Dutch designer Bertjan Pot and fellow designer Vladi Rapaport discovered a technique for stitching together lengths of coloured rope to create attention-grabbing face masks. Although they look like tribal masks, seemingly full of meaning and individual narratives, Pot reveals that the faces result from a less-than-successful attempt at making rugs. These are collected in Ropemasks & Gloves.
Bertjan Pot's most well known product is probably the Random Light (1999) but now the Masks project is drawing attention. Both the Random light and Masks started as a material research, which is basically the starting point of each work created by the artist. The outcome is usually an interior product showing a fascination for techniques, structures, patterns and colours. Most experiments start quite impulsively by a certain curiosity for how things would function or how something would look. From there, Pot takes on challenges with or without manufacturers to explore possibilities and push boundaries. The reward for each challenge is a new one.
Art Paper Editions, 176pp, 23.5cm × 17cm, paperback, 2022
