Monica Bonvicini: Desire Desiese Devise - Drawings 1986-2012
September 7 - Novemeber 18, 2012 at the Falckenberg collection, Hamburg.
Desire Desiese Devise. Zeichnungen 1986’2012 is the first comprehensive show of illustrations, collages and text-based works by Monica Bonvicini. Hosted by Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen in cooperation with Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, the exhibition is on show in Sammlung Falckenberg from September 7 to November 18, 2012.
Monica Bonvicini is famous for her expansive and occasionally monumental installations in which she explores the structures of power and seduction in the architecture that surrounds us. Moreover, in the course of some 25 years the artist has created an impressive portfolio of illustrations, which she uses to intensify the relationships of everyday and political visual worlds that are so characteristic of her oeuvre.
Her illustrations and collages, which were often conceived as drafts for her installations, offer a personal insight into how she explores art history, architecture and sexuality, among other things. Her diverse interests are reflected in her use of different styles and materials: quotations from the history of art and architecture, from poetry, music and advertising masterly interweave notions of elegance and Punk. For Bonvicini illustration was a way of engaging directly and personally with a subject. The artist hardly ever features in her videos or photographs and has professional manufacturers produce and build her sculptures and installations, but the drawings she does herself.
Beyond the medium’s immediate and subjective character, the illustrations demonstrate the notion of process in the work of Bonvicini, who studied art originally. The instantly arresting quality of her large black-and-white Tempera pieces and the hard-edged immediacy of the medium take center stage in her drawings as do sensuality and humor.
Some 400 works on paper spread across three floors of Sammlung Falckenberg, which is part of Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen, along with a comprehensive catalog (Distanz Verlag/352 pages) featuring around 600 illustrations is the impressive result of Monica Bonvicini work in illustration between 1986 and 2012. Alongside a selection of large works such as the series Off the Grid (2012),15 Steps to the Virgin (2011), Hurricanes and Other Catastrophes (2008), Kill Your Father (2001), EternMale(2000) and Places of ID’s (1996) the exhibition in Hamburg shows a whole host of collages, draft illustrations and text-based drawings. Initially conceived as a second stage in the overview exhibition of Monica Bonvicini’s works on paper, the pieces on show at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach serve to add another dimension to her oeuvre, thus opening up new angles on the work of Monica Bonvicini.
