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Monica Bonvicini
Monica Bonvicini (born 1965 in Venice) is a German-Italian artist who works with installation, sculpture, video, photography and drawing mediums to explore the relationships between architecture and space, power, gender and sexuality. She is considered part of a generation of artists that expanded on the critical practices of the 1960s and 1970s to conceive of space and architecture as a material that could engage with discourses of power and politics, defining art as an active form of ‘critique’. She was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and the Preis der Nationalgalerie (The National Gallery Prize for Young Artists) from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in 2005. She was appointed Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2012.
Bonvicini studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Having studied in Berlin since end of the 1980s, Bonvicini began exhibiting her work internationally in the mid-1990s.
In 1998, Bonvicini was featured in the 1st Berlin Biennale, and in 1999 in the 48th Venice Biennial curated by Harald Szeemann. With the architectural installation I Believe in the Skin of Things as in That of Women, 1999, she won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 along with Bruna Esposito, Luisa Lambri, Paola Pivi, and Grazia Toderi. Since then Bonvicini has participated in more than 20 international contemporary art biennials, including the Santa Fe Biennial (1999), Gwangju Biennale (2006), the first New Orleans Biennial (2008), the Berlin Biennale (1998, 2003, 2014), the Venice Biennale (1999, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2015), the Istanbul Biennial (2003 -2017), and the Busan Biennale (2020).
Bonvicini has been a scholar for many years, starting as a guest professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, in 1998. From 2003 to 2017 she was a Professor of Sculpture and Performance Art at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, Austria. Since 2017, she has been Professor of Sculpture at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Bonvicini has also been invited to contribute as a guest lecturer in major institutions such as Columbia University, New York/US, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin/Italy, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel/Switzerland, Museum Ludwig, Cologne/Germany, Whitechapel Gallery, London/UK, Kunsthochschule Mainz, Mainz/Germany, among others.
In 2022, Monica Bonvicini obtained German citizenship and was elected as a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, in the Visual Arts section. In 2012 she was appointed Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2005, she was awarded the Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst, Berlin, Germany, followed by The Roland Prize for Art in Public Spaces, Bremen, Germany, in 2012, the Hans-Platschek-Prize, Hamburg, Germany, in 2019, The Acacia, Premio alla Carriera, Milan, Italy, in 2019 and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Vienna, Austria in 2020.
Monica Bonvicini works with a variety of media, her research encompasses psychoanalysis, labour, feminism, design and urbanity, and the influence of private and institutional spaces on behavioural codes. Commonly described as working site-specifically, Bonvicini creates discursive displays that relate to an exhibiting venue and its operational context. By employing text, humour, irony and often explicit material and language, her artworks challenge institutional boundaries and interrogate the role of the spectator. Her work critically examines the legacy of modernism addressing both its artistic and social dimensions, while also drawing upon references from minimalism, conceptual art, Institutional Critique, feminist and queer subcultures as well as civil rights and other political movements.
The artwork, titled I Believe the Skin of Things as in That of Women, attained the Golden Lion award at the 1999 Venice Biennale, under the curation of Harald Szeemann. The installation constitutes an architectural space, constructed out of damaged drywall panels and aluminium studs, bearing quotes from famous male architects, including Auguste Perret and Adolf Loos. These quotations are paired with drawings in graphite of cartoon-style figures, some of which performing a variety of sexual acts. The sketches evoke the drawings found in Charles Eames’s seminal essay, “What is a House?” (1944) intended to illustrate the potential leisure activities within a residence, emblematic of a new, more adaptable modern domestic dwelling.
I Believe the Skin of Things as in That of Women, examines the “phenomenology of gendered architectural space”, focusing on the prevailing ideals of modernist architecture often shaped by its predominately male practitioners and theorists. The title of the work references the famous quotation by Le Corbusier evoking a debate between him and Auguste Perret. Where Le Corbusier advocated for horizontal windows, while Perret likened them to a man, asserting that windows should be vertical.
Monica Bonvicini
Monica Bonvicini (born 1965 in Venice) is a German-Italian artist who works with installation, sculpture, video, photography and drawing mediums to explore the relationships between architecture and space, power, gender and sexuality. She is considered part of a generation of artists that expanded on the critical practices of the 1960s and 1970s to conceive of space and architecture as a material that could engage with discourses of power and politics, defining art as an active form of ‘critique’. She was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 and the Preis der Nationalgalerie (The National Gallery Prize for Young Artists) from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in 2005. She was appointed Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2012.
Bonvicini studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia. Having studied in Berlin since end of the 1980s, Bonvicini began exhibiting her work internationally in the mid-1990s.
In 1998, Bonvicini was featured in the 1st Berlin Biennale, and in 1999 in the 48th Venice Biennial curated by Harald Szeemann. With the architectural installation I Believe in the Skin of Things as in That of Women, 1999, she won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 along with Bruna Esposito, Luisa Lambri, Paola Pivi, and Grazia Toderi. Since then Bonvicini has participated in more than 20 international contemporary art biennials, including the Santa Fe Biennial (1999), Gwangju Biennale (2006), the first New Orleans Biennial (2008), the Berlin Biennale (1998, 2003, 2014), the Venice Biennale (1999, 2001, 2005, 2011, 2015), the Istanbul Biennial (2003 -2017), and the Busan Biennale (2020).
Bonvicini has been a scholar for many years, starting as a guest professor at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, in 1998. From 2003 to 2017 she was a Professor of Sculpture and Performance Art at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, Austria. Since 2017, she has been Professor of Sculpture at the Universität der Künste Berlin. Bonvicini has also been invited to contribute as a guest lecturer in major institutions such as Columbia University, New York/US, Castello di Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin/Italy, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel/Switzerland, Museum Ludwig, Cologne/Germany, Whitechapel Gallery, London/UK, Kunsthochschule Mainz, Mainz/Germany, among others.
In 2022, Monica Bonvicini obtained German citizenship and was elected as a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, in the Visual Arts section. In 2012 she was appointed Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic. In 2005, she was awarded the Preis der Nationalgalerie für Junge Kunst, Berlin, Germany, followed by The Roland Prize for Art in Public Spaces, Bremen, Germany, in 2012, the Hans-Platschek-Prize, Hamburg, Germany, in 2019, The Acacia, Premio alla Carriera, Milan, Italy, in 2019 and the Oskar Kokoschka Prize, Vienna, Austria in 2020.
Monica Bonvicini works with a variety of media, her research encompasses psychoanalysis, labour, feminism, design and urbanity, and the influence of private and institutional spaces on behavioural codes. Commonly described as working site-specifically, Bonvicini creates discursive displays that relate to an exhibiting venue and its operational context. By employing text, humour, irony and often explicit material and language, her artworks challenge institutional boundaries and interrogate the role of the spectator. Her work critically examines the legacy of modernism addressing both its artistic and social dimensions, while also drawing upon references from minimalism, conceptual art, Institutional Critique, feminist and queer subcultures as well as civil rights and other political movements.
The artwork, titled I Believe the Skin of Things as in That of Women, attained the Golden Lion award at the 1999 Venice Biennale, under the curation of Harald Szeemann. The installation constitutes an architectural space, constructed out of damaged drywall panels and aluminium studs, bearing quotes from famous male architects, including Auguste Perret and Adolf Loos. These quotations are paired with drawings in graphite of cartoon-style figures, some of which performing a variety of sexual acts. The sketches evoke the drawings found in Charles Eames’s seminal essay, “What is a House?” (1944) intended to illustrate the potential leisure activities within a residence, emblematic of a new, more adaptable modern domestic dwelling.
I Believe the Skin of Things as in That of Women, examines the “phenomenology of gendered architectural space”, focusing on the prevailing ideals of modernist architecture often shaped by its predominately male practitioners and theorists. The title of the work references the famous quotation by Le Corbusier evoking a debate between him and Auguste Perret. Where Le Corbusier advocated for horizontal windows, while Perret likened them to a man, asserting that windows should be vertical.