski. His work has been acquired by museums like Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam), MoMa (NY), Cooper Hewitt (NY), mudac (Lausanne), Philadelphia Museum of Art, Centre Pompidou (Paris), Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and Victoria & Albert Museum (London). In 2016 and 2017 a major overview of his work was presented in the exhibition Pause (CID Grand Hornu, mudac Lausanne). Other solo exhibitions were staged at Atelier Courbet (NY), Gallery Libby Sellars (London), Looiersgracht 60 (Amsterdam), Villa Noailles in Hyeres and Vivid Gallery (Rotterdam). 

In 2016 Alice Rawsthorn and Hans den Hartog Jager edited the monograph Aldo Bakker (NAI 010 Publishers NL). Aldo Bakker received the Wallpaper Award 2011, First Prize at DDA 2009 and First Prize at Bornholm Glass (2008). 

For more information about Aldo Bakker, visit http://www.aldobakker.com/work