Plaisir de Fleurir 2007. With music by Leopoldo Amigo. Parpalló Hall. Valencia.
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Pleasure of Flowering by MONIQUE BASTIAANS
THE TEACHINGS OF NATURE.
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 flower1
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.
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On Temptations and Dangers, and the Insignificance of Man.
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 first time the city of Valencia became aware of his work was 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, entitled "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 exhibits frequently abroad, her artistic projects set in her beloved Castilian landscapes are the ones that create the greatest sensations. Among these is "Medusea," the thirteen gigantic polyester jellyfish she dropped into the waves on 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 wraps 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 like 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 man 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 Trinity Monastery will most likely also applaud.
Widow Smeets 2007
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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.
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ENTERTAINMENT MONIQUE BASTIAANS
by Marisa Giménez Soler and Lupe Frígols Barber
This interview has been going on for a long time. It has emerged little by little, as we were close by. Under a beautiful November sun, weeks before the exhibition, we asked her the first questions in the garden of her studio while we watched her work, helped her dye fabrics, or enjoyed a cup of Japanese tea with her, freshly brought back from her last trip. We asked her other questions during the installation, or later, after the exhibition opened.
Entering her studio, also her home, is like entering a little into her life. Surrounded by nature, full of light, evocative shapes, and abundant color, it's a space that draws you in. Once you arrive, you never want to leave. Monique has created her own world, and everything seems easier there, everything flows. Her energy, her sensitivity, the coherence that governs her life and her work permeates every corner, every detail.
Sometimes, during a conversation, we get off topic, talk about environmentalism, politics, etc., and we remind her once again (we've told her this a thousand times) how impressed we were with the first work we saw of hers more than ten years ago at the Cross factory. That Klein blue, that ultramarine powder, remains vivid in our memories. We met her shortly after, and we've been following her ever since.
Lupe: You were born in Belgium, studied and lived in Holland, and I think it was more chance that made you stay in Valencia, in Chiva…
Yes, it was completely a coincidence. I was coming from Holland with my son, looking for a place to live and start over. I was originally headed to southern Spain. At one point during the trip, the boy started protesting because he wanted to stop. We stopped in the nearest town, Chiva. There, at the bar, they told me there was a house for rent, and that's where I stayed. That was almost 20 years ago. It was hard at first, but today I'm happy.
L.- Your works have always been related to nature. Do you identify with the Land Art movement?
Yes, but I've come to make this kind of art out of necessity. What I like most, where I feel most at ease, is in nature. Plants, trees, it's their subtle energy that I value most of all. I make this art because I live in nature. If I lived in the city, I wouldn't do this.
Marisa: Of the interventions you have made in the landscape, some are ephemeral, others remain…
I don't pretend to endure at any moment. I have a lot of respect for the environment, for the people, so who am I to say: This work is forever? It stays in people's memories, which for me is more interesting because you're left with an almost phantom image, because the pieces could be nature but aren't, because of their appearance or their shape... You're left with the image that you've seen, something that does fit in with nature, but in reality you know it can't be.
M. You were recently in Japan mounting an exhibition, and you came back steeped in spirituality. You were fascinated by their love of nature. Did the trip influence you in this exhibition?
I had a clear idea of the exhibition, but it did influence me. The places that impressed me most were the Shinto temples. Their veneration of nature, their architecture without figures, without paintings inside the temple. In the center, there's a void, and all around is nature, and of course, I recognized myself in that. I don't want to be pretentious at all; it's impressive. My work is small and playful, but I recognized myself in that adoration of nature.
The only religion that speaks to me is praising and respecting nature. Shintoism is all about that. When I learned about it, I found something that impressed me deeply.
For example, they worship two ancient trees embracing each other: one Chinese and one Japanese. I find that incredible. It truly worships the essence, rather than a sculpture by an artist who is forced to illustrate this or that story.
M.- In your interventions you draw attention to the issues that interest you but you avoid harsh and explicit speech; your tone is reconciling and cheerful. Do you want to show that there are other ways to make a claim?
Yes. It's a great satisfaction for me to see people's reactions, their euphoric, joyful feelings when they leave the theater. But I'm not looking for simple or banal euphoria, but rather a deeper one. That's my path, that's my way of being able to convey things.
I'm a little fed up with so much political and social art. Everything in life is full of harsh things, on television, in the newspapers, the news... Everything is aggressive, and yes, life is very harsh. I greatly respect artists who bring that harshness to art, but I think it's also important to highlight the other side, to say: yes, it's true, it's all shit, but look where we can get out. There are other paths.
L-. Tell us about eroticism. It's clear that flowers have an erotic dimension. Have you sought that element, specifically in this exhibition?
It's very clear that in the first two, in Carpe Diem and in Merrily, that sexual component is very present, but the funny thing is that everyone says that my work is erotic, that's what they always say, but I'm not thinking about what I would do to make it erotic, it just comes out erotic.
L. Tell us about color in your work.
Color is very important to me. The curious thing about this exhibition is that I used every color. They're all there. Green, yellow, red, blue, orange... I don't think I've ever used so many in an exhibition. Just as I can think about the material more consciously: "This has to be this or that material because I need to create that atmosphere, because it needs that strength or that resilience." The colors come out without thinking, they just come out. I can't say why.
It's very important to have a lot of color. For me, it's essential; a colorful sculpture has more joy and power.
Lighting is also vital, it is part of the exhibition.
L.- When you work, for example, on a beach, do you use different materials than when you work in a closed space?
Yes, there are several reasons. For example, many of the materials I've used in this outdoor exhibition would deform and dissolve in the rain and the sun. You also have to take other things into account when choosing the material. You have an object, and you take that same object out of your studio and place it on a beach, and it becomes something different than if you put it somewhere else, for example, in a room, because the material next to it changes its interpretation. That's very powerful, very interesting, and intriguing, actually... that depending on the floor of the room, or the material it's made of, whether it's wood or stone, all those things have an influence.
L.-Do you also make preliminary sketches and models when you work in a natural space?
Yes, when I work in a natural space, I also make a model. Since I can't define the space, I can't put up walls. I put it in the garden, for example, so I can see how it combines with the soil, its movement... because I need to know how it reacts to the wind, the sun, the rain, everything...
M:_ After already having an idea about the exhibition in the Parpalló room, did it change anything for you when you visited the adjacent Convent of the Trinity and saw how the cloistered nuns lived?
Yes, a little. The Parpalló Room has been part of the convent for centuries, and I was clear from the start that the exhibition was going to be spiritual and that it was going to be a garden, but when I entered the cloister, something changed. For example, the central piece took on more importance because, yes, I had read that mythical gardens always have a well in the center, but when I arrived at the cloister and saw the well, it became clearer to me, and I was also impressed, whether I liked it or not, by seeing the nuns so light-hearted and cheerful… because I am also light-hearted and cheerful, but I think this visit influenced me a little to take the spiritual path, but at the same time, joyful and playful.
M.- You wanted to put up some curtains to mark the beginning of a path. You were very clear about that from the start. Why?
Yes, because it's a spiritual, sacred space, in quotes, because it's also playful, and using the word sacred is very pretentious on my part, and I don't want to be pretentious at all. I wanted to define when the atmosphere I wanted to create begins. In many temples... there's a word in Dutch that says it very well, I don't know, ... to separate two spaces, not with a door but with something lighter.
In the exhibition, I wanted to use four of the five senses, and with the curtain, I wanted to play with touch, since you have to touch it to make your way through. I deliberately looked for a material and texture so pleasant to the touch that you have fun touching it. I like seeing how people stop at the entrance because they want to touch the curtain more.
M.- Is the vindication of femininity important to you?
In one way or another, this entire exhibition is very feminine. I've created a garden, but a very feminine, very subtle garden. The most feminine garden you can imagine.
At first, I wanted to title the exhibition "Big Brother," but I was convinced it wasn't a good idea because of the media influence of the television program. I wanted to call it that in reference to the nuns, the sisters, the big sister, the big flower that would be the antithesis of "Big Brother." I didn't mention Big Brother on television at any point; I haven't even seen it and I don't know what it's about. Well, I know what it's about because I've been told. I related everything to George Orwell's book, in which Big Brother is a being who controls everything, dominates, and compels... and for me, Big Sister would be the complete opposite. That's why you ask about femininity, yes, the truth is, yes.
M.- The journey begins with two pieces that reference the masculine and the feminine. A nod to Marilyn Monroe, a flower with a raised skirt.
Yes, I named her Merrily, which means happily, and she's there happily lifting her skirt and the male is there searching with his member, (laughs) seeing how he can enter her.
M.- Then we come to a fundamental piece in the exhibition which is the center, the well where some suggestive, flexible cocoons seem to obstruct the passage of water.
The centerpiece of the exhibition is the soul, the soul of the garden, your soul too. You would have to access it, you should access it, because when you climb the platform and reach the well, the water, all the obstacles, so to speak, are set in motion. I don't like the word "obstacle." They don't harm, they don't prick, they simply protect; they're like eyelashes that protect the eye, they protect the soul so it isn't naked.
M.- You never get to see your reflection in the water. The falling drop prevents you from seeing yourself reflected. Do we never get to know each other?
There's a moment when you do see yourself, it's a very small fragment of time because in real life there are moments when it seems like you understand everything, and everything seems very simple and very easy, and then that lucidity disappears.
M. – The two pieces with yellow flowers that “guard” the large flower…
The composition of the works in the room has been important to me. Because in temples, in sacred places, that composition is often very symmetrical. In this case, too, because it's: one, two, one, two, and one. I didn't make it completely symmetrical because it would be too rigid. So I placed, for example, the first two pieces (male and female) slightly diagonally, and these two yellow ones, which come after the central piece, also slightly diagonally.
Unlike the masculine and feminine of the beginning, there are no longer any differences in the two yellow flowers. It is assumed that at a certain point in the spiritual path, this difference is no longer so important. They are two equal pieces: They are like guardians.
Rather or heralds of the last piece
To announce the last piece
M:_ The last piece… would it simulate a uterus?
It's the end of the spiritual path; the end is also a beginning. It's a flower, it's also a tunnel, it's a womb, it's everything that can be a transition from one place where you are to another unknown.
M.- Is it a challenge for you in each proposal to experiment with materials, always try new ones, research new textures…?
Sometimes I get fed up with myself, you know? Because when you already know how a material or an idea works, and you've been through tough times, technical problems... then; it's time to try something new again. It's not a law I impose on myself: Everything has to be new, but that's my character... I like to experiment with something else when I know something. I repeat some materials, of course, but I like to try everything new.
M: You were recently saying that during the making of this exhibition the pieces seemed to decide how to be made through you, that they had their own life.
Well, many other artists have already commented on this. I've experienced it on many other occasions, but never more so than in this exhibition. The pieces seemed to decide for themselves what they wanted to be. Especially in terms of form, the initial idea kept changing throughout the process.
M.- You live in a studio apartment in the mountains, where the studio is a transit area closely connected to your life and your family's life. You see your work day after day, night after night. Do you ever separate your life from your work?
Not much, no, and I don't want to. Because I like to be totally connected. I can make a soup and suddenly see something in the drops of oil I put in the water... Oh, what a funny way! I run to the studio, grab the camera, and start taking pictures.
And I'm always traveling and anything I see I immediately write it down in my head as an idea: I wouldn't like it if it wasn't connected.
L.- Do you dream of sculptures?
No. If I dream... I have nightmares (laughs). No, what happens is that sometimes I need solutions, to resolve things, and always, always between sleep and waking, in between, is when the solution comes to me. Maybe I spend days and days thinking about it, and when I'm just about to fall asleep, at that moment, or in the morning when I'm about to fully wake up, the idea, the solution, comes to me.
L.- Regarding music, you have collaborated with Leopoldo on other occasions, but for this exhibition, did you think of him from the beginning?
Yes, for this exhibition, I had originally thought that the drop, when you reach the central piece and get close to the water and the drop falls on you, would not only distort the image when you look in the mirror but also distort the sound. Since I've collaborated many times with Leopoldo Amigo, I immediately mentioned it to him, and the fun thing about working with someone from a different discipline is that he took my idea but returned it to me with more of his own ideas. And so he composed all the music. I hadn't heard the music before because I trust so much that what he does fits perfectly with my work, that there's complete trust.
L- Tell us about the perfume. You conceived the exhibition with a special scent. Who created it?
Speaking of flowers, the scent is incredibly important. The first thing you do when you touch a flower is smell it, which is why I wanted to use perfume, and I wanted to create it myself. It seemed very important to me because perfume is something extremely personal, and I didn't want to leave it in someone else's hands. It's very difficult to describe a scent, but it was also very important that it have something sweet and something, what I call earthy, earthy. I started buying essences and began making blends and blends, letting them settle, until I found the one that, for me, represents the smell I would like the last Big Sister flower to have. This scent I've created is sweet and earthy, sweet but strong.
L- Can you reveal the formula of the perfume?
No (laughs)
L- Tell us about the patterns as well. How did you manage to create such large formats? Although you're very comfortable with large formats, has anyone helped you with the patterns for pieces as large as Big Sister?
Well, I have a knack, a deformation, or I don't know what it is, that makes me see something small and immediately see it in large. I see any object in space as totally large, enormous. Then I see it and I start to wonder if that's possible because, in reality, everything is possible, I believe. Anything you want to do in large format is possible. I start making drawings, small models, thinking that the pattern in large format will be the same as the small format. In the case of this exhibition, I created all of this alone in my studio until I started working with the real, large patterns and calculating them with a pattern maker, Susa Plaza, and it was very successful because it's much more comfortable to work with professional people; it's much easier.
L.- Is the work team important to you?
A lot, a lot. It's a very important aspect for me.
I start alone, thinking and developing. I have to be completely alone to look for the materials because I might have one thing in mind, but then it's a matter of testing, researching... I do a lot, a lot, a lot of research. I have my own materials that I already know work. When you test, you know if something is strong, if it's not strong, if it bends, if it squeezes... I already have a few that I know work for certain shapes, but even so, each time it's new, totally new. I need to be completely alone, to imagine, to test, but when it comes to setting up, you'll have noticed that when it comes to asking for opinions, I like more people to give their opinions with me because six eyes see more than two or three opinions... There's always a greater chance that there might be an idea I haven't had. I love working in a team, and I think I'm also gifted. I think I would be incapable of working from the beginning of the process with more people, but once I'm clear about what I want to do, I love it because they're people who support you and help you achieve it optimally. It's very important, I need it.
A woman who helps me a lot is named Sandra. She knows exactly what I mean, what I want to say, and she's very thorough. It's not easy for people to understand you either.
L.- How did you see the public's reaction after the exhibition opened?
There's one thing that gave me great satisfaction on opening day, and it's that from what little I could see out of the corner of my eye, people were euphoric. I don't know if it was the perfume, or the music. I suppose it was the combination of everything. I see people gaining that look of wonder, like a child, and that's why I'm happy. If I've managed to convey to people those feelings that are very difficult to feel: wonder, joy... happiness. If I can make people feel that way, I've achieved what I wanted.
L- This exhibition is interesting to move, to make it a traveling exhibition. Although all the works were created for the Sala Parpalló, did you conceive them so that they could later be moved and used in another gallery?
It could be, although when I create an exhibition, I'm very inspired by the space I'm creating for because, for example, in this case, it's a journey, it's like a path because this room is long, it belonged to a convent, it's spiritual. Everything is related. If the change were to be to another room that's just as long, perhaps, but if we were to go to a very different room, a square one, for example, I would have to change the whole thing—maybe not the concept because the concept remains the same, but the composition would be completely changed, perhaps adding some pieces or removing others. It would take work and time.
I let myself be guided by the environment, the soul of the space, the Genius Loci, the genius of the place, so if the genius of the place is in a certain way, I can't arrive with my pieces already prepared, I would have to adapt them.
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The work we are analyzing is an installation titled "Plaisir de fleurir" by Belgian artist Monique Bastiaans. She currently resides in Chiva Mountain, very close to the city of Valencia, in close contact with nature, which informs much of her work.
In this case, the work is an installation, created specifically for the purpose and located in the emblematic space of the Sala Parpalló, inserted in the monastery of Trinitarian nuns, famous, among other things, for the spectacular ceramic tondo attributed to the Renaissance artist Luca della Robbia.
The installation, based on aesthetic principles inspired by nature itself—a very characteristic of this artist—curiously employs in this recreation of space objects created with elements and materials from the industrial revolution: iron, resins, latex, silicone, fiberglass, fans, electric lights, and, as the only truly natural element, water—a drop of water, amplified through a high-fidelity microphone and audio system. It is, therefore, an association of forms, and obviously not of materials.
The installation, composed of different pieces located throughout the rectangular space of the room, with the central axis of the artificial pond, and the zenith of the perceptual journey located at the end of the building, like an old altar, a gigantic flower and an enormous loudspeaker - we will later talk about this analogy that at least I have perceived and that I consider quite evident - was exhibited between December 21, 2007, and Three Kings' Day in 2008, precisely an exquisite refuge of spirituality for such exasperating days, although perhaps somewhat brief.
The work featured the collaboration of Jordi Pla on lighting and Leopoldo Amigo on sound.
As this is an installation in which the exhibition space itself develops as an object in itself, and even more so considering that it is a work created by and for that same space, the sculptural and the expository, the object and the space, merge irremediably, frustrating any attempt at perceptual segmentation.
The space, initially conceived as an interior, and presented entirely within the strict, austere, and monastic chamber of the Monastery's former refectory, by its very symbolic nature and its formal and compositional characteristics, appears to us as a recreation of an exterior space, a garden. We have already mentioned the importance of nature in this artist's work, not only as a formal inspiration, as in this case, but also because a large part of her work is developed in a natural environment. A created, intervened space, in which the strictly plastic, object-based, is completed with the installation of lights and the enveloping ambient sound also created for the occasion. And although the space at first glance, and to a perhaps untrained eye, may appear simply occupied, due to the individuality and enormous presence of each of the objects, they lose meaning outside the whole and the ambient space created. It would be as aggressive as plucking a flower from its garden and expecting it to shine the same way in an old patio pot.
Since it is a created space, the points of view are multiplied everywhere, they are traversed, in fact, they are penetrated, since one ends up forming part of the work itself, literally walking through it, not passively observing it, but living it, perceiving it, feeling it, just as happens when we walk through a real garden, but in this case, even more influenced by elements created for that purpose.
The sense of three-dimensionality is thus presented complete, only conditioned by the rectangular space of the refectory and by that gaze directed towards the object that focuses our greatest visual attention, from the very moment in which we cross the green curtain that introduces us to this floral universe. Big Sister, this is the title of this piece, apparently in reference to the nuns who still inhabit the adjoining convent from which this space was once torn away.
The play of apparent contradictions is carried out this time through the use of rigid, industrial materials, to which we already referred in the introduction. Supposedly fragile, apparently fragile materials, visually associated with the very softness and fragility of the flowers they refer to, and yet, upon tactile approximation, we become aware of the deception, in a maneuver of evidently surprising intention: the rigidity of what should be soft, the radical industrial origin of what should be natural, the roughness of what is supposed to be soft, the tactile coldness of what is apparently warm through color. The only nod to real material and tactile softness is found in another of the installation's pieces, composed of a flowing skirt propelled by two powerful fans that emerge from the floor in what seems to be an allusion to the skirt of contemporary icon Marilyn Monroe, although I personally believe there are many more communicative and perceptual implications that I will develop in the final critical study.
Light is an essential part of the structure of this work. Virtually eliminating any hint of natural light, it restores to us that contradictory interplay between the seemingly natural and the truly artificial, a paradox resolved through the experience of the emotion evoked. A carefully studied artificial lighting technique generates plays of shadows and areas of shadow, in which our own moving body, projected onto the ground, harmoniously integrates into the aesthetic whole presented.
Since we began this analysis, we have understood the work as a unique structural whole, not as a succession of objects and elements placed in a certain way, therefore considering the work as a pure composition, a pure articulation of space. In this sense, the importance of composition is fundamental; it is everything.
The work constructs a structure of rhythms, sometimes regular, sometimes irregular, influencing the very perceptual dimension we have in our encounter with nature, in which we move comfortably, placidly, and freely, yet lulled by the sound of falling water and the music that emerges from all around. Perhaps Big Sister is the most striking visual focus, due to its location and, above all, its oversized appearance.
Personally, I consider the process of interpretation and critical approach to the work of art to be fundamental, even more so than formal analysis itself, which is nothing more than a somewhat icy argument. The exercise of criticism requires one to first immerse oneself in the work, to penetrate its deepest interstices, to exhale its fragrance until one is almost intoxicated, a very appropriate aspect considering the work in question, which even featured the actual perfumery of the room itself. Ultimately, it is about immersing oneself in the work in a sense of an almost mystical and profoundly vital experience, nothing more and nothing less than what we call aesthetic experience.
As Román de la Calle very wisely reminded us time and again in his classes, the exercise of criticism is not possible without first having gone through the aesthetic experience, and obviously, this critical exercise can be approached in very different ways, mine, which is not so much mine, was already argued and strongly affirmed by the brilliant Oscar Wilde in his brief but illuminating work The Critic as Artist, conceiving the act of critical interpretation as a properly creative act, and of course, not at all objective, an assumption that I categorically share more and more with him every day.
Let's look at this small interpretation, creative and subjective, arising from my experience and aesthetic encounter with Monique Bastiaans' installation.
Starting with the location of the room itself, it is already permeated with spaces of memory closely linked to my past, right next to the school where I completed my elementary school studies. Filled with old memories, I enter the garden space proposed by the artist.
The spiritual journey that it proposes begins as soon as we cross that fragile green curtain, which poses no physical impediment, not even a visual one, but which effectively acts as a border, a door between two worlds: the exterior world of artificial nature and the interior of spiritual artifice.
When you cross that door, you have to leave behind the world you came from, you have to become a new person who lets himself float in a sea of sensations. Objects speak to us; you just have to know how to listen to them; music and light do the rest.
And so we enter fully into this idyllic, fragrant garden of the spirit. A perfume that has no smell, that is odorless to the sense of smell, because what it aims to intoxicate is our spirit, and indeed, it succeeds.
Allowing ourselves to be carried away by the light and space, as if strolling through the gardens of our own minds, we encounter these closed flowers, shaped like buds, seemingly suspended in fragile fragility, as if reminding us of our own origin, their fragility, their link to life reduced to a simple filament that strongly resists the gravitational pull, the one that returns us once again to the bowels of the earth, to death. At its center, like a pond, like the origin and nourishment of life, is water, but also like an implacable clock that marks the passage of time with each drop that falls inexorably and without forgiveness, like an incessant tit-tac, reminding us that it is there without remedy, that with each drop, the flower is closer to the earth, to its tombstone.
In the same vein of life experience, of the origin of life, and with a clearly sexual connotation, emerges that pink flower in the shape of an inverted heart, hanging in the air, without a stem connecting it to the ground, unstable therefore, like love itself that seems to be tied by invisible ties, and that appears to us as a large vagina pierced by a stamen, clearly associated with the male penis.
As a more striking counterpoint, we find the skirt, moved by the wind, in which some have seen an allusion to Marilyn, perhaps as an icon of a certain femininity, perhaps highlighting by analogy the association of the flower with the feminine universe. In any case, the undulating and sensual rhythm of the moving waves reinforces this sensation and welcomes us as the greatest glimpse of life in the entire ensemble.
Finally, Big Sister, that enormous flower that we can almost penetrate and that seemed to be previously announced by the columns of trumpet-shaped yellow flowers, presides over the room, like a giant loudspeaker of thought and feeling, like a cave through which the echoes of our cries, our thoughts, our feelings reverberate, like a mother who welcomes them all and protects us in her arms, endowing her with a clear feminine strength and identity.
We cross the threshold of the green curtain again, leaving behind this garden of emotion that we face completely alone, certain that we will never see it again, but also certain that we will never forget it, perhaps like a first love we left behind. It was certainly a pleasant visit.
Ricard Ramon
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Exaltation and allegory of nature
Cuando Marshall McLuhan (Inglaterra, 1911-1980), expresa que << los nuevos medios no son puentes entre el hombre y la naturaleza. Son la naturaleza>>, se está refiriendo a la inminente desmitificación de la naturaleza, donde los ríos, campos, flores…son ahora sustituidos por la nuevas vías de comunicación, la velocidad del ciberespacio, los parques temáticos, etc. La imagen terrenal y paradisíaco del campo o el jardín ha sido sumida por la infinitud vertiginosa y destructora del universo humano. Una nueva cultura nos absorbe, identificando como ‘natural’ toda la inminente artificialidad: el paisaje o el jardín inherente a nuestra historia, queda inscrito en la memoria eterna y romántica del tiempo.
Starting from these premises promulgated not only by McLuhan, but asserted
Also by thinkers such as Baudelaire or Virilio, among others, the Belgian sculptor Monique Bastiaans presents in the Parpalló room the installation Plaisir de Fleurir: an exaltation of nature through the earthly garden, that allegorical garden of the Middle Ages, of meditations and sensuality and where the human being loses his precept in favor of nature, being absorbed by a mysticism not only religious, but also of pagan hedonism.
Pleasure and introspection are the resolutions of this exhibition, in which the installation transfigures the former Convent of the Trinity into a dreamlike garden, recreating a mystified play of light, scent, and sound, rich in nuances that enhance the spiritual atmosphere of the work; a mysterious space where Bastiaans fuses the formal and the conceptual into a stimulating vocabulary that seeks to revive our gaze toward those magical and enigmatic spaces throughout history, and which recalls a wide variety of gardens—from the secret garden or garden of paradise, to the oriental legends of Uruk, to the voluptuousness of painters such as Hieronymus Bosch—impregnated with a sense of perpetual transmutation, with an alchemical and mystical imprint.
The musicality of the place and the unity of the senses through the exploration of materials, their organicity, the sense of smell, and the sonority of music composed especially for this occasion by the artist Leopoldo Amigo take the viewer on a metaphorical journey or return to the origin. A final image or final stage of nature recreated through Bastiaans's unique vision, inscribing the double and pertinent paradox between the media and the spiritual.
Rosa Ulipano, El Levante, Postscript 7-12-2007
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Playful Sanctuary
She calls it a playful sanctuary. And the name couldn't be more accurate. Because while the religious element is present in one way or another, it's no less true that festive play pervades everything. It's her way of working. She soaks up the place where she's going to exhibit, and once it's permeated her, she gives birth to her idea. And since this time it was the Parpalló Hall, the former convent of the Trinity, she decided on just that: to transform the sacred space into an artistic garden filled with flowers that evoked the femininity of those walls.
Plaisir de Fleurir is the result of the 'spiritual path' practiced by Monique Bastiaans
(Mons, Belgium, 1954)
"I wanted to create a spiritual garden. Light, playful, joyful," the artist comments. And there the garden is, at Parpalló until January 6. A garden made with a wide variety of synthetic materials, to imitate a nature that Bastiaans says he absolutely loves.
"I choose the flowers in reference to the nuns who lived in the convent, and because they seem to me to be the most feminine aspect of nature." Femininity that is accessed after tearing, in a way, the veil that serves as the gateway to that garden.
Plaisir de Fleurir is an installation composed of seven figures (including the entrance veil itself) that allude to that spiritual nature. Symmetrically displayed (the masculine and feminine; the well; the two heralds or trumpets; the vulva), Bastiaans introduces us to his garden with the slowness with which Scheherazade recounted her Arabian Nights. It is his way of warning us that ultimate femininity is reached through slow and progressive listening.
Leopoldo Amigo has provided the sound for this listening. An equally rhythmic sound, in which the chants of different religions harmonize, "very discreetly," Bastiaans emphasizes, to which are added the drops that resonate as they fall into the central well surrounded by reeds. A well reached after leaving behind a certain symbolic phallus, opposite Marilyn's skirt. The masculine and the feminine, therefore, before reaching the well "where you can see your soul," as the creator herself points out.
Salvador Torres
The World, 25-11-2007