BASTIAAN ARLER (The Netherlands, 1972)
Dutch artist Bastiaan Arler is best known for works that cleverly combine a variety of media in an ongoing investigation into the dynamics that govern society and, in turn, the single individual. His inquiries employ a mix of intuition and scientific observation that bring social constructs such as time, money, and art itself into focus. To this aim, he employs diagrams both as a method for critical thought and as an artistic medium. Where most art is concerned with human variance and the unique individual, Arler follows an alternative route driven by an innate urge to understand the constants and constraints that define the limits of the self within society. Although this practice was originally conceived as a personal coping mechanism, he has the rare ability to dissect social compromises and present us with the residual opportunities of human relations, allowing us to overcome them.

His most recent shows include a live-drawing performance ‘A Manifesto of the Future of Music’ commissioned by Audi (2015), the installation and performance ‘Order and Chaos Within (Within Chaos and Order)’ at the Triennale museum in Milan, commissioned by Costume National (2014), his studies of economic cycles in ‘Timepiece for Recurrent Economic Phenomena’ for  NOPX gallery in Turin and the sculpture series ‘Constructs’, built from LEGO pieces (2013). He has also shown at the Vanabbe Museum in Eindhoven, Neon Campobase in Bologna, and at the Accademia Albertina in Torino.

Arler’s work has been taken up in Luciano Benetton’s Imago Mundi collection as well as various private collections. He lives and works in Turin, Italy.