školská 28

Before she became a visual artist, Monique Besten studied medieval and cultural history for six years in The Netherlands and Ireland. She did research and wrote numerous articles about different historical subjects.

I’m fascinated by the things happening around me. I start looking and describing and choose gradually for the best medium to start the work in progress. I mainly use the time-based arts like photography, video and performance. The preference for these media derives from a never-ending interest in “time” (which also explains why I was a historian once) and strong powers of observation: I love to look, I can’t stop doing it with the utmost concentration.
Time and observation are inextricably bound up with each other, in my work as in reality, because time is only truely visible through the changes around us and in ourselves.

Apart from the time-based arts I use language. Words puzzle me. I try to understand them, their meaning, their power, the way people use them, the place they have in this world.

My work has a strong sense of reality. The material I use is or used to be present in the world around us in its presented form. The video images reflect reality and aren’t manipulated. The words can be found in any dictionary. The performer carries out normal, everyday actions.
The question this raises is to what extent things are “real”, what is “true” and whether there really is an answer to these questions. In this world in which anything is possible, I like to emphasize the wonder of normal things that form the basis of everything happening on earth.
This approach asks for a meticulous use of everything involved in an artwork. A machine like a slide projector, television or video projector is always more than just a monitor or device to project with, but has a clear value in the work as an object or sound source. The viewer himself and the way he/she takes in the artwork is evenly important. For example by placing a projector in such a way that the viewer has to walk through the projection and casts a shadow which becomes part of the work itself. Or by incorporating the viewer into a performance and shifting the roles between performer and viewer.
By doing so, the borders between the work of art, the audience and the artist move.

You could call me a realist. But because I see and want to show that reality can surpass your wildest imaginations, a word like that has very little value. As an artist, I want to offset this crazy world. And let others be part of this. And then turn the world upside down, as far as it doesn’t already happen as a matter of course.