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Monique Bastiaans's initial idea was for a completely different installation from the one now on display at the Las Cigarreras exhibition hall. It was a project that had been in the making for several years and we were excited to present it in Alicante. However, the final proposed location for the exhibition changed everything.

Bastiaans always places great importance on the location where he will exhibit, the space or environment that houses his work. He usually works on each project with a specific location in mind and pays attention to its particular characteristics, whether it's an exhibition hall or an open space, whether urban or one dominated by nature, for which he has a special predilection. He seeks to integrate the work into its environment and to create more than a dialogue, a relationship of self-involvement, almost out of necessity.

The degree of interaction between the work and its surroundings varies. It is presented in terms of space, light, materials, color, sound, or even aroma. The interaction is presented in subtle ways, such as the movement of the breeze and the reflections of the sun on the nylon mesh in "Midday Celebrated Inside" (2001), or by highlighting the stridency between synthetic materials and organic forms, as in the 2007 exhibition "Vertical Neighbors." In any case, there is always a respect for the very nature of the environment.

"Who am I to torture trees with the intention of making them better than before?" 1, he asked himself in Ribarroja del Turia while working on the "Goodbye Sadness" intervention project, which transformed a field of orange trees killed by sadness into a garden of color and hope by wrapping the trees in red, fuchsia, or ruby fabrics. His respect for the environment is also one of the fundamental reasons for the ephemeral nature of most of Bastiaans's work.

The architectural space of the Alicante factory's warehouses, still awaiting renovation, surprised and captivated Bastiaans from the first visit. These enormous rooms, revealed through the chiaroscuro created by the natural light from the large windows on the peeling walls, provide a vivid idea of the working environment during the tobacco factory's years of operation. However, what sparked a decisive interest in this case was the history of the factory and, especially, of the workers.

When it was normal for women to work at home or in the fields, the Alicante factory employed more than 5,000 cigar makers during a period when the city's population grew slightly above 15,000. The impact of this enormous workforce on the domestic economy led to certain changes in the city's social and political spheres. The cigar makers established formulas to balance their lives with long hours, which in many cases extended to long commutes. They organized to provide meals, healthcare, and, in general, to live in the factory; they even started a school to care for the children of those women who had no family to leave them with. The strength of solidarity and unity in the face of various adversities encouraged the development of a unionist and activist spirit that was the precursor to the feminist struggle in the city and has left an emotional mark on the memory of Alicante residents.

Collective memory tends to be positive and enthusiastic, especially after the recent institutional recovery of the land for public use. We all consider the cultural use of a building appropriate, which, in addition to possessing appropriate architectural characteristics, was historically the source of social concerns linked to ideals of progress and culture that are questioned by few today. However, despite recent published studies,2 this popular memory is also vague and imprecise, ignoring, for example, the harsh working conditions of different eras in order to highlight the social achievements of the cigar makers.

Minor misrepresentations frequently occur in the construction of memories. Some facts are exaggerated, and it's normal for certain data to be overlooked; objective interpretations are left out of the record; they are of no interest. The influence, in turn, of possible emotional burdens of various kinds on the memory construction process allows it to be compared to the processes of mythification, where language is used in an allegorical manner and incongruity is disguised as paradox. Over time, the deviation can become aberrant.

In homage to the achievements of the cigar makers and, above all, to the illusion that the image we have constructed of that combative spirit still inspires today, Monique Bastiaans applies an equally allegorical syntax. Dispensing with precise definitions, she reconstructs the image of that illusion through oversized figurations of certain elements that refer to easily assimilated clichés of factory work and the spirit of the cigar makers. Thus, behind the three large figures in the work "Don't Dream It, Be It" (which it is unclear whether they are cigars or giant cicadas, or the nymph-chrysalides from which everything else will emerge), we find a dance of joyful, flying fabrics, "The Ideals" themselves, in front of an enormous tray of large cigars, titled "1888," in allusion to the first revolt led by the cigar makers of Alicante. Poor lighting emulates the light of memory and casts beams that pass through a nebula that plunges us into the dense atmosphere and unhealthy air of the ships, while from an undefined place, as if coming from a distant memory, between the whirring of the fans and the squealing of the smoke machine, we hear something4 that contains resonances of the voices of the cigarette makers singing on their way to the factory.

As in many previous works—from the 1996 “Jellyfish” on Las Arenas Beach in Valencia to the 2008 “Navels Gazing at Each Other”—the three nymphs in “Don't Dream It, Be It” play with the tensions that arise between organic forms and synthetic materials. The figures' apparent robustness from a distance reveals transparency when held up to the light, with intense reddish tones from the thick walnut paste that covers their delicate lace skin. The unstable balance they adopt on the ground, half-hanging from one end, conveys a lightness that contradicts the weight suggested by the format. Mimicry is avoided—it is not important that they resemble cicadas or cigars—in order to highlight the visual values, which are versatile and allow for a threshold of uncertainty regarding the object and provoke a kind of perceptual unease. There is no desire to deceive, although Bastiaans does seek to awaken the senses; There's a desire to stimulate doubt and question: Do cigar makers have anything to do with cicadas? Does the cigar get its name from its resemblance to cicadas?

"1888," the fake cigar tray with its oversized cigars—the product of the workers' labors—has the same goal; although in this case, some concession is made to mimic the texture of the papier-mâché, so similar to cigar skin that the artist decided not to use the real leaf to cover the pieces. The dimness of the indirect light also produces a trompe-l'oeil effect in relation to the depth of the cigars, which are actually hemispherical heads attached to the wall. The scale contributes to the confusion.

We see through various works, such as "Moony" from 2002 and "Hemelzweet" from 2006, that Bastiaans is interested in the rhythms that emerge from the irregularities in the repetition of spherical or rounded elements. Serialization is a resource that reinforces the vision of the cigar makers as a group; but it also provides a certain degree of spirituality. In any case, she takes the opportunity to place the PA system behind the supposed drum, the music that composer Leopoldo Amigo—a frequent collaborator on the artist's projects—recorded specifically for the installation. Once again, we are confronted with a question: Is the result of these women's work measured by material parameters or does it have spiritual dimensions?

The skirts in "Las ideales" constitute the main element of the installation, the one that directly refers to the cigar makers. This is another iterated resource. It was presented in the 2007 exhibition "Plaisir de fleurir" at the Sala Parpalló in Valencia, where its agitation alluded to the springtime joy of flowers; later, in a slightly different version, under the title "Merrily," it was integrated alongside works resembling high-heeled shoes or pearl necklaces in the exhibition "Lunes, miércoles y por la noche" (Monday, Wednesday and Night) at Carlet, in a context that referred to the sophistication and extravagance of women's fashion. In both cases, a single piece was exhibited; here, for the first time, the work is comprised of five skirts forming a group.

The idea of a group is emphasized by the chromatic unity of the ensemble, which prevails despite the disparity in texture, tone, and details of the fabrics. This variety confirms that the groups are composed of individuals. With nuances, the fabrics are yellow, a bright and cheerful color that directly refers to a proto-union group of women workers, with a feminist tendency, known as "the yellows."

Stirred by groups of fans, the fluttering of "the ideals" recreates the movements of skirts in a dance and conveys a sense of freedom that must be very similar to that felt by the cigar makers themselves during the dances held on special days and rehearsed in the courtyards during breaks. By referring to the joy emanating from the workers' dances, Bastiaans evokes in us an anachronistic and strange feeling of relief and satisfaction at the recognition of the cigar makers' contribution to the emancipation and freedom of women in society.

All of this might lead us to believe that, indeed, "The Ideals" is Bastiaans's project with the greatest inclination toward social or anthropological issues. However, the language used is not the most appropriate, as it limits the objective scope of a reflection posed in these fields. The installation is structured in accordance with the same allegorical rhetoric that permeates the processes of constructing emotional memory and identity itself, a primary logic with associations of very basic ideas, such as the relationships of proximity and similarity in primitive magical-mystical thought. It is a logic that lies at the root of everyone's epistemology and, therefore, is almost instinctive. However, it is complicated by tropes, parallelisms, antagonisms, polyvalences, paradoxes, and other linguistic twists and turns. Strategies that allow us to become aware of emotional communication while addressing the need for cultural awareness.

A multidisciplinary and experimental visual language, which allows for very open syntactical registers, proves efficient and versatile in reflecting the polyvalences, paradoxes, and fields of vagueness of allegorical discourse. The keys to the artist's aesthetic language are revealed in the play of establishing relationships, insinuating them, simulating them, in the manipulation of the poetics inherent in the things that interact.

Boye Llorens Peters
Denia, July 18, 2012

Comprised of interventions from a wide variety of sources and registers, Monique Bastianns's exhibition, entitled "She Has Reached Her Destination," paradoxically proposes unanswered questions and opens doors. It is well known that the work of the Belgian artist, now based in Spain, consciously evades established canons and does not seem to conform to genres or trends, opting in her case for a visible affection for nature and the rural, as well as for the use of materials as diverse as plastic, fabrics, resins, metal, and modeling clay. In her works, the material finish (or, if you prefer, plastic) does not overwhelm, because her interventions guarantee a human scale and reformulate the open space of nature (the landscape), equating meditation and expansion. This circumstance leads us to point out two considerations: first, it is obvious that in Monique Bastianns's visual and poetic universe, the sensorial does not predominate over the intellectual; second, the inherent lightness of her interventions on nature confirms that the best homage to the natural world lies precisely in allowing it to breathe.

Some of the interventions created specifically for the interior and exterior spaces of the Museo Vostell Malpartida uniquely exemplify this idea of "letting it breathe": while the candor of Primavera Viral is the opposite of parasitic, the spatial arrangement of interventions such as Y ellos entienden (And They Understood) or Aspirar las Bresas (Inhaling the Breezes) also serve as a thoughtful consideration of the (demanding) exhibition space that the MVM dedicates to temporary exhibitions. Far removed, therefore, from any suspicion of hyperbolic baroque, Monique Bastiaans's work is capable of provoking powerful emotions, grounding its identity in a respect for the spaces that host her interventions. However, among the various reflections provoked by the main lines delineating the Belgian artist's unique universe, perhaps the most notable is the feeling that, in her case, lightness and (lasting) essence go hand in hand. Or to put it another way: her luminous and sensitive interventions describe the immortal ordering of the world while reminding us that the concept of harmony is also defined by its transience. A good example of this is the superb intervention "Aspirar las Bresas" (Inhaling the Breezes), with which Monique Bastiaans pays a heartfelt tribute to Wolf Vostell (in reality, the intervention celebrates the fascination both artists feel for garlic) without abandoning their hallmarks (color, lightness, joy) and distancing themselves from the extreme harshness of the concrete poet's ethical and aesthetic positioning. This intervention contributes to building a fluid narrative by forging links with the rest of the interventions in the exhibition, particularly with the sound installation with which it shares the space, entitled Y ellos entienden (And They Understood), co-authored with the Valencian composer Leopoldo Amigo. Furthermore, Monique Bastiaans continues to expand her scope of action by giving sound a primordial role in three of the works "on display." To the aforementioned collaboration with Leopoldo Amigo, we must add the aural focus of two interventions—"Aspirar las brisas" and "Virual Spring"—which, while not as obvious, instantaneous, and unquestionable as in the previous case, is still present to a certain extent. The sound produced by small rods, propelled by motors, in the schematic recreations of garlic that make up the work "Aspirar las brisas" is as organic as it is metallic and syncopated, but it lends the intervention a certain robustness. In this way, and despite the fact that from a purely visual point of view the pieces once again focus on simplicity and lightness, Monique Bastiaans keeps the flame of the Vostellian spirit alive by making a small nod to an aesthetic thought as strong as it is powerful. All of this while situated at the antipodes of viscerality, nerve and muscle, rage, power, or force... And as for "Virual Spring,"The wind rings countless bells, giving the piece a delightfully atmospheric and bouncy quality. An elegant and luminous filigree of sound swayed by the wind of Los Barruecos.

Quite different is the beautiful complexity of the participatory sculpture "Unicelulares en tiempos de crisis" (Unicellular in Times of Crisis), which hides beneath the appearance of perfect architecture the healthy diversity of tiny flowers, crafted by volunteers using modeling clay. With this work, Monique Bastiaans unfolds a discourse proclaiming that unity is possible. While the sculpture's organic form harks back to the most archetypal natural world, its content once again looks into the mirror of Mother Nature, taking the behavior of bacteria or protozoa as a model, while simultaneously seeking to x-ray the present moment. The intervention "Cuántica para cuervos" (Quantum for Crows) takes as its reference the exuberance of the lichens covering the rocks of Los Barruecos. The artist lovingly reinterprets the landscape, sowing two rocks inside the museum with these other lichens, constructed from everyday objects, which, when hit by the sun, create brilliant and dreamy sequences.
In short, the exhibition Has Reached Its Destination explores the gentler side of (human) nature like few others.

Josefa Cortés
Managing Director Morillo

Alberto Flores Galán
Art Technician

Monique Bastiaans's work is larger than life. Not only because the artist regularly creates large-scale interventions, but because her timeless work transcends the superficial. It's also larger than life because it's a very mature work, without loopholes. And it's definitely a larger proposal because Monique has managed to create a personal style by avoiding dozens of references, since the artist has managed to remain true to herself without submitting to trends, styles, or schools. But her work goes far beyond being simply personal; it's intense and precise, and if there are two elements that define Monique Bastiaans's larger artistic position, they are color and joy. If the Rolling Stones said, "Paint it Black," the Belgian-born Valencian artist exalts nature, its colors, and its joy. Indeed, gravity is a very bad companion for the arts, even more so in the case of this brave artist, always in search of constant renewal, yet faithful in a way equivalent to a self-imposed margin of maneuver, as joyful as it is full of colorful ideas. The narrow coordinates within which the artist moves do not prevent her from straying from the script and renewing herself in each installation, presenting before our eyes an immense, intense, and intelligent spectacle.

Monique Bastiaans perfectly understands the terrain she treads and displays her mastery by focusing on the gentler side of eternal truths. It is no surprise, therefore, that part of her work is oriented toward in-situ interventions that she always understands as a tribute to the place itself. And for this reason, the Vostell Malpartida Museum seemed like the ideal place to be intervened and imbued with color and reflection... because Bastiaans's proposal hides a powerful ethical, moral, and conceptual message beneath a fragile, playful, and fun appearance. And therein lies its greatness. Her harmonious work manages to naturally connect the large and the small, the powerful and the fragile, the intimate relationship with the place and the universal dimension. It is an endearing work of sincere messages of a moving magnitude that, following the example of the master Wolf Vostell, opens our eyes and encourages us to grow as human beings and to navigate life's obstacles. A good example of this is his participatory sculpture "Unicellular in Times of Crisis," made with modeling clay and the handprints of many volunteers. Each print is distinct, and together they form a perfect unity that mirrors the organic forms of nature. And one might say more: even the imperfect or less orthodox prints have their specific place in this great work, which is also a story of global friendship.

Monique Bastiaans's work is an exemplary anomaly in the art of our time because it is free of artifice. It is the purest essence of ART and LIFE, without preservatives or colorants. We find ourselves before a natural, gentle, and simple proposal. But above all, it is essential. The intervention entitled "Aspirar las Bresas," for example, pays homage to the Garlic Club formed by Vostell in the 1980s and exemplarily captures the essence of the great Malpartida-universal artist. Indeed, Monique has been able to evoke the powerful poet of concrete without relinquishing her artistic signature, conveying the attachment they both feel for garlic, which Vostell once considered the elixir of life.

José Antonio Agúndez García

Bastiaans y Vostell, Vostell y Bastiaans.

Arriving at the Vostell Malpartida Museum from Cáceres has that special air of those journeys that sometimes arise from the close and domestic sphere, like when one, walking, leaves behind streets, banks and buildings and enters a no-man's-land, on the borders of the city, where the lack of civilization reminds us once again of the natural texture of the ground on which we walk, the wild and untamed character of this planet we inhabit.

That day, we left the editorial office and breathed in the fresh air of Barruecos, leaving the geometric and logical office and entering the world of Fluxus, that otherworldly atmosphere created in the old wool washing plant. That was our destination: Malpartida, the dirt road, a sky of heavy clouds, a gloomy, autumnal day: October 26th. Autumn. And Monique Bastiaans, and five stories coined by this Belgian-Valencian woman who occupies this space with devotion, respect, and a mad fervor for Wolf Vostell.

The world stops for a moment, talking to Monique: she's fresh and original, wearing a black sweater, explorer pants, and fun, bright pink sneakers that are impossible to stop staring at. Her mascara has run a little due to the humidity, and she arrives in the middle of a busy work day, just hours before the opening of her exhibition. She'll change into something else later, a dress perhaps, but when we meet her, she seems like a fierce artist. It's one of those cases where the artist and the work are totally connected, like those children who resemble their parents so much that it would be impossible to deny the blood relationship.

Monique seems to have it all figured out: she knows her work, she knows how to explain it, and she does it so well that one doesn't feel overwhelmed by one of those stilted speeches from an artist in his ivory tower, but rather drawn into her playful and colorful world, into her joy of life and her concepts. Art as play, art as life. An art that's easy to understand but also complex and transcendent in its closeness.

Bastiaans explains the exhibition's title: 'You Have Reached Your Destination.' For her, destiny isn't something vast or mysterious, but rather the small things in life, the everyday, the attainable. Those that arrive. Or that are reached. Today. Not tomorrow or the day after, nor yesterday or the day before yesterday. "You have reached your destination," the car's navigation system croons every time it locates the entered coordinates. The idea is very relaxing, it takes the weight off the complications of life, which can sometimes be as convoluted as a still. Arriving. Like when Vostell fell in the Barruecos or when she herself arrived in Spain.

Wolf Vostell and Monique Bastiaans, Monique Bastiaans and Wolf Vostell. 35 years after the opening of her museum in Malpartida de Cáceres, this artist establishes a dialogue with the founder of Fluxus art. There are no words, only winks, a silent but understanding conversation. She echoes some of Vostell's concepts to pay homage to the master. "It's a luxury to be here; I think we're still drinking from the fountain of Fluxus artists," she says, electric and full of passion. "Vostell is a million times bigger than me, but perhaps what we have in common is that we play to create works."

Then, he shows his works. Surprises and riddles. Jokes and truths so obvious that little more needs to be said. One of the rooms in the complex is filled with large feathers that hang from the ceiling and float, alluding to the Vostellian concept of beating or rubbing. It's called "And They Understood." He explains that for a time he had some feathers hanging from the ceiling of his bedroom. From his bed, he would play at directing them with his mind, and they obeyed. "Aspirar las Brezas" (Inhaling the Breezes) are enormous metal garlic cloves that, thanks to a motor, produce a particular vibration. Vostell also spoke of this rubbing. It is also a tribute to the garlic club that the German artist created.
Outside the museum, two more interventions. Organic art that provokes a tingling sensation, the pleasure of enchanting things. Ideas we understand, or at least sense, but which we don't want to rationalize lest the moment be destroyed. 'Quantum for Crows' is a species of lichen made from sieves that cover a large rock and establish a "conversation" with delicate, sonorous umbrellas that make up the installation 'Viral Spring'. Among the vegetation outside the museum, these bells seem, indeed, to expand life with their tinkling.

And there's more to come. "Single-celled organisms cooperate and unite in difficult times," explains Bastiaans, who in his works alludes, sometimes very subtly, to scientific concepts. This is what he calls the interactive work in his exhibition, which features the clay footprints of visitors who want to participate. Thus, footprint by footprint, element by element, something is built, all together, like a collective and judicious hand.

Before we leave, Monique poses for Lorenzo Cordero's camera, which captures her as she is, as she is, in the thick of it, surrounded by nature, enveloped in the breezes of the Barruecos and in a trance, like a particular artistic medium of Wolf Vostell. The road returns us to the predictable Cáceres, to the asphalt reality we already know. And the Barruecos museum remains in its place with Monique inside, like a permanent refuge of mystery and energy.

Cristina Nunez Nebreda

TODAY, Extremadura Newspaper, 11/27/2011

Make it new
(Ezra Pound)

This cryptic maxim, "Make it new," from the English poet associated with Vorticism (a British artistic movement that originated before World War I), contained the imperative that, for him, modernity must fulfill: to renew tradition. With the unerring concentration characteristic of poetry, Pound resolves like no one else, in an apparent play of paradoxes, a profound dialectic that has generally been understood as a vulgar struggle between antagonists: modernity versus tradition.

Without a doubt, this phrase could well serve as an effective subtitle for the magnificent Replay exhibition that artist Monique Bastiaans has conceived, planned, and exhibited in the different halls of the MUBAM as part of the Asincronías program promoted by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Region of Murcia.

First of all, I congratulate you on this initiative, which directly attacks what is often one of the structural problems of museums. Theodor Adorno (a renowned philosopher belonging to the so-called Frankfurt School) drew a sharp parallel between museum and mausoleum. Over time, the museum "container" ended up becoming a sarcophagus, heavier and more visible than the works themselves. Aware of this danger, there have been many and varied attempts to update "museum programs" that are capable of vivifying and updating the pieces that form part of their collections. From this perspective, I consider the approach adopted for this small but interesting museum to be a success.

I've been closely following Monique Bastiaans's career for years. I've always been interested in nature—primarily plants—as a focal point of interest for numerous artists, and I've especially followed the work of contemporary artists in whom its presence is very evident. I've also been drawn to that other meaning of nature, when we apply it to something specific, as that which best defines its very essence. Multiple threads intertwine in Bastiaans's works (such as the recurring nets and tangles in some of her pieces) that irrevocably captivate us: some are more structural in nature—especially linked to her facility for installation—others offer more thematic interpretations—femininity, fertility, decoration, objecthood and fetishism, the domestic and the ephemeral—all articulated by a unique sense of humor and an enormous ability to adapt to exhibition contexts. The dialogue he establishes between his works and their surroundings finds its counterpart in the fruitful interaction he has undoubtedly established with the spectators who have visited this museum, which has seen its traditional layout renewed.

Monique Bastiaans has managed to articulate her particular creative obsessions—which constitute the Gordian knot of her personal poetics—with the museum's antique pieces in a way that is both personal and transferable (to viewers). A successful intervention has transformed the various rooms and spaces in which she has worked into authentic site-specific "installations," never better said.

As we understand installation in the artistic field today, it differs significantly from its more common and widespread meaning. Originating from the English verb "to install," literally "to install," its meaning would be among our own, that of placement or assembly. However, we use the word "installation" to refer to artistic expressions that eschew the inherent values of the art object in favor of emphasizing the relationships between specific elements and the interactions between them and a specific context. In any case, no one can deny that space and time also constitute "materials" for artistic creation.

The drift toward the occupation of initially extra-artistic spaces, the activation of the concept of place, not to mention context, and the reinterpretation it implies of the work of art as an object, not only repeatedly refer us to the revision of the disciplinary notion of art, but also to that persistent—and intermittent—yearning of men and artists to merge art and life. By expanding their area of work from the studio to other foreign spaces, whether exterior or, as in this case, a closed public space, the artist extends their sphere of influence from the private circle of collectors and specialists to the public sphere they had held for centuries.

One of the great attempts of modernity, of the historical avant-garde movements, has been to establish points of contact, of identification, between the aesthetic space of art and the social space of the world. Elitism versus populism, high versus low culture, avant-garde versus kitsch, individual expression versus mass communication... these are some of the dialectics that have characterized the development of the arts in the recently closed century.

Cubism (the collage principle), Futurism (the search for new materials and techniques, interdisciplinary and vital involvement), Dadaism (the ready-made, the identification between industrial object and work of art), Constructivism (Proun constructions – the sculptural use of space), the Bauhaus (the unity between art and technique, the integration between different disciplines in architecture) were opening doors to a conception of art that continued to build bridges towards the surrounding reality.

I understand that three concepts are fundamental to understanding the structural background that supports Monique Bastiaans' creative proposal:

1- Interdisciplinarity
2- Interaction
3- Integration

Her works are not bound by a strict discipline; in fact, the conjunction of diverse elements and resources has been a recurring theme in her poetry. And not only by combining different disciplines, by making incursions into territories bordering on scenography (as in the library, behind Mari Chávez's door), nor by combining disparate materials and techniques (which primarily affects the construction of the object as an autonomous entity), but also by tirelessly investigating that fertile front between object and context.

To review these fundamental concepts of interdisciplinarity, interaction, and integration, we will conduct a succinct analysis, noting a series of shifts we consider significant not only in this exhibition but also in broader transformations of our contemporary culture. From object to context, from artist to spectator, from the rational to the sensorial, from the private to the public, from unity to diversity... they summarize very present processes that may shed some light on the spectacularization of the social so characteristic of our times.

1. Interdisciplinarity
We rarely appreciate the imperative need to contextualize things to understand them a little better. On the contrary, we have an innate tendency to generalize to absolute extremes based on facts, or worse, on impressions that are as specific as they are partial. We thus establish an unfair relationship between the part and the whole, often disqualifying the whole for the sake of the part.

Aware of the complexity and diversity of ever-changing reality, numerous artists, including Monique Bastiaans, have made the abolition of genres, styles, disciplines, and languages their normal guideline, and the synthesis of the disparate, the distant, and the opposite their vital non-system of artistic expression. When working in this way, diversity emerges as an inevitable working tool. The shift toward object-like presence constitutes one of the most significant processes of recent years.

It is precisely this real autonomy (three-dimensional objects) that allows for broad freedom of movement when addressing the object-context problem, without the limitations of representation, which requires a specific setting, an appropriate distance, and a unique point of view for optimal visualization.

If the autonomy of the object enables its multiple placement, the specific installation in a given context is what fixes the infinite permutations, limiting them to very few effective solutions, if not demanding a single response.

This recourse to objectuality constitutes one of the most effective mechanisms (and perhaps one of the most pressing needs) that today's artist has to securely anchor his work in a situation marked by transience, instability, and relativity. By establishing direct relationships that extend from the work to the space that houses it, and from there to the viewer, the artist establishes objective connections.

In these installations, interventions... (whichever definition you prefer, it certainly doesn't fully reflect what they really are and represent), Monique Bastiaans wisely opts for a type of creativity that extends beyond the closed relationship between work and object. This integration leads to a concept related to the importance of context, where the role of space/time (variation, sequencing) and the viewer (the journey) are fundamental.

2. Interaction
It is a commonplace that we live in a world that appears increasingly fluid and fragmented, which we perceive as a vast kaleidoscopic representation. Our relationship with the world is interactive. A stimulus is followed by a specific response. Today, a generation of objects has emerged that interact dynamically with their subjects, maintaining a kind of dialogue with them that undermines the old distinction between active response (applicable only to living beings) and passive response (typical of objects). What characterizes this new family of objects is their ability to modify their behavior based on certain external variables.

This derivation is not limited to the ever-necessary presence of the spectator for the artistic event to occur. This is common for the relationship between author and work to acquire its full meaning, which for decades has facilitated its assimilation with the communicative phenomenon—the classic trilogy made up of the sender, the message, and the receiver.

In this type of work, the active participation of the viewer is also required, whose movement, commuting, and interference shape each moment. This spectatorial action also generates interactions that shed light on the enveloping complexity of these artistic manifestations.

Furthermore, in many cases, artists who use installations delve into certain aspects that influence the dynamic behavior of the viewer. This dynamic is linked to the notion—and the physical fact—of the journey.

3. Integration
Integration, understood as the relationship of parts to form the whole, lies at the base of a complex framework in which this artist's particular obsessions merge. An integration of different disciplines is marked by that discursive alternation synthesized in the fusion/opposition between the physical solidity of the three-dimensional object, the shifting two-dimensionality of the audiovisual image, the ephemeral action, the evanescent aroma... Diverse realities, seemingly distant worlds that converge in that singular microcosm that is this creator's intimate and public universe.

Unlike contextual positions in which the starting point is external conditions, effective integration with the environment is sometimes achieved from a position deeply immersed in the object, but also consciously connected to significant elements around us. The inseparable unity of the work of art is expanded, and without dissolving, it is completed in a spatial and conceptual integrity.

The close links between human beings and their living space are symptomatic of the profound identification that arises from the inevitable being in space, a basic structure from which we cannot escape, and of the importance of context, a mutable circumstance that also ends up conditioning us.

Epilogue. The Limits of Art: An Art of Limits
Art, by definition, is always situated on the edge. Of the established, the conventional, the expected, the politically correct, the fashionable, the tasteful, the rational, the objective, the explainable, the sayable. These edges, far from constituting clearly established linear barriers, are virtual frontiers open to a vast area; that no-man's-land where the most diverse art forms are born.

Real or imaginary, evident or invisible, boundaries separate instances that differ from one another precisely because of the former. Or vice versa; it may also be that because they are different instances, these external boundaries end up defining each other. In any case, it is common that when we specifically refer to boundaries, we are referring to the totality of what they contain. One of the greatest virtues of art, without a doubt, is its infinite capacity to transgress boundaries, to connect what seems unrelated. And to make us enjoy and reflect.

Everything is related to everything else. This complex sandwich of meanings, readings, and interpretations is merely a correlate of this solid interplay of associations. The disparity of techniques and procedures contributes to the singularization of a poetic uniqueness. Moving away from monolithic positions and dominant visual languages, Monique Bastiaans constructs, with sensitivity, a sense of humor, and diversity, an effective framework that functions as a correlate of this broader sociocultural context.

One of the least debatable features of the visual arts—of works of art as concrete realities—is their polysemic capacity. The range of possible meanings increases geometrically if we consider each viewer's specific point of view. This interpretive versatility probably resides—among other factors—in the inexhaustible metaphorical capacity (to establish tacit comparisons). The assertion that a picture is worth a thousand words is based precisely on this persuasive power of the image transformed into evidence. This power of persuasion is linked to this unusual facility for establishing comparisons, for relating not only the work to oneself and to other secondary contexts, but also, and ultimately, to the viewer.

There is no art more effective than that capable of establishing relationships of complicity with third parties, starting with the work as a central core that radiates its tentacles in all directions. Without an anchoring point, it is impossible for the work to effectively engage the viewer. Vital conditions, experiential and aesthetic approaches, an updated reinterpretation of the past, and a critical questioning of the present all play a key role.

We've walked through the halls, time has passed. Things are the same and yet different. The MUBAM will no longer be the same museum, even if many don't know it. Monique Bastiaans is surely embarking on a new adventure, preparing a new and different project.

Heraclitus or Parmenides? Ezra Pound. The answer has been in the wind, ever since the beginning of the 20th century, before Bob Dylan, repeating to everyone with ears to hear and who knows how to listen: make it new.

Juan Bta. Peiró
March 2010

The idea of "order" serves as the axis around which the city and its public space are organized and built, although it is a criterion irremediably subject to parameters of subjectivity. For example, the order inherent in nature is not the same as that applied by minimalist architects. Does our love of order also have certain limits? As we can recognize when looking at a multi-story office building whose windows consist of identical squares of reflective glass enclosed in identical aluminum frames, whose floors resemble one another, where the obvious distinctions between left and right or front and back are blurred. Rather than arousing admiration for the evidence of its orderly nature, such a box-like building may evoke feelings of laxity or irritation. Its presence may make us forget the effort that went into bringing order out of chaos, and instead of praising the building for its regularity, we may condemn it for its tedium.

According to Stendhal, beauty is a promise of happiness, but the notion of what is beautiful changes according to the era, cultural circumstances, and the character of each society or territory. On this journey toward beauty, as an iconic representation of the happiness to which human beings aspire, we find a whole catalog of excesses and deficiencies that leave their mark on time as a sign that conveys the multiple ways of understanding this need. Under the premise of beauty as a stimulus that acts as an incentive to happiness, we should analyze whether the sculptural and spectacular concept with which today's—and historically—governors monumentalize public space is headed in that direction or if its aim is more related to imposing a preponderant, superior presence on the individual, reminding them of their insignificance in the enormous grid of the board on which the powerful move their pieces. The system has resorted to the symbolic representation of its power in such a way that it almost doesn't need to act as a censor; each individual knows the limits to which they must adhere and automatically applies self-censorship as a form of public relations. We could also delve into the processes by which the productive system has been able to capitalize on this inherent desire for "more beauty" to convince the masses and incite each of us, leading us to decades of consumption that now, in the current situation, must be analyzed and rethought.

Monique Bastiaans, particularly through her interventions in public spaces, has been able to move viewers to questions about their surroundings. Her works are based on the desire to introduce playful elements into everyday landscapes, both rural and urban, simultaneously creating a relationship so intense that it blends them together. She combines strange bodies, creating impossible unions that are successfully resolved before the incredulous gaze of passersby. Her interventions are usually ephemeral—whether on the shore of a beach, in the center of a large city, or in a solitary farmland—but on this occasion, in Carlet, her project has a desire for permanence. Following the logical development of the centerpiece of his recent exhibition at the Sala Parpalló in Valencia and a video created for the Museum of Fine Arts in Murcia, which take the flowering of moss as a reference, Bastiaans generates a call to attention to the insignificant, that which goes unnoticed, while seeming to want to remind us of the need to brighten up everyday life through the stimuli of simplicity.

As soon as the goods that enhance life begin their shift from the non-monetary realm to the realm of the consumer goods market, there is no stopping them. The movement tends to create its own inertia and becomes propelled and accelerated by itself, increasingly limiting the goods that, by their nature, can only be produced personally and only flourish after the establishment of intense and intimate human relationships. The more difficult it is to offer these kinds of goods to others, those that money cannot buy, or the more lacking is the willingness to collaborate with others in their production (a willingness to cooperate that is often considered the most satisfying product one can offer), the deeper are the resulting feelings of guilt and unhappiness. The desire to redeem and atone for this guilt drives the subject to seek ever more expensive products on the market to replace what they can no longer offer the people with whom they live, and to spend more hours away from them in order to earn more money. It seems, then, that the growth of the “gross domestic product” is an index that should be considered inversely to measure the happiness index.
Hopefully, these sprigs "grown" by Monique Bastiaans in Carlet, Celery for the People, will serve to remind us, in the accelerated transit of daily life, of the indisputable value of life, the pleasure of sharing it with those close to us, and the care in our actions and omissions for the environmental repercussions on those who are geographically and temporally distant.

José Luis Pérez Pont 2009

Escaping the bustling city, leaving behind the concrete blocks that shelter the citizens, those complex organisms that we are, distancing ourselves from everything that seeks to please us, we set out with the firm idea of establishing contact with nature and finding within it a more human aspect of ourselves. Ultimately, nature comforts us; we believe and even assert that the air there is lighter. With a bit of luck, we verify this, but to do so, we must delve into the place with the least intervention from the not-always-friendly "hand of man." We continue the search for a place free of materials that are aberrant to the environment, and this, although difficult, is ultimately possible.

By surrounding ourselves only with nature and absorbing its purest essence, determined by our unique perception, we may recognize ourselves as just another organism surrounding us. Immersed in such an environment, it's fitting to discuss Monique Bastiaans's interventions in nature. Her work has a respectful aura and is no less spectacular than that of the environment itself.

There is a human presence that violently intrudes upon nature; Monique Bastiaans's intervention, on the other hand, presents itself as a tribute to the place itself; her imagination seems satiated by the beauty of botany, biology, and even animal life. Her proposals are a work of natural genius, witnessed by the eyes of the other beings that inhabit the bushes and trees, as well as by the spectators who seek to immerse themselves in nature. She establishes a dialogue between every animal organism that circulates there; the artist uses resins, inflated and deflated plastic elements, and a myriad of materials to integrate her work into the environment.

The magnitude of beauty in nature is immeasurable, and human admiration for it is equally limitless. The interesting thing about the relationship between art and nature is appreciating it in the very place it refers to. There is a place called Xilitla, in the Sierra Gorda, which is the reserve with the greatest natural diversity in Mexico, where Edward James built a surrealist garden in the middle of the tropical forest in 1955. The result is striking; although the architectural complex intended to imitate vegetation, what it achieved was an abrupt contrast with the surroundings. When art coexists with the wild world, it invites us to reflect on man's intentions in leaving his work in a space that was previously occupied by any other living organism.

Monique Bastiaans's interventions in nature and less wild environments are a form of imagination, a form of diversion. The freshness of her work denotes an interest in the investigation of materials; her work is serious in artistic experimentation, yet we also perceive a playful playfulness. Monique Bastiaans's interventions are ephemeral; she offers playfulness at a given moment, only to later leave her greatest muse: nature, intact and alive.

Federico Méndez H. 2009

When Paul Valéry states, "My verses have the meaning they are intended to give them," he directly addresses the relationship between the artist, the work of art, and the viewer or recipient. A complex system of relationships that makes art one of the most creative, innovative, and ingenious media we know. In this sense, Monique Bastiaans's work denotes a clear intention to communicate and a sincere social commitment. Her work is characterized, a priori, by its formal exquisiteness and, above all, by the use of techniques and materials that keep her at the forefront of the avant-garde. Avant-garde is understood as the ability of an artist to continually reinvent themselves. Her use of fabrics, plastics, and silicones puts Monique Bastiaans in a constant search for technical, formal, and aesthetic solutions. Material references are a constant, of course, but perhaps the most interesting aspect of her work is its adaptation to the medium or space. She is an artist with a great ability to situate the work and its surroundings. The criteria for suitability are reminiscent of many of the site-specific proposals of the 1960s, those designed to function in a specific environmental or social setting. Another distinctive feature is the influence of Pop Art, with its use of techniques such as serialization or repetition, intense color, and the use of everyday elements of contemporary life such as floats, balloons, and balls, constantly drawing on popular culture. However, it is striking that these commonly used elements integrated into his work take on a completely different interpretation when inserted into a specific environment for a different purpose.

In the 1960s, during the heyday of minimal art, there was a maxim that described it as the greatest order with the minimum number of elements, which gave minimal art a process, a way of becoming easily recognizable. Serialization, orderly accumulation, and above all, the reduction to very defined geometric forms laid the foundations for part of the new contemporary sculpture that Wolheim defined in 1965 as minimal art, a minimal state of order and complexity. Module as a system of repetition with a methodical character that, in Monique Bastiaans's work, goes beyond an order reduced to simple permutations; they are more organic constructions, with an ordered but random growth, often reminiscent of cellular growth. There is also an interest in abandoning the exclusive system of disciplines derived from high art. Monique Bastiaans is a very unique artist whose works go beyond the confines of the studio or gallery. Like many other artists working in installation or public art, she has this capacity to adapt and, above all, to make the most of the means and ends at her disposal. As Kaprow said, in relation to the supposed overcoming of established genres, "the new fruitful direction to take is toward those areas of the everyday world that are less abstract, less box-like, such as outdoors, a street intersection, a factory, or the seashore." These are places where Monique Bastiaans most fully expresses her desires, her thoughts, her critiques. As in the environment works of the 1960s, she creatively appropriates the real dimensions of space, configuring it as a new visual medium. These are unconventional exhibition spaces, occupied, lived-in spaces, where a type of work is installed with morphological characteristics that give it a more lively and less object-like appearance. Her interest in the technological world and her forays into kinetic art result in a body of work that is eclectic in its references, not in a pejorative sense but rather as a set of connotations that make it more complete.

The work of Valencia-based Dutch artist Monique Bastiaans does not conform to the canons of any specific movement or trend. However, a revisionist look at her entire output reveals certain similarities that make her work seamlessly coordinated and constantly evolving, never fitting into an established genre. Her forays into art and nature have made her a leading artist in this type of work. In my opinion, her most representative work is an intervention in the fields of Ribarroja entitled Goodbye, Sadness, where she transformed a field of already dead orange trees into a colorful tapestry that restored joy to the surroundings. It is, without a doubt, an intervention that encompasses most of the characteristics we have been defining regarding her work, but it is in this exhibition at the Sala Lametro in Valencia where her unique way of interpreting a place that is not easy to intervene in can be seen with absolute clarity, largely because it is more projected outward than inward. The fact that a window offers a glimpse of what is on display inside, transforms the spectator into a casual visitor who, in their daily routine, has a very fleeting yet powerful view of the space. Monique Bastiaans is aware of this circumstance and subordinates this installation to it, transforming the room into an enormous aquarium that can be apprehended with a quick glance from the outside and fully savored once inside. Through the accumulation of elements, she achieves that, in many of her works, the high degree of meticulousness and sensitivity is complemented by another ever-present attribute: spectacularity and visual impact.

In conclusion, we must highlight her respect for the environment, her social conscience, her strong convictions of commitment, and, above all, her remarkable ability to adapt her work to the pre-existing discourses that often drive most initiatives related to ephemeral art. Monique Bastiaans is one of the most significant contributors to contemporary art in recent years. She is present in most national and international art events and discourses. Her work is highly varied, with clear feminist content, social criticism, the recovery of memory, and a special sensitivity to the environment, with numerous forays into nature and also into the public sphere. In short, she is an artist with a remarkable ability to adapt her work to a wide range of artistic, social, and even political discourses. Her medium, the installation, uses new materials, which is shaped through new challenges in each new work. But it is this ability to engage in varied discourses while maintaining a series of aesthetic references that makes her works easily recognizable. Although at first glance and on first reading they may seem overwhelmingly aesthetic and somewhat object-oriented, Monique Bastiaans is an artist who brings us a multitude of diverse experiences, an indication that her conditional criteria conform, with exquisite fidelity, to the arguments that shape her definitive work.

Toni Calderón, 2008

 

A month before the opening of "Plaisir de Fleurir" at the Sala Parpalló, Monique Bastiaans exhibited in Nagano. There, she came into contact with Shinto, a religion originating in Japan, characterized by the veneration of nature in all its forms. It was like a spiritual homecoming to a world that could easily have been her own. From the beginning of her artistic career, one of the central themes of her works has been love and respect for nature. Her trip to Japan confirmed this approach and inspired her works with renewed force.
Twenty years ago, Monique Bastiaans—born in Mons, Belgium, in 1954 and raised in the Netherlands—arrived by chance in Chiva, a town near Valencia, where she has lived to this day. Over the years, she has been leaving her mark on Valencia with her characteristic discretion. Without knowing her name, there is not a single Valencian who is unfamiliar with her work. Earlier this year, she decorated the Colón metro station with objects reminiscent of living organisms from the depths of the ocean.

Thanks to the glass partitions, travelers felt like they were in a tropical aquarium. Monique Bastiaans's imaginary world offset the realism of the Oceanográfico in Valencia, a tourist attraction she never visited.

The city of Valencia first became acquainted with her work with the creation of "Red + Azul" in 1994. Against the blue backdrop of the ruined Cross factory building, she placed fan-shaped wooden structures held together with rubber. Many Valencians will remember the net of translucent floats she hung over the Market Square in 2001. That same year, she created another, more subtle work, titled "Dulce Cielo, Séptimo Hogar," in which, using nylon fishing nets stretched over Calle de la Reina, she captured the silvery sunlight and its continuous change of shapes and hues depending on the wind. Since Monique Bastiaans's arrival, Valencians see their city in a different light. Although she frequently exhibits abroad, her artistic projects carried out in her beloved Castilian landscapes are the ones that create the greatest sensations. Among these is "Medusea," the thirteen giant polyester jellyfish she dropped into the waves at Las Arenas beach in 1996, like mythological messengers from the depths of the ocean. We can also mention her monumental "Goodbye, Sadness," created in 2000; in this work, the artist wrapped 270 dead orange trees in red cloth, paying tribute to the millions of AIDS sufferers. Time and again, Monique Bastiaans reminds us of the comforting power of nature, an inexhaustible source of life and inspiration. Even still life, like these orange trees that succumbed to an infectious disease, exudes undeniable beauty and vitality.

What the artist seems to be trying to tell us is that if God exists, he doesn't communicate with us through books, but through his creative work: nature. This attitude is very understandable considering that he grew up in the country of Spinoza, a 17th-century rationalist philosopher who compares God to nature: "Deus sive Natura." Similarly, Shinto, the ancient Japanese religion Bastiaans recently became acquainted with, is based, like all animistic religions, on the same idea.

Monique Bastiaans's work does not offer manifestos, treatises, or religious interpretations. However, "Plaisir de Fleurir" is an unmistakable reflection of the place for which it was created: a former cloister of the Royal Monastery of the Trinity, the oldest convent in Valencia (1445). In its tunnel-like cloister, 35 meters long by 7 meters wide, the artist created a spiritual path where (with the exception of taste) all the senses can be experienced.

The path winds through a 21st-century mythical garden that opens behind a curtain reminiscent of classical temples. A mythical garden must include—and the nuns of the adjacent convent can confirm this—the first people in the history of creation; and so, in Bastiaans's work, Adam is represented by a large pink ring with a movable yellow pistil, while the figure of Eve recalls a polka-dotted dress with airy swoops from below, like in the famous scene with Marilyn Monroe in the film "The Seven Year Itch." In these images, as poetic as they are explicit, heavenly temptations, as well as the risks they entail, go hand in hand. "Plaisir de Fleurir" is more than a contemporary adaptation of a garden from classical mythology; it is a dialogue with the adjacent monastery of the Trinity. Due to their cloistered vows, the nuns of the convent must live isolated from the outside world, so the convent garden is unknown to the public. So Bastiaans extends his hand from the other side of the wall, revealing the doors of the Parpalló Room, which have been covered by panels during previous exhibitions. It's as if the artist were trying to say: Show that the doors are there, use them! At the same time, the transparent figures in the garden gaze longingly at the alabaster windows, those marvelous veined stones that let in the light and connect the cloister with the forbidden garden growing behind them.

At the heart of "Plaisir de Fleurir" lies the parallel to the forbidden garden of the monastery: the well. In Bastiaans's work, the well also offers a glimpse into the soul, but not without obstacles. As you approach, the surrounding structures shift, as do the trees with large, deep red fruits (forbidden fruits or fruits of immortality?), but before you know it, the reflection in the well disappears! And that's what happens when you try to examine your soul: some things are revealed to you, but you don't learn much from them. Further on, two trees with trumpet-shaped flowers mark the end of the path, where a large blue and pink chimney-shaped flower peers tantalizingly out. The end of the garden is the beginning of a tunnel whose end we can't see.

"Plaisir de Fleurir" has given Valencia—the city of hidden gardens and alabaster windows—a contemporary sculptural garden that combines ancient and new myths. Monique Bastiaans is a sculptor par excellence, but as is typical of her work, she rejects traditional materials like stone and clay, demonstrating that structures made of nylon, latex, and paraffin wax also have a soul, as long as they have something to convey, and that some of it must be a product of your own imagination.

Just as with the polyester jellyfish in "Medusea" and the dead orange trees covered in fabric in "Goodbye, Sadness," "Plaisir de Fleurir" reveals, in an organic and casual way, the beauty and cruelty, the temptations and dangers of our world, as well as the insignificance of humankind in this regard. And just as we've come to expect from Monique Bastiaans, this artist works with great respect and devotion—attitudes that the nuns of the Monastery of the Trinity will most likely also applaud.

Widow Smeets 2007

Contemporary demystifications surrounding the “Locus Amoneus”.
By Rosa Ulpiano

For Platonic philosophy, the idea of nature based on the theory of design, corresponded entirely to an ordering and purpose of nature contemplated by the artist, it was a second-order reproduction of knowledge, moving away from premises such as the existent and the invisible.1 Metaphysical load that would evolve over time into a physical scaffolding, a cultural construction, treated by different artists from an aesthetic appreciation, in which nature was a scenographic complement where man appeared, a secondary value seen through an anthropocentric vision, an order subjected by the artist's gaze. However, it was not until the 19th century that that classical metaphysical load would lead to a higher entity, into an environment where the human being would from then on occupy a place in the cosmos and whose intervention in the environment would longingly reconstruct a memory of landscapes that existed.

Landscapes that have been degraded, mostly by human intervention, and that through an aesthetic projection are now transformed by the creator's particular vision. Sometimes through painting or sculpture, and other times through the use of new mass media or through their legitimization through landscape intervention or Land Art, transforming them into seductive spaces. However, this would not be an attempt at salvation or improvement through a return to origins, but rather an aesthetic masking of the attacked landscape, whether urban or rural, thus giving it a new appearance through visual and conceptual artifice. In this sense, Monique Bastiaans, throughout her artistic career, intervenes in a variety of spaces. In 2002, she installed large red canvases over 270 dead orange trees in Ribaroja del Turia with her piece "Goodbye sadness." In 2006, she intervened in the Dutch park Odapark in Venray with "In Case of Flies," where she reconstructed artificial paths through the forest. Monique creates installations that play with sight, touch, sound, and smell to evoke a wide variety of emotions in the viewer. Her sculptures, rendered in different types of fabrics, plastics, and silicones, gradually lead the artist to continually search for technical, formal, and aesthetic solutions wrapped in an abstract language, reflecting her fondness for organic forms and nature. In Plaisir de Fleurir, she recreates a sophisticated interplay of light, scent, and sound, rich in nuances, accentuating the abstract effect of the composition. This intimate space, in which Bastiaans fuses the formal and the conceptual in a stimulating vocabulary, seeks to revive our gaze for those magical and enigmatic spaces, reminiscent of a wide variety of gardens, imbued with a sense of perpetual transmutation and alchemical and mystical imprints.

Plaisir de Fleurir symbolically alludes to that sacred garden of medieval allegorical thought, whose antecedents glimpse certain places and identities of primitive gods, as well as landscape alterations of the unconscious. Throughout mythology, worship, and religion, divinity has always been sought both in temples and in visions or dreams surrounding nature. A beautiful and intensely desired place, the "Locus amenaus"; a place of meditation, a sacred space, of divinities adopted by the medieval world, or a mundane, sensual orchard, evocative of Near Eastern legends, of the paradisiacal garden of the goddess Siduru, which Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, entered in search of the formula for immortality, a paradise of trees covered in precious stones and lush vegetation. Antecedents of the Christian Earthly Paradise, of the Garden of Eden in the Holy Scriptures, such as the wealth of precious stones and brilliant materials so often represented in miniature illustrations, and the characterization of the World Mountain, the place where the Garden of Paradise is traditionally located. Secret Garden masterfully illustrated by Hieronymus Bosch (1453-1516) in "The Garden of Earthly Delights", through associations that describe the erotic aspects of life, exotic pleasures, recalling the "amoris curia", the labyrinth of voluptuousness, with the well or pond from which large lilies emerge, or the evocations of Merrily as the antechamber of the "fountain of love", used by the lustful evoking the Garden of Love and the illustrations of the Roman de la rose. But whose intellectual and physical barriers woven by a medieval convent isolate it through thought or imagination; immersing the viewer beyond a legendary hero, or a valiant Gilgamesh, that is, into a new universe, the media universe, a new culture that absorbs us, that identifies as “natural” and whose history comes from “nature”: This is what Marshall McLuhan, in a certain way, captures when he expresses that “new media are not bridges between man and nature. They are nature”3. Demystification of that earthly paradise in which dreamlike rivers, flowers, forests have lost their omnipresent importance, now being replaced by roads, cars, shopping malls, etc. The locus Amenaus or beautiful landscape assimilated by its final representation with Big Sister, represents this final image or last stage, the leitmotif with which Bastiaans recreates the double paradox between the media and the spiritual.
2007

In the artistic field, the art/nature pairing is often realized through what we call poetics of respect and integration. For example, in a context where nature is a landscaped, wild, or rugged environment, the artist intervenes with works that, through their materials, size, or relationship with the environment, embody the indicated metaphorical intention.

However, this is only one option among the multitude of possibilities for approaching everything the biosphere offers us through art. The same applies to the word that addresses the relationship between art and nature. It is not obvious that an analytical or essay-like approach is the best option for expressing the feelings Monique's work awakens in us. So perhaps the most appropriate thing, after this brief reflection, is to change the register of language to harmonize it with the works, and continue with them on the path that will lead us to the original matrix.

Reverence for lichen or moss doesn't mean paying homage to them—making a slight gesture by bowing one's head—as much as lowering ourselves to their level, getting close enough, with a gaze sharp enough to discover their tiny blossoms. Because moss also blooms; it is not a motionless tapestry of green velvet. This exercise in scale—physical height, depth of perception—symbolizes the difference between superiority and respect. It means knowing how to place ourselves in the context of the cosmos, in the place we occupy between the moss and the stars. We will then understand that our greatness is not such. We say this through a haiku by the master Matsuo Bashó:

I'm just a man
Eating his soup
Before the asagao flower

No more, no less, at the same height, man and flower.

But this is not the most common perception. Hence the urgency to correct a collective myopia that blinds us and prevents us from appreciating the omnipresent celebration of life, with all its bustle, harmony, and vortex. This has always been one of the tasks of art: to teach us how to see. Then the fascination begins: was such biodiversity necessary for life's purpose to be fulfilled? We will never be able to understand why Natura naturans has given rise to so much beauty, has decided to reveal itself through millions of different, interconnected, irreplaceable fragments. They dissipate before us, at the mercy of our preservation or devastation.

Natura's first lesson: everything has its place and purpose, nothing lacks a function, nothing is dispensable. The jellyfish and the turtle, the prey and the predator, the bacteria and the blue whale. We all share in the bittersweet challenge of existence; we too, who can write about the bacteria or the whale, who can recreate the jellyfish, the pistil, the anemone. We are fascinated by the thousands of faces of nature made form: Natura naturata. But we can only appreciate them if we dare to step outside the artificial placenta we have built around ourselves. Then we will feel the unease of their polarity: we will contemplate the precise moment when the dew turns into a drop and slides down a petal, but we will also encounter hundreds of aphids sucking the sap from tender stems. Beauty and horror coexisting in the tiny.

Natura's second lesson: all living things move; nothing remains static in the cradle of time. Everything that is born transforms, grows, reaches its fullness, and slides toward its decay until death embraces it. That death is the correct conclusion of life, not its failure, not its loss. But as long as there is life, everything tends to intersect, to pollinate, to fertilize, to bear fruit. The magic of desire and pleasure allows the biosphere to continue beating. Life that seeks to perpetuate itself through its creators. We could call it the pollen principle: as long as there are bees, as long as they want to sip in order to live, and stamens to receive the pollen they carry on their legs, much of plant life will continue to exist. Then we too will continue, despite ourselves, without any gratitude to the bees. Blind, unrepentant, without remembering that we are brothers with the seed and the oak, with the amphibian and the first algae. Eduardo Galeano reminds us of this in one of his wise stories:

(…) Before the before, in the days of the world's infancy, when there were no colors or sounds, they, the blue algae, already existed. Pouring oxygen, they gave color to the sea and the sky. And one fine day, a day that lasted millions of years, many blue algae decided to turn into green algae. And the green algae gradually generated, very little by little, lichens, fungi, mosses, jellyfish, and all the colors and sounds that later came, insignificantly, to disturb the sea and the land.
But other blue algae preferred to remain as they were.
They remain that way.
From the remote world that was, they look at the world that is.
It is not known what they think.2

But some decided to go green, and that does matter to us. Even though we still don't understand that we are their descendants.

One last example of our lack of respect, before returning to art's necessary commitment to life. We find it difficult to understand the connection between paper and trees, between frozen Christmas shrimp and the destruction of mangroves. That's why only a few of us feel our hearts turn cold when we hear the sound of chainsaws, which destroy the life sheltered in primary forests, without even having had the opportunity to greet it. Only a few of us sing a requiem for each species that becomes extinct. It will no longer offer us the helical treasure of its DNA, nor the incomparable beauty of its forms and customs. But who do we think we are? Let's remember Voltaire:

Nature (to the philosopher): Since I am all that is, how can a being like you, who is a tiny part of myself, grasp me? Be content, my children, atoms as you are, to see a few atoms surrounding you, to drink a few drops of my milk, to vegetate for a few moments on my breast, and to die without ever knowing your mother and your nurse.

Natura's third lesson: we are all parts of a whole. We think of ourselves as different, but we are not so different: plants, animals, humans. We share our blood/sap, we depend on water to live, and the same oxygen fuels us. We share the same cycles: we are born, we grow, and we die. We have sex and we reproduce; perhaps we also share the pleasure of uniting. We are, then, common participants in the mystique of unity. But once again, we are unaware of all this. We only respect what is close to us, what we consider to be on our same level and scale. This is another of the artist's tasks: to bring closer, to put within our reach all that important thing we failed to hear, smell, or feel. To awaken in us the essential sensitivity we have been losing by immersing ourselves in our cold, digital world. From there, we appeal to the principle of responsibility: I now know what I am destroying and how I am destroying it; and I know that I am subsidiarily responsible when I am ignorant. I now know everything I couldn't perceive, everything that had always been before our eyes. If I want, I'll give up what's being offered to me, but it's already been shown to me, it's already been felt.

One of the main commitments of the present is to heed the teachings of Nature. We artists, artisans of matter, can spread the principle of hope to gradually restore the lost balance. Through art, we can glorify the greatness of the small, the just dimension of the human being in the bosom of the world, the astonishing persistence of life. We are responsible for representing Nature, for symbolizing it. We offer you the ceremony of connection, of play, and of joy, and in return we ask only that you make your own the principle of responsibility for all that lives, for all that flourishes.

José Albelda. 2007

 

Monique Bastiaans, throughout her artistic career, has created numerous interventions and installations in natural and urban spaces. Analyzing her previous works, such as "Goodbye, Sadness," "Moony," and "Pura Fibra," among others, we discover how comfortable she is working in a natural context, be it a mountain, a river, the sea, a lake, etc. It is worth highlighting her ability to integrate the elements she uses into her chosen spaces. Materials that vary from plastic bags, fabrics, nets, floats, stockings, wood, balls, etc. are always carefully studied for the occasion and with a finish that, despite their simplicity, creates a spectacular and high-resolution effect.

…Monique Bastiaans typically works with large-scale primary structures to describe a special class of artistic object, in which the different forms are reduced to minimal states of order and complexity, both from a morphological and perceptual and meaningful perspective. The qualities of her work are its total abstraction, internal order, simplicity, clarity of execution, high degree of finish, and illusionism or literalness…

Lupe Frigols 2007

I had just arrived from Stockholm Airport and were heading to the small village of Ekeby Qvarn, in Uppsala, Sweden, back in June 1998, when, among the trees before the Fyris River, some black spheres appeared, resembling enormous toad eggs, floating on the water. The sight of those balls on the river, even though they were real, produced a strange sensation of unreality. It was Monique Bastiaans's work "Batracios," an intervention with spheres in the river that introduced a magical element into the busy life of that artists' village on the occasion of Eventa IV, an alternative biennial featuring numerous contemporary interventions in natural spaces.
This was my first encounter with Monique Bastiaans's work. From that moment on, we have maintained a close professional and friendly relationship.

In 2001, I invited her to participate in the 1st Osorio International Contemporary Art Conference on the island of Gran Canaria as part of the Naturalezas, Utopías y Realidades (NUR) project. For this project, she presented a work entitled El mediodía se celebra en el interior (Midday is Celebrated Inside), which undoubtedly became the icon, emblem, and reference point of that international conference, which featured the participation of 20 artists from a wide variety of backgrounds and contexts. As Monique herself explained, she had intervened inside a pine forest, placing within it a body constructed from transparent, finely gridded nets, resembling a spindle-shaped energy channel that connected the sky, utopia, with the earth, reality. A work full of nuances and subtleties, exquisitely crafted.
Recently, in 2004, we worked together again, with Monique Bastiaans teaching a workshop to twelve young Spanish artists, and in this context also presenting a monographic exhibition of her latest works at our Espacio C in Camargo, Cantabria, Spain.
As soon as we enter the industrial warehouse-exhibition hall of Espacio C we are invited to walk under the warmth, tenderness, light and goodness of his work. And who doesn't cry?

Once again, we feel that strange sense of unreality, of magic, that Monique Bastiaans's work often contains and evokes. A huge latex skin with eight nipples hangs from the ceiling, resembling the fur of a wolf or dog, its breasts emanating a warm and pleasurable light. Standing beneath it unmistakably produces a wonderful feeling of protection and shelter.

From there, we move toward two columns of fine nets and spheres that subtly unfold and fold like a musical duet through a delicate mechanical system. These incredible sculptural artifacts are located in the antechamber of her latest work, Ex Voto, a choral installation, a chamber of wonders, under a dim light that transports us to the serene atmosphere of a chapel. Lined up in horizontal rows on the walls and inside delicate plastic bags, we can observe hundreds of objects that have traveled from the depths of the artist's studio to our space, making us participants in a singular and incredible universe of materials, shapes, and textures, or found objects that, in many cases, have been the origin of future works, fragments of a memory and identity completely open to continuous evolution and enrichment.
Throughout her significant artistic career, Monique Bastiaans has contributed elements of notable relevance to the evolution of contemporary sculpture and installation, as well as to the occupation and intervention of natural, urban, and industrial spaces.

Orlando Britto Jinorio Director Espacio C 2004

As a complementary activity to the International Summer Workshop held at the Espacio C Contemporary Art Center, Monique Bastiaans, a Dutch resident in Valencia, presents an exhibition consisting of three aerial works, hanging from the wall or ceiling, sculptures or installations that belong to the genre of suspended work, as opposed to the heaviness of traditional sculpture.
Monique Bastiaans offers us a work that exalts fertility and nature, developed with an emphasis on the eland, on vital energy, on joy, from a territory where the playful and the reflective meet.

The sculpture entitled ¿Y quién no llora? (And Who Doesn't Cry?) (2004) is formed from a latex surface that suspends eight large, nourishing breasts above the viewer's head, their transparent, luminous flesh, with a latticework reminiscent of skin tissue. It is an excessive and festive piece that speaks to the abundant, generous, animal breast that involves and envelops the viewer, and of the universality and importance of attachment relationships with respect to the mother.

Song to fertility
The central work of the exhibition, entitled Gudule et Dudule (tribute to Mimi),
It consists of two nets hanging from the ceiling, filled with transparent blue balls containing tiny red balls inside.
They slowly rise from their center, forming an inverted funnel and producing ever-changing, random shapes and two types of noises: that of the large balls readjusting with slight falls and knocks, and the murmur of the tide of small ones rolling inside the large ones.
It is a work that refers to the reproductive fertility of nature, to cyclical transformation, to the potential contained in lightness.

The exhibition closes with an installation entitled Exvoto (2004), composed of more than 200 transparent bags hung on the wall, following the sampler's scheme, filled with elaborate, delicate objects, rescued or singled out amid the flow of time. It is a work also created over an extended period of time, like that spent by an artist taking notes or writing a devotional, in this case, with a sense of veneration or gratitude for the truth of nature and for the possibilities of interaction, of material reworking.

Gabriel Rodríguez 2004

For some time now, I have distinguished between citizen, consumer, and user to understand the paths that new art forms open to their users. I use the word "citizen" when I see the recipient of the work as vaguely integrated into its development, imperceptible to them but substantial to it, discovered upon recognizing something out of place, or placed on the same sidewalk as the pedestrian passing by in order to gain their attention, who, after noticing the unevenness, reappears as a citizen, the former pedestrian. The consumer points to the one who devours the works with the bulimia of a reader of technical sheets, always at the bottom and always on the right so that the reverence for the work is greater and where it belongs. user refers to that new recipient of works of art who believes he has completed them because he interacts with them by drawing attention to the interface placed between the work and himself, something that takes him to the heights of concretion (an evil of the times that should disappear at the speed with which any computer becomes obsolete). Tired of hearing about interactivity, clicking on the mouse, keyboard or screen seems to me like a simple turn of the page, which I see as just as interactive; it is worth not forgetting that the term user is unthinkable applied to arts outside of digital media (interactive or not), since all use, even physical, involves wear and tear, although with the new interactivity, from the transfinite world of bits, such use never involves this and allows one to touch without damaging what is touched, or to put it another way, to end the cult value of the work by the most direct means: contact: if I touch it, it is as real as I am and is not in the heights: from the paradox of being in this (material) world without being of it.

The net (the usual one), as an instrument for capturing attention, and the float, a buoy that you offer to hold on to, are the latest elements to arrive in the work of Monique Bastiaans to consummate her project of citizenship, hunting and mooring the interest of people outside the art world, also to the world of institutions that populate art and, even, to the art institution itself, as many say, to talk about art as the institution they do not want to leave; I do not want to discuss the impossibility of living without art, not because it is necessary but because it is ritualized according to each social status to which people belong, to the point of making it indispensable in all areas of action, thus each of the worlds populated by people carries among its conditions some artistic forms stuck to the skin (I will not detail which because I would not know how to do so) throughout the social conglomerate that will make the home, and the public square, another skin that you wear and from which you also cannot escape; So, many times, Public Art only hopes to tear your skin off in strips to put your
sensitivity afloat and letting you see what, until that moment, you ignore: bringing you afloat, after being caught, or entangled, explains all of this.

Nilo Casares 2001

Our intelligence copies nature's growth patterns. Cells reproduce by subdividing into similar ones, forming cellular tissues, membranes, and skins. In the age of technical reproducibility, artifice is repeated industrially in a manner consistent with its production process. The artist Monique Bastiaans establishes complex geometric relationships between industrial objects, the result of which approximates the lattices that make up cells. This arrangement adapts to any container, creating membranes of great visual expressiveness. In this case, she uses playful objects such as pink floats. The resulting skin, when joined together, can reach the highest part of the building that houses it. The impact on the architectural space is impressive. She only used a small portion of the objects produced, but it is their arrangement that is striking. 

It is then that we realize the importance of the repetition of objects in a world that questions such troubling issues as identity. Monique Bastiaans situates herself on the border between biological and industrial reproduction as a metaphor between artifice and nature, but also as the construction of a place situated opposite the artificial membrane. We are speaking of an experience centered around the visual arts. The floats now appear somewhat threatening. The light is filtered through the transparencies, and the skin thus fulfills its filtering function, establishing a front and a back, thus symbolizing the same decline of the border. The rational, in this case, is identified with the natural in a common concept of the growth and reproduction of the world as something both biological and industrial.

Clara Muñoz, 2001

The Espai A. Lambert in Xabia welcomes the public with a tangle of fibers that, extending from one end to the other, crisscrossing each other, seem to grow organically from the walls of the room. The sensation of being in a microscopic interstice within a living organism is reinforced by moving red lighting and ventilation that gently agitates these elastic fibers of different colors. The sound, a vague murmur like the wind, but with a dull, almost palpable echo, contributes to filling the atmosphere and increasing the disorientation.
The nodules, irregularly distributed by the artist Monique Bastiaans throughout this fibrillar space, together with the vibrating quality, give the installation an organic appearance.

But at the same time, the vibration evokes the imprecise space of electron orbits. Comparing those fibers with the memory of diagrams in biology textbooks, the tremor of the fibers is transformed into neuronal transmission through tiny electrical discharges. In turn, the sound reveals itself to be synthetic and leads one to think of the hum of electrical current in high-voltage power lines. These diametrically diverse references allow the artist to establish a coherent dialogue between organic figuration and the synthetic nature of the materials used.

By virtue of the possible identification between the organic and the plastic dimensions, the artist articulates a prose rich in nuances and extremely suggestive that allows us to glimpse the admiration, from the concerns of another generation, towards the magic and poetic mystery of an artist like Louise Bourgois.

Boye Llorens Peters, El Levante (Postscript) 17-11-2000

Monique Bastiaans has given a tour of the facade of the Cultural Center of Almussafes.
The intervention, crowned with the phrase "the normal... could that be the abnormal?", shows the doors and windows of the building's main facade covered by domestic and typical curtains, provoking a quick association of ideas: the exterior becomes its opposite. The outside space symbolically becomes the interior of events that, however, occur to others outside. This idea is reinforced by the presence of a disordered accumulation of blue footprints stamped on the floor, steps, and entrance of the building, as if the comings and goings of the interior had been forever marked in this new, now public, space.

Álvaro de los Angeles, El Levante (Postscript) 2 – 7 – 1999

Inside the exhibition hall, we encounter an intimate installation of soft blue lights and richly nuanced sounds, modulated under the direction of Leopoldo Amigo's ever-present work.

Nine pieces make up this installation, each hanging from the ceiling via a conduit halfway between a modular pipe and an elastic spring that also provides movement. Nine seminal, almond-shaped figures, covered or formed from plastic and wax, shelter the light and sound within. One has the impression of observing the incubation or lethargy of beings who, with their first babbling, will soon emerge from the shell that envelops and protects them, ready to live their own experiences.

But because of the obviousness of that moment that never comes, nor is it, ultimately, desired, living alongside them produces a pleasant and peaceful sensation. The general murmur provoked by the different sounds is grateful for the time spent listening and contemplating them. Half living beings, half technology at the service of this illusion, this installation can be related both to the artificial extension of nature and to the creation of science fiction beings, nonexistent and illusory, but ultimately believable and assimilable. An intimate yet open and rich installation where the dialogue between viewer and work flows gratefully and in gratitude.

Álvaro de los Angeles, El Levante (Postscript) 2 – 7 – 1999

[…]Monique Bastiaans’ work expresses a clear opposition to any worldview that can be reduced to a formula; only divination, augury, and oracular pronouncements are allowed. That is why her forms oscillate between the totemic, the liturgical — a shamanic liturgy that is utterly pantheistic — and the personal amulet that conjures away all the threats lurking just around the corner, whether in primitive jungles or today’s urban jungle of asphalt.[…]
Nilo Casares The Levant (Postscript) 5 – 1 – 1996

[…]Monique Bastiaans’ work is perceived as a living being—powerful, complete, perfect in its development—and therefore also unsettling, opaque, resistant to interpretation from the outside, with something even vaguely threatening about it. It evokes the same sensation one feels when encountering a life form for the first time. As an entity, it radiates an energy that no one can claim as their own. The constructive process that brings it to light is born of intuition, the invention of tools, exploration, and revelation. Its consequence: to once again question functions and systems, to fix and invent points, to organize
signs… […]

[…]Monique Bastiaans has found the escape route from traditional thought toward other levels of consciousness—and the means to express her experience. She makes us reflect with Nietzsche: “Is art perhaps a necessary correlate and supplement to science? Is there a realm of wisdom from which the logician is excluded?” A question whose answer is already contained within the ironic inquiry itself. […]

Carles Marco 1995