FONS ÀUDIO #64
David Bestué
David Bestué’s practice sits at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, and language, although it also extends to other forms such as curating and essay writing. Focusing on his works in the MACBA Collection FONS ÀUDIO #64 takes us back to the beginnings of his career, ontextualising his collaboration with fellow artist and performer Marc Vives, under the alias Bestué/Vives—a key phase that precedes his later research into architecture, memory, and materiality.
Active between 2002 and 2012, Bestué/Vives carried out a series of performative actions—such as Actions in Mataró, Actions at Home, Actions in the Body, and Actions in the Universe—that started from the textual, which they repeatedly modified by means of variations, pushing this creative strategy as far as it would go. The actions were deeply influenced by the context of pre-crisis Barcelona, a love of reading, and an art scene born of post-Conceptualism, in which irony and humour were key tools and everything seemed possible. Their practice constantly tested the boundaries between performance, reading, sculpture, and biography, and used humour and play intertwined with a critical, poetic perspective.
After the duo split up, Bestué continued to work alone, taking many of the interests from that first stage into his solo practice. His focus shifted to the links between architecture, memory and materiality, and away from the more performative aspects and fiction of earlier stages. Uralitas (2019), which is also in the MACBA Collection, reflects this shift, maintaining the experimental approach and paying close attention to the ephemeral and to the potential of the residual and latent.
In this conversation, David Bestué talks about his impulse towards voracious cultural consumption, his tendency to document it systematically, and his desire to give back to culture as much as it has given him. We also talk about issues such as work processes, material conditions, the precariousness of the art field, and over-production as reasons to reconsider the profession.
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