What is Het Beest? | Making Love To My Ego | - Making Love To My Ego is on at Castlefield Gallery from Fri 11 Aug to Sun 24 Sept
- Admission is free
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"Het Beest is Dutch for the Beast, an oversized Rabbit costume that I created in 2003. The costume is made out of 2 mm thick felt. It covers me totally and influences my ability to move. I perform in the costume set in an installation created for each venue. "In Macedonia, I created a domain for the Beast in my hotel, staying in bed and allowing the public to enter this private domain, while in an exhibition in a psychiatric hospital in the Netherlands, I worked in an unused therapy space, inviting a psychoanalyst, a psychic, a philosopher and an art historian to give a reaction.  | | Arthur Neve's Het Beest |
"Once the Beast has emerged, it moves in wordless silence with small slow movements, sealed in its own closed world of repetitive movements: it stands up and then sits down again, stares at its own hands and feet, caresses itself, appears to look for something. The Beast warns the public to leave him in peace. The increasing passivity and slowness seems to reach its nadir, only for begin the cycle once more. "In my performances, I try to show a claustrophobic sense of an animal locked in its own world from which there is no way out. It is powerlessness and melancholy." Where did the idea come from?"My work leads the viewer through narrative situations and I use a variety of elements such as drawings, sculpture, photographs through which a parallel world is created. The result is not always reassuring and the issues the images raise are often confrontational. What the works have in common is a sense of loneliness and exclusion. | "Depending on the weather conditions, it can be very hot and humid inside of the costume, which makes it hard to stay in it." | | Arthur explains what it's like to be in the belly of the Beest |
"I used the image of a rabbit in my drawings and sculptures before. The step of making the costume and becoming the Beast by putting it on was a logical one. The costume refers to childhood toys and pets, which comfort you, but in the enlarged version, it becomes an animal which is threatening." How do you feel performing it?"I see the costume as a shelter and hiding place. The slow repetitive movement make me feel calm and focused as in a meditation; aware of everything around me and enclosed in myself and in what I am doing. "Depending on the weather conditions, it can be very hot and humid inside of the costume, which makes it hard to stay in it." How do the concepts behind Making Love To My Ego inform your work? | | Arthur Neve's Het Beest |
"Art is the discovery of your inner wilderness, I think. In that way, there always will be a part of a self image in it; not the true self, but a version used as a medium to create a situation where the viewer might reflect on their own life. I explore existential loneliness and the possibility and impossibility of contact and communication." You have exhibited around the world. Do different cultures read your work in different ways?"Even though the viewer reacts from their own personal background, history, social and cultural context, the reactions are generally the same. The performance links to powerlessness and the existential loneliness, and these are universal ideas on an emotional level." | 
