Apio para el Pueblo 2009. Iron, polyester, and light. 7.7 x 7 x 6 m. each group.
When everything is nothing.
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. Our love of order also has 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 life-enhancing goods 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 self-propelled and accelerated, 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 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 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