The Shanghai Riddle, 2008

Transformation

Maarten BAAS

Contrasts Gallery

Shanghai

15-08-08 to 04-09-08

Baas:

'Wood is not possible to melt. But yet it seems to melt. What is that? You don't actually know what it happening, but you just accept that it is happening.'

Drawing his inspiration from the city of Shanghai, Baas says: 'They do things you just couldn't find in Holland. There are so many contrasts over there. You don't know if something is new or old or fake or real or traditional or modern. This makes a kind of mixture which you can't understand, you just accept it.'

Baas has characterised Shanghai as 'a city full of contradictions, old/new, high tech/low tech, tradition/revolution, fake/real, cheap/expensive, original/copy. Together all these contradictions seem to form a big and interesting paradox, the complexity of which you can't exactly define. What you can feel is the atmosphere, the energy coming from it, a kind of chemical reaction to what's happening'.

Source: IconEye & Wallpaper* Online