Monica Bonvicini
Portrait #2, 2004 Black tempera on canvas213,36 × 106,68 × 10,16 cm
About the work
Portrait #2 is connected to Bonvicini’s installation Latent Combustion, in which chainsaws coated in black polyurethane hang from the ceiling. The paintings in the Portrait series translate similar themes into a powerful graphic language. Their forms recall elaborate Baroque chandeliers while also evoking tools, violence and control.
Bonvicini explores how architecture and objects embody relationships of power. Drawing on feminist and psychoanalytic perspectives, she examines fetishism, masculinity, labour and the ways in which bodies relate to space.
Materials and forms associated with construction, work and architecture recur throughout her practice. Seemingly functional elements acquire a physical or psychological charge. In Portrait #2, the decorative appeal of a chandelier meets the threatening presence of tools and industrial objects. The resulting image is at once alluring and aggressive, ornamental and violent. The title Portrait also suggests that objects can embody an identity or a position of power.
Monica Bonvicini
° 1965 in Venice. She lives and works in Berlin. She studied at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin and at CalArts in Los Angeles.
Her practice encompasses sculpture, installation, video and painting, exploring architecture, power, gender, sexuality and control. She has participated in the Berlin and Istanbul Biennales and in several editions of the Venice Biennale. Minimalism, feminism and architecture are central points of reference in her work.
While strongly influenced by minimalism, Bonvicini challenges the supposed neutrality of minimalist architecture and sculpture. Drawing on feminist theory, she asks who designs spaces, who uses them and which power structures they conceal. Glass, chains, steel, leather, text and building materials appear frequently in her work. Her installations make visitors acutely aware of their own bodies within the exhibition space.