Bastiaan Arler has put anthropology at the center of his work from the beginning. He is convinced that the concrete conditions (economic, social, political) in which he lives, and with which he copes, render life, as well as the field in which he has chosen to work (‘art’), instable terrain. He chooses behavior as a language and instrument with which to engage a process of communication with the public, and the context in general in which he works: moving from art to life and back to art again.   

'My Name is Gilgamesh' is a complex work. It has taken form and has been structured over a period of a year and a half in which links between various forms of language and fields like psychology, anthropology, video, sound, literature, pop and trash culture, consumerism, and comics have been explored. He has met and discussed with many people from these fields of knowledge to generate new input that was incorporated in his project. In reality he has been living this work long before he actually ‘performed’ it: this, in a sense, is the real epic journey.

The work can be regarded as a turning point for this interdisciplinary artist, born as a concept designer, that surely contains many auto-referential aspects, but most of all it reflects his desire to relate to many ‘things’ and to explore situations and territories, in this long and confused period of our time. He is a young artist, that after having worked for a long time with great professionalism as a designer, has undergone decisive changes. In this work we see his desire to anchor himself to something archaic as a reference point, where his choice in the epic of Gilgamesh as medium and instrument can be seen as a ‘reset’ to a clean slate.   

Starting with the epic poem, he traces the life of Gilgamesh back to today, in a 6 day performance and a resulting 16 minute video. The performance is in balance between attempting to become the epic hero, to cross over into a mythological dimension, and in uprooting the mysticism of the epic by having himself filmed by and among passers-by in public spaces. He has taken the performance out into society, where the story originated and has ever since propagated.   
     
He is a strong believer of process over product, which none the less is present and is also of great quality. The process and the idea are represented in an installation of essential and rigorous nature that create an ideal place where one can view the video and concentrate on the work itself which includes the ‘artifacts’ of the performance as a contemporary hero: his superhero outfit, his light sword, and the survival backpack.
 
From the structuring and layering of media and visual references, ‘My Name is Gilgamesh’ is perfectly contemporary. The artist retains a very strong autonomy on the epic of Gilgamesh, even though he refers to it continuously. It is therefore not necessary to understand the fine points of the epic to understand the parable he lays before us. The Gilgamesh/Arler epic is a universal story and in that it is akin to the parable of other great heroes and great writings in the history of man.

Arler’s work does not only generate emotions, but it also evokes thought, reflections and ideas in the public. He has a goal, something to communicate, to experiment with, to verify: in his projects he gathers all his knowledge and his means, using them with precision, consciously, in a perfectly balanced way; writing, video, performance and much more. His conception of esthetics is a conception of consequence, where the logical sum of content and idea suggest by consequence an extremely coherent language.

Arler – Gilgamesh, come eroe contemporaneo, ha intrapreso il suo viaggio da Milano a New York attraverso aeroporti, attese, documenti, privazione del sonno e soprattutto incontrando persone, proprio come Gilgamesh incontra sacerdotesse, mostri e guardiani di luoghi segreti. I passanti, ai quale Arler ha anche chiesto di filmare le diversi fasi della performance, si sono trovati coinvolti nell’azione.

In mostra, oltre al video dell’esibizione, vi sono fotografie che documentano le fasi cruciali del viaggio e un’installazione sonora, frutto di una conversazione tra l’artista e Franco Torriani. Inoltre sono presentati come feticci gli oggetti-simbolo di questo rito di passaggio alla ricerca d’un orizzonte mitico: mappe che indicano il percorso, l’abito bianco, la spada – che per Gilgamesh è strumento di potere –, lo zaino, l’alter ego Enkidu, fedele compagno di viaggio di Re Gilgamesh (l’orsacchiotto forse simbolo d’un’infanzia dorata che a un certo punto del “viaggio” s’abbandona). Gli oggetti fanno quasi da didascalia al video di questa performance in cui Arler continua la sua ricerca sui meccanismi e sui conflitti della società contemporanea, oramai privata della ritualità arcaica e della forza delle grandi narrazioni mitiche.”

(da Tema Celeste No. 109 del 05/2005)