Chris Kabel at Kreo

The Dutch designer installs the totemic Wood Ring at the Galerie Kreo, an extraordinary object of craftsmanship.

Chris Kabel's Wood Ring installation at the Galerie Kreo in Paris is more than a precious opportunity to get to know the elegance of the designer. Kabel is already internationally renowned for his very personal line of research, which is difficult to place within the contemporary design panorama. Product quantities and seasonal deadlines are not on the conceptual horizons of this designer's work, which isn't in sync with the times and the hysteria of most current design.

Chris Kabel loves the intrinsic qualities of the materials he uses, and he happily jokes about what he defined as "smart laziness" that defines a solitary position and an almost anthropological vision within his field. It is not by chance that his show opens with a description of a piece that is not merely an object, just as it is not just a piece of furniture design. It is definitely a chair, though it is not a classic one even if its perfect proportions hint at and suggest the totally open use of this very measured gesture. "It's a bit like sharing a bath in the sauna but then without the nakedness and the wetness," says Kabel with a smile, pointing out what he wanted written on the gallery's white wall. And it really is like sharing the experience of the sauna without being wet and naked. He jokes, while they bring us coffee, that we decide not to put down — even if it is served on a tray — to prevent spilling some on this beautiful piece that we sit on, while the conversation happily glosses over the vogue of the one-of-a-kind piece and limited editions. However, I point out that this is a masterpiece of menuiserie.

The circular bench seeks to create an area of intimacy rather than dividing the space

He shows me the millimetric portions of wood masterfully removed from the carved block, which was originally a ten-metre long mahogany trunk. Sitting on a strange interior/exterior-facing diagonal, we talk a bit about the Parisian installation and the piece's very careful design, which invites me to analyze its detail and enjoy its truly unique texture. He tells me about another version in Oregon pine which has completely different characteristics. The work's organic quality and the reassembly of precisely repositioned pieces reproduce the pattern of the wood grain in a three-metre diameter circle. It is truly amusing to hear him describe this curving process, which, I point out to him, refers to the elegance of a gesture that almost does not consent to the production of a prototype.

A part of the production process of <em>Wood Ring</em> — A part of the production process of *Wood Ring*

The genesis of the project is known but, for once, it is pleasant not to dwell on novelty, in the narrow sense of production, but on the quality of his thinking as a designer. There is no glue and there are no hinges to hold the circle together, originally created to respond to the need for cohesion between two major cultural venues in Rotterdam, Kabel's home town. Every year, Witte de With and TENT organize Shared Space, an event in the space that the two institutions share on the first floor. Invited for the third edition in 2010, Kabel proposed transforming the space into a public meeting place, in the vein of a village square. The designer underlines the fact that it was on that occasion that he had idea of this circular bench, which could create an area of intimacy rather than dividing the space into an anonymous section.

Insisting on this fact, because in addition to the material quality of Wood Ring, Kabel's piece is really a totemic one; the idea of elegant shared constructions of space lies at the heart of his design philosophy

The work's organic quality and the reassembly of precisely repositioned pieces reproduce the pattern of the wood grain in a three-metre diameter circle

It's hard to think of the original conditions when viewing this piece of minimalist magic — where I noticed Chris Kabel's elegant signature engraved on the metal strap closure — in a gallery. At this point, Kreo's director Didier Krzentowski joins our conversation; we turn our discussion to the difficulties that publishers and galleries often encounter in recreating the original conditions of an excellent design project. We agree on this point but I remind Chris Kabel that, in Rotterdam, it was possible to leave messages on the wall and read the materials, catalogues and books produced by the two exhibition spaces in a sort of circle of thought. Insisting on this fact, because in addition to the material quality of Wood Ring, Kabel's piece is really a totemic one; the idea of elegant shared constructions of space lies at the heart of his design philosophy.

There is no glue and there are no hinges to hold the circle together, originally created to respond to the need for cohesion between two major cultural venues in Rotterdam, Kabel's home town

In Nijverdal, a former rural town in the east of the Netherlands, where the remains of old farms are juxtaposed to modernist architecture, Kabel has realized another very successful project in 2008, Fence Bench. Punctuating the entry to the city center, this object is both a fence and a bench, with ritual implications that are very similar to Wood Ring. It creates a symbolic entry to the town's shopping area — a seating "system" that, when open, implies face-to-face encounter and when closed, an area of anonymous waiting. As a designer, Kabel is quite interested in celebrating the excellent qualities of his materials but he confesses that he is increasingly stimulated by the conceptual aspect of his work. I emphasize that it is a wonderful storyline of certainties in the quality of the form that nourishes his secure actions on material before facing the object's form. To complement the exhibition, a series of beautiful stools, almost a mini-anthology of materials and ideas, is lined up along one side of the gallery. Very discretely, one moves from a leather-covered cardboard box, to a woven stool, to some earlier experiments with polypropylene fabric. The eye falls a the perfect conclusion to the day's visit: someone using as a seat a red book, which is titled Les Merveilles d'Italie.

Chris Kabel, during the production process of <em>Wood Ring</em> — Chris Kabel, during the production process of *Wood Ring*

Thoughts can only turn to the next events in Milan, but Chris Kabel bids me goodbye with ironic comments about the seasonal tics of design. At the next Salone, the Dutch designer will show only the final version of his beautiful 2006 porcelain Kettle. At long last, the costs of producing this splendid prototype are reasonably low thanks to the use of Chinese manufacturers.

Kabel will now leave for an island north of the Canadian coast, where the disappearance of the fishing industry and the extinction of cod has left splendid and amazing traces of a past to revitalize, awaiting the gesture of his critical and object-oriented approach. Meanwhile, after some dialogue with a design philosopher of such caliber as Louise Schouwenberg, Kabel is waiting for a text that will shed light on the mechanisms of his own work. Talk about smart laziness! Ivo Bonacorsi

Chris Kabel: Wood Ring
Galerie Kreo
31 rue Dauphine, Paris
Through 2 May 2012

Chris Kabel at Kreo

The Dutch designer installs the totemic Wood Ring at the Galerie Kreo, an extraordinary object of craftsmanship.

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