Cosima von Bonin, The Bonin / Oswald Empire’s Nothing #05 (CVB’s Sans Clothing. Most Risqué. I’d be Delighted. & MVO’s Orange Hermitcrab on Off-white Table Next to Pink Table) ( 2010). White table: 29-1/8 x 29-1/8 x 58-11/16”; pink table: 43-15/16 x 25-1/4 x 51-1/4”; crab: 19-3/4 x 23 -/8 x 39-7/16” (approx.). Courtesy of Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin. |
The Playful Seduction and Conceptual Satire of Cosima Von Bonin |
Cosima von Bonin, Grobe K?che (Crude Cuisine) (2003). Wool, cotton, and loden, 108-3/4 x 110-1/4”. Collection of Rosa and Carlos de la Cruz, Key Biscayne, Florida.
Cosima von Bonin, Rockstars (Character Appropriation), 2003. Wool, cotton and loden, 108-1/4 x 110-1/4”. Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis. University purchase, Parsons Fund, and with funds from Mrs. Mark C. Steinberg, by exchange, 2003.
Cosima von Bonin, Hand von Rechts (2008). Mixed media on linen, 86-5/8 x 66-15/16”. Courtesy of Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York. |
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Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum Based in Cologne, Germany, conceptual artist Cosima von Bonin is among the most influential yet elusive artists of her generation. At once playful, seductive and satirical, her wide-ranging creative practice interweaves sculpture, installation, video, textiles, performance and electronic music with a diverse network of collaborators. Conceptual artist Cosima von Bonin’s creative practice is distinguished extensive biographical allusions and art-historical references, particularly to conceptual and minimalist artistic practices, abound in her work, but she also draws on a broad range of topics and fields, from fashion and popular culture, to theater and electronic music. Von Bonin’s choice of materials (fabric, stuffed animals), scale (often oversized), motifs (mushrooms, bull dogs, sea creatures, cartoon characters), and eclectic subject matter (luxury-based lifestyle branding, American pop culture, and sloth), each carry with them personal associations, yet they also bear larger socio-cultural connotations, such as the ubiquity of consumerism, gender inequality, and increased social apathy or malaise. In her choice of materials (fabric, stuffed animals, slick minimalist sculptural objects), scale (often oversized) and eclectic subject matter (fatigue, cartoon characters, luxury lifestyle branding, pop culture), von Bonin creatively juxtaposes personal biography and art historical lineages while critically alluding to more sobering themes of global consumerism, gender inequality and social apathy. Cosima von Bonin: Character Appropriation is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the American Midwest. Organized by Meredith Malone, associate curator, the exhibition surveys the last decade of von Bonin’s career. Inspired by the Kemper Art Museum’s acquisition of Rockstars (Character Appropriation) (2003), an early example of the artist’s signature textile “paintings,” the exhibition also will present examples of von Bonin’s architectural sculptures, outsized stuffed animals, and her latest works that embrace themes of idleness and mental and physical fatigue. Several exhausted stuffed animals will be accompanied by soundtracks composed by von Bonin’s collaborator, electronic music pioneer Moritz von Oswald. “It is impossible not to be entranced with Cosima von Bonin’s playful works,” Malone says. “Her huge, floppy stuffed animals, outsized rockets, and large-scale textile ‘paintings’ exude a certain seductiveness and absurdity though one shot through with sardonic wit. “Cosima von Bonin: Character Appropriation explores the artist’s multidisciplinary practice and her ongoing engagement with complex social issues, including a rising social apathy infiltrating today’s networked society. I am thrilled to be bringing the work of such an engaging and internationally renowned contemporary artist to St. Louis.” Character Appropriation is accompanied by an illustrated brochure featuring an essay by Malone as well as a new installment in a series of scripted conversations between von Bonin and Daffy Duck, written by von Bonin’s longtime collaborator Dirk von Lowtzow, a Berlin-based musician and art critic. Born in 1962 in Mombasa, Kenya, von Bonin lives and works in Cologne. In 2010, the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, presented The Fatigue Empire, a comprehensive one-person exhibition of the artist’s recent works. It was shortly followed by von Bonin’s Lazy Susan Series, A Rotating Exhibition, with venues at the Witte de With Rotterdam (October 2010-January 2011); Arnolfini Bristol (February-April 2011); MAMCO, Geneva (June-September 2011); and Museum Ludwig, Cologne (July-October 2011). Von Bonin’s first major U.S. survey, Roger and Out, opened in 2007 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Other institutional one-person exhibitions have taken place at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2004); Kunstverein Hamburg, Germany (2001); Kunstverein Braunschweig, Germany (2000); and Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Switzerland (1999). In addition, von Bonin has participated in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York; Les Abbatoirs in Toulouse, France; and Documenta XII in Kassel, Germany, among many others. Her work is included in many notable collections worldwide, including the Tate Britain in London; the Museum für Neue Kunst im ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany; and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; as well as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. |
Cosima von Bonin, Miss Riley (LOOP #2) (2006). Mixed media, 51-3/16 x 433-1/16”. Courtesy of Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York. |
Detail of Missy Misdemeanour (The Vomiting White Chick, Riley [Loop #5], MVO's Voodoo Beat & MVO's Rocket Blast Beat), 2010, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Neu (Berlin), Installation photo Witte de With 2010: Bob Goedewaagen. |
Cosima Von Bonin's Ironic, Revisionist, Existential View of Sloth & Laziness |
Detail of England (Sloth Beardsley Version & MVO's Cosima's Songs), 2007 / 2010, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Daniel Buchholz (Cologne) and Friedrich Petzel (New York), Installation photo Witte de With 2010: Bob Goedewaagen.
Foreground: Total Produce (Morality), 2010, Background: Privato, 2010, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Daniel Buchholz (Cologne) and Friedrich Petzel (New York), Installation photo Witte de With 2010: Bob Goedewaagen.
Foreground: Untitled (The donkey with Hat & Box), 2006, Courtesy Collection de Bruin-Heijn; Background: Thrown Out of Drama School, 2008, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Daniel Buchholz (Cologne) and Friedrich Petzel (New York, Installation photo Witte de With 2010: Bob Goedewaagen. |
Witte de With Cosima von Bonin presents an exhibition around the notion of sloth and fatigue. With her typical laconic humor, von Bonin creates a constellation of new and existing works. From oversized stuffed animals to sewn fabrics, from pastiches of minimalist sculpture to recreations of shop display systems, her work blends formalism and pop, oscillating between seriousness and fun, weighed down with melancholy or fizzing with critical wit. The expression "dolce far niente" evokes the sweetness of doing nothing. Here the expression takes on a certain irony, as this is the first show in a sequence of major institutional exhibitions, which means that the artist is doing quite the opposite of nothing. The sequence is subtitled: THE LAZY SUSAN SERIES, A ROTATING EXHIBITION, referring to the rotating disks that appear in many restaurants and are used to present an array of dishes. The idea of a rotating exhibition differs from a traditional traveling show in that, with each rotation or loop, visitors are served a slightly different dish. One of the most influential artists of her generation in Germany, von Bonin has been working for over 17 years in a wide-ranging and diverse practice that includes sculpture, photography, textile "canvases" which she refers to as "Lappen" (translation "rags"), installation, performance, film, video, and music. Playing with references from numerous sources including the work of other artists (Polke, Trockel, Palermo a.o.), popular and vernacular culture, movies, fashion, and music, her work utilizes these different cultural phenomena in an open approach that embraces their contradictions and relationships to each other. Von Bonin's work establishes a community of social relations using appropriation, collaboration, and the transformation of the mundane. Her works touch upon ideas of identity and self-reflection with both absurdity and humor. The exhibition is curated by Zoë Gray & Nicolaus Schafhausen Iterations of the exhibition (Loops) of THE LAZY SUSAN SERIES are: Loop # 01: Witte de With, Rotterdam (10 Oct 2010 – 9 Jan 2011); Loop # 02: Arnolfini, Bristol (19 Feb-25 Apr 2011); Loop # 03: MAMCO, Geneva (1 Jun-18 Sep 2011); Loop # 04: Museum Ludwig, Cologne (8 Jul-3 Oct 2011).
Detail of Idler, Lezzer, Tosspiece (The WDW Swing Nose & Scallop Version), 2010, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Daniel Buchholz (Cologne) and Friedrich Petzel (New York), Installation photo Witte de With 2010: Bob Goedewaagen. |
Foreground: Amateur Dramatics (WDW's Lazy Susan Version & MVO's Bone Beats), 2010, including Antiautoritäter Kindergarten (#4; Purple Sloth Rabbit, 2010; Oswald's & Bonin's Structure #01 (Bone & Dubplate), 2010, Background from left: Day/Track, 2010; Night/Tick, 2010, and Dawn/Trick, 2010. Amateur Dramatics is jointly commissioned by Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam), Arnolfini (Bristol) and Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Installation photo Witte de With 2010: Bob Goedewaagen. |
Cosima Von Bonin, HUNDESCHULE/OBEDIENCE SCHOOL, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2004, Photograph Michael Strassburger and Dejan Saric. |
Cosima Von Bonin: a Multilayered Practice Based in Installation |
Cosima Von Bonin, Untitled (The Purple Saint Bernard with Box), 2006, various materials, 70.87 x 36.06 x 61.65".
Cosima Von Bonin, installation views of 2 Positions at once at Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2004, Photographs Simon Vogel.
Cosima Von Bonin, D’accord, 2002, wool and cotton, 102-3/8 x 78-¾", collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Partial and promised gift of Blake Byrne. |
Museum of Contemporary Art One of the most influential German artists of her generation, Cosima Von Bonin (b. 1962, lives and works in Cologne, Germany) has for over 15 years maintained a diverse practice that includes sculpture, photography, textile “paintings,” installation, performance, film, video, and music — often combined together in large-scale installations. Drawing on a broad range of sources including the work of other artists, popular and vernacular culture, fashion, and electronic music, Von Bonin constructs a community of social relations using role-playing, collaboration, appropriation, and the transformation of the commonplace. Her work touches upon ideas of play and indoctrination, structure and improvisation, cultural and gender representations, and identity and self-reflection with both absurdity and humor. Playing with her own autonomy and identity as an artist, Von Bonin has moved through different ranks, positions, and roles, including curator, historian, director, producer, and DJ, often working collaboratively with other artists, musicians, and fashion designers. The artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States, COSIMA VON BONIN: ROGER AND OUT features a selected survey of work from 1990 to the present, including those distinguished by her continued interest in collaboration and performance, a selection of her highly regarded textile paintings, and large-scale installations and new sculptures produced on the occasion of this exhibition. This presentation surveys Von Bonin’s multidisciplinary practice, which addresses the structures and power of social relations and art-historical lineages, starting with her own. In the photographic work UNTITLED (KREBBER ÜBER KREBBER) (1990), a woman stands topless, wearing partially unzipped jeans. Written on her body, from her chest to below her navel, are the last names of 18 artists — from Duchamp to Spadari — a visual roll call punctuated with flowers. The image originally appeared as an advertisement in Flash Art in the 1970s and was subtly altered by Von Bonin, who replaced the name [Konrad] Klapheck with that of her husband [Michael] Krebber, retaining the initial “K.” Von Bonin’s subtle manipulation of this advertisement embodies contradictions that are both personal and strategic; the work stands as both a feminist critique and a powerful act of self-reflection. Since the late 1990s, Von Bonin has used textiles such as felt, dishcloths, Anatolian wool blankets, or a variety of printed fabrics — from camouflage to Laura Ashley patterns — to make the slipcover for a full-scale version of a 30-foot sailboat, an enormous bikini, costumes for performances, upholstery for enlarged mushrooms and dog toys, and what she calls her “Lappen” (rags), a body of fabric works stitched with appropriated images that function like paintings or drawings. Made without evidence of her hand, Von Bonin’s textile works are a means of refashioning and re-tailoring materials that clothe, upholster, adorn, and clean. Continually engaging with others as part of her practice, Von Bonin vigorously embraces the collaborative process, as exemplified by her large-scale multimedia installation KAPITULATION/ CAPITULATION (2004). Incorporating performance, sculpture, and video, this work addresses issues of conformity, indoctrination, play, and ritual within the context of obedience school, for humans as well as dogs. MOCA’s presentation — the first since it was produced for her acclaimed 2004 exhibition, 2 Positions at Once, at the Kölnischer Kunstverein, Germany — consists of a constellation of rooms connected by interior tunnels and slides. Not to be entered, the work is viewed through overhead mirrors and staircases positioned so that the spectator may look in from the top at a variety of interior elements, including an actual-size sculpture of a catamaran sailboat covered in grey tweed, enlarged soft sculptures of dog toys, and chalk drawings on blackboard-like walls. The installation was used in the production of KAPITULATION/ CAPITULATION and HUNDESCHULE/ OBEDIENCE SCHOOL (both 2004), a video in two parts. In a scene from HUNDESCHULE, a group of people attempts to rotate the catamaran in its room; too large to turn intact, the sculpture is broken in order to rotate it in the space. As MOCA Associate Curator Bennett Simpson wrote in his essay in the accompanying exhibition catalogue, “KAPITULATION and HUNDESCHULE speak of maintaining: making the boat fit. Von Bonin’s boats have always seemed symbols for herself: the artist-out-of-water, met or mastered by others, cumbersome with grace.” Many of Von Bonin’s newest works created for the exhibition assume the form of obstacles, means of enclosure, or positions for observation drawn from vernacular objects such as gates, barriers, huts, furniture, or vehicles of display. Transformed through the use of new materials and scales, these new works, like all of Von Bonin’s production, accompany and bear witness to the complex and reflective — and at times hilariously absurd — process of negotiating life and work. — Ann Goldstein, |
Cosima Von Bonin, HUNDESCHULE/OBEDIENCE SCHOOL, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne, 2004, Photograph Michael Strassburger and Dejan Saric. |
