Bas van Beek
Stranger #10
Bas van Beek, designer and artist
Bas van Beek is one of those people who resists labels. As he says, he’s not a designer, not an artist, and not a ceramist — yet, somehow, he is all three, just in his own way. I loved how he described himself as someone who, through his practice, makes visible the connections between different eras, allowing for a deeper understanding of cultural heritage. To me, his practice feels particularly relevant today: he looks back to the past, almost with an obsessive fascination, in order to create something for the present — recontextualising what has been. His “copy and paste” technique becomes a way to cultivate this obsession and to find answers within his research. In this conversation, Bas reflects on the importance of connecting with our cultural heritage while reinterpreting it for the present, the value of critical thinking within design practice, and the need to rethink accessibility in the cultural system to make it more equitable. He also shares insights on how embracing failure can open up new possibilities and ways of working.
How would you introduce yourself?
Earlier this year, while working at the European Ceramic Work Center, I came to a kind of revelation. The program brings together artists, designers, musicians, and others, all living and working in the same place. You share meals, take turns cooking for the group, and naturally drift in and out of each other’s studios.
In that environment, I realised I don’t quite see myself as an artist in the way many of the artists there do. I’m not exactly that kind of designer either, and I’m not a ceramicist. Yet my practice touches all three — art, design, and ceramics.
What really drives me is a desire to understand cultural heritage: where forms come from and how we express ourselves through them. This curiosity led me into archives, not simply to look at objects but to understand them. For me, copying is part of that process — a way of learning by doing.
I began with 20th-century works, then gradually moved back into the 19th century, and now I’ve reached the Rococo era. When I immerse myself in a period, I study it until I can almost breathe it, and from there I start making connections with other times.
Through this process, I’ve begun to see common threads running through history — points where artists and designers, across different eras, share the same urge to capture something essential in their work. The pieces I create are my way of making those connections visible.
You describe yourself as an experienced business analyst with a demonstrated history of working in the design industry—skilled in art direction, exhibit design, visual arts, and product development. Could you share some key moments that have shaped your professional journey?
My practice is actually quite close to that of classical artists who work almost like monks, in isolation. The people I do meet often feel like a natural match, and from those conversations projects begin to take shape. Sometimes it’s as simple as sharing ideas over coffee, and before I know it things escalate — an exhibition grows, opportunities multiply, and suddenly I find myself thinking: how did I get myself into this?
From the outside, the art world can look intimidating, but for me it often starts with these very ordinary, almost banal encounters. One example goes back about ten years, when I had an exhibition at the Van Abbemuseum. I had been doing research in archives in Vienna and Berlin, creating new work connected to Bauhaus. The head of exhibitions at the Van Gogh Museum happened to visit, and after a simple coffee together he told me they were planning a Gustav Klimt exhibition for 2020 and suggested we stay in touch. From there, things quickly grew — other museums heard that the Van Gogh Museum was preparing this exhibition and wanted to join the program, and suddenly I was involved in multiple projects linked to Klimt.
Another moment came just before the pandemic. I was working on an exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and over coffee with Silvia Barisone from the Wolfsonian in Miami she asked if I’d be interested in doing a project there. At the time I had too much on my plate. Another exhibition in the classical sense didn’t interest me. I had the idea to connect the Wolfsonian’s collection with a Netflix or Hollywood production, so that some of the objects could actually appear on screen. Then, once the show premieres, the exhibition could bring the story to life through a series of period rooms, letting visitors experience the pieces in their original context. We agreed to keep talking, but then Covid hit and those plans stalled. Instead, we decided to create an exhibition based on my earlier projects. It was originally planned for the sixth floor of the Wolfsonian, but we ended up moving it to the entire ground floor to give it more space.
So in the end, these conversations with different people have led me to all of these projects. They start small — just a coffee, a phone call — but they grow into something much larger, often out of my hands.
What has been the greatest challenge you’ve faced in your career?
I think the biggest challenge is continuity. From the outside, my work can seem grand, impressive, maybe even intimidating, but that actually works against me. I assumed that after a series of projects and exhibitions, things would get easier. The opposite turned out to be true.
In the Netherlands, if you can really do something, it’s often seen as a threat rather than a strength. The attitude is: he’s already had his moment, now it’s time to give someone else a chance. For many artists, musicians, and designers, the height of success lasts maybe five years. After that, staying relevant becomes a struggle.
That’s where I am now, in this mid-career phase. I don’t lack ideas or inspiration — the conversations continue, and so does the output. What’s difficult is grasping how to position myself in a system shaped by neoliberal capitalism. Once an artist finds a formula that sells, they’re expected to repeat it, project after project, because it makes them recognisable.
But I can’t work like that. For me, success doesn’t mean endlessly milking one aesthetic. Once I’ve taught myself a certain style and created work within it, I need to move on to something new that excites me. As a result, my next project often looks nothing like the one before. This can be alienating for audiences, because they can’t easily put me in a box. Some even find it threatening.
Still, my life isn’t theirs. For me, the challenge is convincing people to see the bigger picture — to understand that my work is not just about repeating or evolving a single idea, but about a much broader exploration. Unfortunately, most people don’t get that.
You draw strong inspiration from the history of art and design, and you’ve mentioned that you never hide your sources of inspiration—on the contrary, they become part of the creation itself. What influences you the most?
I usually start going through thousands of works, image by image, over several weeks. I don’t know what I like until I see it, so I start by curating the pieces that catch my attention. I ask myself: what fascinates me about this? How was it made, and what was the artist thinking at the time?
From there, an unhealthy obsession often develops. I recreate or digitise the work, trying to understand its essence, and then look for connections with other artists, designers, or my own work.
For example, ten years ago I was working with ceramics in Jingdezhen, China, making tea pots and contemporary versions of Dutch tulip towers. I was inspired by Jan van der Vaart, a Dutch ceramicist who created stackable elements that connect to something larger than themselves. By digitally copying his work, I noticed he used circles, squares, and hexagons, but never pentagons. That led me to create new elements using his principles, adding to his body of work.
I also explored the National Glass Museum in the Netherlands, where I found drawings of crystals by H.P Berlage, an early twentieth-century Dutch architect. His aesthetic connected with that of Jan van der Vaart the ceramicist, even though their work was seventy years apart. I redesigned elements to bridge these works, showing a common thread across time.
Usually, my research begins when I feel bored or distracted — I follow whatever sparks curiosity, and over time that curiosity grows into that already mentioned unhealthy obsession.
I’m very interested in your approach to copy-and-paste and mix-and-match techniques. You seem fascinated by combining old designs—pieces you admire or want to bring back to life—with new technologies, contexts, and meanings. Could you tell me more about this?
There’s a story that illustrates this well. At the National Glass Museum, the curator told me that Frank Lloyd Wright had once designed a coffee service for the glass factory in Leerdam. I was fascinated. There were drawings, but the designs had never been produced. I wondered: why not?
It turned out to be an incredible story. The factory director had approached Wright — of whom Berlage who also worked for the Glass factory was a big fan — asking him to design some works in pressed glass. Years later, drawings appeared, including a vase. But because Wright didn’t have knowledge on the pressed-glass technique, the prototype was blown instead. When the vase came back to him, he was unhappy: the interior form didn’t align with the exterior, precisely because it was blown rather than pressed. The director invited him to come and show him the pressed-glass technique so he could adjust the design, but Wright never did. And so the pieces were never realised.
All that remained were the drawings. Nobody thought of actually making them. So I began working on them digitally, trying to recreate what Wright had envisioned. His design was impossible to execute in pressed glass, but it looked incredible on paper. I eventually 3D-printed a set of these objects. The results were striking, and you could even see connections with the designer Ettore Sottsass, which I found fascinating. It makes you think if Sottsass saw those drawings at some point.
For me, this became a kind of bridge in history, a missing link. What I don’t understand is why no one else thought maybe we should actually realize Wright’s work, rather than just exhibiting the drawings. There is more knowledge in a drawing than you get by simply framing it and hanging it in a gallery.
By remaking the coffee service in Rhino, a 3D modeling program, I discovered something important: these designs could never have been produced in pressed glass, but they can be 3D-printed, 80 years later. That’s something you only learn by recreating, not by looking. It’s not just the role of the curator or art historian, nor simply the task of the designer to make something new. It’s about engaging with history in a way that reveals possibilities that weren’t visible before.
Teaching has played a significant role in your professional life and seems to be a way for you to pass on a message to the next generation of designers. What has this experience given you?
Teaching puts you in dialogue not only with students but also with yourself — you always gain from it. At the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam, where I eventually became head of the DesigLAB department, I shifted the focus from endless discussions to making. Instead of treating technical skills separately, we built integrated semester-long projects where students had to design and fabricate from the start.
The studio soon filled with models, prototypes, and shared work, a space where students learned from each other as much as from teachers. We also encouraged teachers to share their own practice, which made the exchange more real and personal.
Looking back, I realised that my own education came down to just a few defining conversations with teachers. That’s what I wanted to create: moments of dialogue that truly shape someone. For me, teaching is about passing knowledge to the next generation through those conversations.
You’ve expressed a critical view of contemporary design, saying that it’s often disconnected from what’s happening in the real world. What does it mean to be a designer in 2025? And in your view, how can designers have a real impact on people’s lives?
The longer I work, the more I see how disconnected cultural production is from the realities of society. We live in a time of growing polarisation, and yet much of culture—art, design, even education—ends up fueling that divide, often without realising it. Institutions speak about inclusivity and diversity, but in practice the system remains elitist.
Take design schools. Thirty years ago, when I studied, international students made up maybe 6% of the population. Today it’s closer to 40%. Why? Because schools have shifted from transferring knowledge to simply attracting paying students, especially wealthy internationals. Many of them reproduce their own social class through their work, which changes the cultural landscape of the country.
Another problem is inequality within education itself. In the Netherlands, for example, the system separates children at age 12 into practical or academic tracks. Those in practical education receive far fewer hours of cultural training. The message is clear: culture and imagination are for the highly educated, while others are taught simply to follow rules. That’s not only unjust, it’s dangerous in a society where the welfare state is being dismantled and social problems are left unsolved.
This is where designers are often brought in, as if design can compensate for structural inequality. But when designers are asked to “fix” social issues, the solutions usually serve only their own class, or stay within the museum walls. From a distance, it’s almost offensive: we cut healthcare and social programs, then expect designers to step in with symbolic answers.
So what does it mean to be a designer in 2025? For me, it’s about recognising these structures and not pretending that design alone can change the world. The world would actually be better if designers stopped claiming they could “make it a better place” and instead focused on addressing the deeper question: who gets to produce culture, and who is excluded from it?
What does “the power of failure” mean to you in your practice?
When I was at the European Ceramic Center, I was experimenting with clay, trying to create new stackable elements. Clay is basically solidifying mud, you never really know if it will hold or collapse. The staff and other residents were worried: is this going to work at all? But for me, that’s the point. If you want to explore new territory, you have to take risks and do things no one has done before.
To make the risk manageable, I work in quantity. I might create dozens of pieces, knowing that half will probably fail. That’s not a problem, it’s part of the process. You need to keep guiding yourself, even if everyone around you doubts it will work.
Failure is actually closer to reality than success. Success brings pressure and expectations, while failure brings freedom. In failure, there’s a kind of release, almost salvation.
From what I understand, one of your current projects is the Lego series, which seems to both celebrate a design archive of selected pieces and recontextualise them in a critical way—a kind of summary of your entire approach, I would say. Could you share the idea behind this project?
I hadn’t touched Lego in about 35 years—I threw mine out when I was 16. Recently, I thought it might be interesting to make molds from Lego bricks, so I bought some sets and asked friends’ kids to help me build them. Most people rediscovered Lego during Covid, I came to it a bit later. What struck me immediately was how many more elements exist now compared to when I was a child.
While building, I was reminded of a teapot I once found in the Wolfsonian collection in Miami. Back then, I made a 3D print of it. This time, I tried to reconstruct it in Lego using the new bricks available. But some essential pieces were missing. So I started designing entirely new Lego bricks to make the teapot possible.
From there, I turned to other design classics—and the same issue came up again and again. Each one needed an additional brick that didn’t exist. So I created those missing elements myself. The idea is that eventually Lego will produce these new bricks at some point, because it fits within its system.
Is there a project you still dream of realising—something that, for some reason, hasn’t yet taken shape?
Right now, I’m working on something connected to many of the issues I’ve mentioned: the belief that designers should “save” society, the limits of design education, and the contradictions within museums that claim to be inclusive and diverse but often aren’t.
Think about how museums function: once an object enters a collection, it must be conserved—untouchable, frozen for future generations. Visitors are expected to look in silence, never touch, never make noise. Then there’s the obsession with authenticity: if it isn’t the “real thing,” it doesn’t count. Reproductions or reinterpretations are pushed aside. In this way, museums also reproduce class dynamics. As Pierre Bourdieu wrote, the museum is where the culture of the ruling class is legitimised, while the culture of the non-ruling class is dismissed as mere “popular culture.”
So my dream project is to create a new kind of cultural institution—one that doesn’t inherit these problems. I imagine it as a gym. I’ve been redesigning gym equipment, combining it with references to cultural heritage. In a gym, class distinctions disappear; conservation and authenticity are no longer barriers. Objects can be used, touched, and experienced physically. This creates a far more intense and personal connection with cultural heritage than simply looking at something behind glass.
For now, some of these pieces are being tested in CrossFit spaces and gyms. Eventually, my hope is to bring the idea into museums themselves, transforming part of the museum into a place that functions as a gym.
Could you name a person who inspires you or someone you admire?
I would name Cathy Leff. I met her in Miami while working on an exhibition. She’s the former director of the Wolfsonian Museum, and after leaving that role she launched several initiatives. Now she runs the Bakehouse Art Complex, which is both an artist space and a social housing project. She has an ambitious vision for it, along with the experience, connections, and determination to make it happen. She’s truly a force of nature!
“Cathy,
I’ve always admired your exceptional taste — the way you display your shoes like works of art, each pair deserving its own spotlight, alongside your fascinating collection of taxidermy that somehow feels both bold and elegant. And of course, no one bakes cookies quite like you do. You’re truly one of a kind.
You’re also the only person I know who can take a phone call on her Apple Watch while cycling straight down the middle of a Miami street — fearless, determined, unstoppable. Your drive and energy are a force of nature, and they continue to inspire me.”
