Carlson Baker Arts was an American company that provided custom fabrication and engineering services to artists, architectural firms and commercial companies.Jori Finkel, "At the Ready When Artists Think Big," The New York Times, April 27, 2008. Accessed April 15, 2019.Michelle Kuo, "Industrial Revolution: The History of Fabrication," Artforum, August 2007. Accessed April 15, 2019.John Morell, "Assembly Crew for Sculptors: Peter Carlson, whose firm executes often demanding plans for large or unique pieces, plays contractor in the artistic process," Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1993. Accessed April 15, 2019. Based in Sun Valley, California, the company is most known for its work for artists such as Ellsworth Kelly,Suzanne Muchnic, "Ellsworth Kelly dies at 92; artist was master of geometric abstraction,", Los Angeles Times, December 27, 2015. Accessed April 15, 2019. Jeff Koons,Nancy Hess, "Are Fabricators the Most Important People in the Art World?" The New York Times, June 22, 2018. Accessed April 15, 2019. Christian Moeller,Anthony Clark Carpio, "IKEA Burbank unveils its public art piece," Los Angeles Times, December 15, 2017. Accessed April 15, 2019. Isamu Noguchi,The Noguchi Museum, "Curator's Talk with Peter Carlson," Programs, 2013. Accessed April 15, 2019. and Claes Oldenburg / Coosje van Bruggen,Barry Newman, "Behind Some Great Artists Are the Skills of a Fabricator,", The Wall Street Journal, May 29, 2002. Accessed April 15, 2019. among others.Danielle Child, Working Aesthetics: Labour, Art and Capitalism, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Accessed April 15, 2019. The firm was founded by Peter Carlson in 1971, and has been headed by Carlson and John Baker as partners since mid-2010.Carlson Baker Arts, "About," Carlson Baker Arts website. Accessed April 15, 2019. Fabricators like Carlson Baker assist in producing technically challenging, large-scale industrial, labor-intensive, or otherwise complex artworks beyond the capacities of artists and companies.Paul Young, "Those Fabulous Fabricators and Their Finish Fetish," L.A. Weekly, January 9, 2008. Accessed April 15, 2019. Their technical services may range from 3D scanning and modeling to advanced machining, milling, and finishing to assembly, shipping, and installation.
Art writers describe the company as one of the field's pioneering and leading fabricators;Peter Lunenfeld, "Art and Technology," Artforum, July 2015. Accessed April 15, 2019.Guy Raz, "An Art Factory Goes Out of Business," All Things Considered, NPR, May 30, 2010. Accessed April 15, 2019.Julian Hoeber, "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," Artslant, May 25, 2010. Accessed April 15, 2019. in 2007, when Artforum gathered a roundtable to discuss the history and growth of art fabrication, it included Carlson and his partner of the time, Ed Suman, as leaders who had "helped realize some of the most technologically ambitious artworks" of the time.Artforum, "The Producers: A Roundtable," Artforum, October 2007. Accessed April 15, 2019. Art historian Michelle Kuo described the company as embodying "a growing convergence of artisanal craft, the factory model of production, and the organizational services and informatics that bind these elements together."Michelle Kuo, "Test Sites: Fabrication," in Contemporary Art: 1989 to the Present, Alexander Dumbadze and Suzanne Hudson (eds), Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Specific projects that Carlson Baker has fabricated include: Koons's Balloon Dog series (1996–2010); public sculptures by Oldenburg and van Bruggen (Typewriter Eraser – Scale X, 1999),Denver Art Museum, "Bruggen, Part 1 of 2,". Accessed April 15, 2019. Moeller (Verdi, 2012),Americans for the Arts, "Verdi," Public Art Network. Accessed April 15, 2019. and Tony Tasset (Rainbow, 2012);Andrew Khouri, "Culver City's 94-foot-tall rainbow pays homage to 'Wizard of Oz,'" Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2012. Accessed April 15, 2019.CODAworx, "Rainbow," Projects, CODA: Collaboration of Design + Art. Accessed April 15, 2019. and Kelly's "Panel" and "Totem" series.Ellsworth Kelly Foundation, "Biography," Ellsworth Kelly website. Accessed April 15, 2019.Eileen Kinsella, "First-Ever Ellsworth Kelly Building to Be Built at University of Texas," Artnet, February 5, 2015. Accessed April 15, 2019.
Development of art fabrication Contemporary art fabrication emerged amid the Pop and Conceptual art movements of the 1960s, as artists pursued ambitiously scaled and technical projects more concerned with ideas and concepts than with demonstrating conventional skills associated with the individual "artist's hand."Scott Rothkopf, "Introduction," Artforum, August 2007. Accessed April 15, 2019. The practice was originally taken up by East Coast industrial manufacturers, such as high-end furniture producer Treitel-Gratz Co. and architectural fabricator Milgo Industrial, which offered artists access to industrial tools, materials and techniques.John Lobell, "Developing Technologies for Sculptors," Arts Magazine, September 1971, p. 28. They were soon joined by two companies solely dedicated to art fabrication: New York-based Lippincott Inc. and Los Angeles-based print workshop Gemini G.E.L.Jonathan D. Lippincott, Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s, New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010. These firms offered a greater degree of collaboration to artists such as Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, and Frank Stella. When Gemini employee Peter Carlson left to found his own firm in 1971, it became the third such company.
Michelle Kuo suggests that in the decades that followed fabricators such as Carlson moved beyond industrial metallurgy and plastics to increasingly serve as conduits between artists and industry and technology, expanding the scope and complexity of the field. This included researching and solving new engineering and organizational problems with both new, patent-worthy and discarded technologies that drew on the aerospace, automotive, defense, recreation, semiconductor and entertainment industries. In time, these practices have come to include computer-assisted design development, 3D scanning and modeling, CNC milling, water-jet cutting, advanced paint and surface finishing, machining and moulding, as well as project management, shipping, installation and conservation.Lynn Moody, "Some Assembly Required Whenever Architects or Artists Need Help Building Something, They Turn to a Crafty Guy in Sun Valley," Daily News (Los Angeles), July 26, 1995. Accessed April 15, 2019.
Company history and partners Peter Carlson (born 1949) began his studies at Los Angeles Valley College in the late 1960s in electrical engineering. He switched to fine arts and while still in school started working at Gemini G.E.L., producing multiples (limited editions of sculpture) for artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Ellsworth Kelly and Edward Kienholz.National Gallery of Australia, Edward Kienholz, Souvenir License Plate for Sawdy, 1972. Accessed April 15, 2019.National Gallery of Australia, Edward Kienholz, The Marriage icon, 1972. Accessed April 15, 2019. He did research and work on Oldenburg's vacuum-moulded polyurethane relief, Profile Airflow (1968) and attended the landmark LACMA exhibition, "Art & Technology"—experiences Carlson identifies as a catalyst to the development of his practice. When Gemini stopped doing multiples in-house, Carlson fabricated sculpture in his garage independently, for artists such as Rauschenberg, Kienholz and Isamu Noguchi.Dennis Romero, "L.A. Art Fabricator Known for Jeff Koons Work Goes Under," LA Weekly, April 29, 2010. Accessed April 15, 2019. In 1971, he founded Peter M. Carlson Enterprises (later Carlson & Company) in Los Angeles.
Carlson departed from his predecessors somewhat, considering the firm's role as that of problem solver rather than creative "partner": "I compare my relationship with the artist as similar to that between an architect and a contractor. The artist has a vision of what they want the finished sculpture to look like, and I do what it takes to complete that vision. I serve as a tool for them." Writers identify this process less with specific technical solutions than with assembling suitable teams, tools and methods—some state-of-the-art and some old-fashioned—for each project. Often, this involves extensive research and testing and the development of new processes (for example, in finishing and paint adhesion), as with Carlson's work to achieve a specific industrial look and feel for Noguchi's galvanized steel sculptures in the 1980s and the flawless surfaces of Jeff Koons's work in subsequent decades.Portland Art, "Interview with Matt Kirsch, Associate Curator of the Isamu Noguchi Museum," Archives, May 3, 2013. Accessed April 15, 2019.
In 1990, Carlson & Co. and its staff of roughly 30 engineers, technicians, and machinists (many former defense workers) moved to a 20,000-square-foot plant in Sun Valley, turning out about 100 projects per year. Shortly after, it added Diana Campbell (still with the company as Director of Administration), Mark Nelson, as a partner, and Ed Suman, who would become a partner in 2003. Writers suggest the company separated itself from competitors in the 1990s—expanding to about 90 employees and a 30,000 square-foot facility—by introducing increasingly advanced technologies that pushed the limits of what was possible and evolved as artists continually sought to break new ground. To meet these demands, the company forged service and sourcing relationships across diverse industries, developing new methods and technologies. According to artist John McCracken, the firm invented "new tools and processes" in order to accomplish what he wanted in his stainless-steel and bronze sculptures: "I had for many years wished for the capability to make such things, and Carlson has immeasurably helped to bring that about."
In 2003, John Baker (born 1960) joined the company as Project Manager; he has led projects for Christian Moeller, Tony Tasset and Catherine Wagner, among others.Michael Thompson, "Wave/Echo," Coded Meaning. Accessed April 15, 2019. Baker previously worked as an architect at Richard Meier & Partners Architects, where he was Project Manager on the East Building of the Getty Center (1997) and led teams for the design and construction of Gagosian Gallery Beverly Hills (1998) and the Malibu Beach House (2001). In April 2010, in the midst of a recession, a slumping contemporary art market and rising costs associated with increasingly ambitious projects, Carlson & Company briefly closed, filing what Carlson characterized as "something akin to bankruptcy."Lindsay Pollock, "Art fabrication experts Carlson & Co. shutting its doors," Houston Chronicle, May 2, 2010. Accessed April 15, 2019. The firm re-formed in May 2010 as Carlson Arts LLC, adopting a downsized, reconceived business model with Carlson and Baker heading the firm as partners.Carlson Baker Arts, "Carlson Arts LLC Re-Launches Company Providing Custom Fabrication Services for Artists, Architects and Other Design Professionals," PR Newswire, November 16, 2010. In 2019, the firm became Carlson Baker Arts.
Notable projects and clients