The above black-and-white print, titled Ekel, (at left) features 19 film stills from the horror movie Repulsion, directed by Roman Polanski in 1965, which have been photomechanically modified. It shows a sequence of stills in which the main character Carol, played by Catherine Deneuve, becomes the victim of her worst nightmares when left alone in her holiday home. She hallucinates about unwanted sexual advances from men and the repulsion these actions evoke in her.  

Through subtle alterations in the composition of the stills as well as the addition of hands in various gestures, sizes and transparency, Ekel transforms the psychological inner life of the character ad absurdum. It reflects on normative understandings of femininity, the male gaze as well as the theme of sexual abuse, which is intimated in the film as the cause of the character’s neurosis.

The above installation, titled Marlboro Man, comprises an aluminum wall bearing a print of a cowboy figure, similar to the iconic advertisements for Marlboro cigarettes known as the Marlboro Man. Before governments started to ban the tobacco advertising and promotion, the Marlboro Man was publicly perceived as a prototypical male figure in the United States, integrating various stereotypes as part of a larger marketing strategy that sought to associate smoking with manliness, agency and potency. In Monica Bonvicini’s installation, the Marlboro man rides straight toward the viewer but the blurred quality of the metallic landscape creates ghostly reflections that endow the figure with a phantom aura; an apparition from the past which continues to haunt the present.

In appropriating the image of the Marlboro Man, perhaps one of the most successful advertising campaigns, Bonvicini addresses the prevailing gender disparities that exist in both art history and the cultural domain in general within society. The work also hints at the parallels between art objects and commercial products in the contemporary marketplace of culture, where the relatively closed circuits of the industry often lack or abjure the means for self-assessment and auto-critique.

Presented lying on the floor, the above work, titled Breach of Decor, is a colorful carpet that visitors are invited to walk on. Composed of multiple panels and quilt-like in construction, the individual parts reproduce birds-eye view photographs of trousers on different types of flooring (tiles, wooden floor, other carpets). The artist took the photographs herself over the course of almost two years both at home and at various hotels during her travels. In each of the photographs, a pair of pants (most often jeans) is captured, usually shown inside-out. The mechanically-woven carpet reproduces the photographs in clear detail and renders the pants in an almost sculptural, three-dimensional style. 

Bonvicini was interested in the loaded history and performativity of pants, namely its associations with strict binary gender roles and how they were, up until the second half of the 19th century, viewed as exclusively "male" clothing. Trousers were coded with symbolic value in feminist movements, representing the struggle to attain equal footing between the sexes. In contemporary art, one of the most notable examples of the use of pants as a political symbol can be found in Valie Export's performance piece Aktionshose: Genitalpanik [Action Pants: Genital Panic] (1969), wherein the artist, while carrying a machine gun, dons a leather jacket and crotchless pants to go to the cinema. She is "dressed to kill," targeting the rules of decency and acceptable behavior applied to womanhood by society, especially those promulgated by popular culture and the mainstream film industry. Valie Export's performance not only reflects the violence and aggression necessary to upturn societal conventions but also reveals the latent processes of sexualization and eroticism at play in a simple garment.

Bonvicini’s Breach of Decor likewise comments on this subtle intimacy but the work also highlights the boundaries between public and private space that is represented by an image of casually strewn pants. The gesture of taking one’s pants off is strongly linked to the feeling of being at home, of feeling safe in a domestic environment. Arranged one next to the other in a grid, the photos assemble a visual diary of coming back, of entering and of transitioning from outside to inside. It refers to various physical habits that we develop to accommodate space, as well as daily rituals that structure our environment to certain psychological binaries: mine and theirs, inside and outside, foreign and domestic. As visitors are invited to step on the carpet and wander, they are offered glimpses into someone’s private space, but they also find themselves standing in the same position of the pants’ owner and are thus confronted with their own preconceptions of intimacy and exposure. 

b. 1965, Venice, Italy
Lives and works in Berlin

Best known for large-scale sculptural installations that employ different materials and mediums, Monica Bonvicini incorporates elements of architecture, performance, photography, video, painting, and collage in her work. Using dry and direct humor, she confronts issues of subjectivity, power, barriers, control, and institutional critique. Bonvicini’s art establishes a critical connection within the space where it is exhibited, the materials that define it, and the roles of spectator and creator.

Bonvicini was born in Venice, Italy in 1965 and currently lives and works in Berlin. She holds degrees from the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin (now known as the Universität der Künste) and from the California Institute of the Arts. 

Since 2003, Bonvicini has held a position as Professor for Performative Arts and Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. And, as of October 2017, she assumed the professorship for sculpture at the Universität der Künste, Berlin.

Bonvicini’s work has been featured in many prominent biennials, including the Berlin Biennale (1998; 2004; 2014); the Busan Biennale (2020); Gwangju Biennale (2006); the Istanbul Biennale (2003; 2017); La TriennaIe, Paris (2012); and the Venice Biennale (1999; 2005; 2011; 2015).

She has had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld (2020); Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna (2019); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2017); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2016/17); Kunsthalle Mainz, Mainz (2013); Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg (2012); Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Malága, Malága (2011); the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2011); the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (2009); Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel (2009); Modern Art Oxford, Oxford (2003); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2002). Bonvicini also received the Golden Lion at the 48th Venice Biennale (1999) and she was appointed Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2012. Most recently, Monica Bonvicini was the winner of the 2020 Oskar Kokoschka Prize in Vienna, Austria.