Latent Combustion #1, #2, #3, #4, #5

Monica Bonvicini
Born in Venice, Italy, in 1965.
She lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

It is the relationship between architecture, power, and gender that drives the work of Monica Bonvicini. She is both an experienced international player and a sharp critic of architecture and the art world. In her work she deconstructs modern and postmodern architecture as a reflection of male principles of power, domination, and exclusion. She does so, however, with an exceptional sense of humor and a powerful aesthetic that entices and seduces spectators while exposing their entanglement in the politics of the gaze. Bonvicini’s works—merging critical discourse, the Industrial Style, and subcultural concerns—are her construction sites of thought.
Bonvicini first attracted international attention with her video Wallfucking (1995), in which a naked woman appears to copulate with a blank white wall. In concept, this video can be understood as a response to a comment by the deconstructivist architect Bernard Tschumi, that “Architecture is the ultimate erotic act. Carry it to excess.” Almost ten years later, she created Don’t Miss A Sec (2004), a glass-walled public lavatory temporarily installed on a crowded street adjacent to the Art Basel international art fair. The one-way glass allowed the occupant to see out from the inside, but those outside could not see in. This project attracted widespread attention for being a penetrating sideswipe at minimalist sculpture and the zeitgeist. While Bonvicini regularly gains attention with these and other works—such as her spectacular light sculptures and her heavy chain installations—her works on paper reveal the artist’s humorous side.
The preferred materials for her sculptural works are industrially fabricated chains, black leather, latex, mirrors, lamps, and light bulbs—all underlining a cool, crisp look that one might find in a night club or an underground bar. Her inspiration for these works comes from her visits to gay S&M sex clubs, visits she experienced as liberating because in those locales sexuality and its limits are radically open to interpretation. When paired with her interests in surrealism, psychoanalytic literature, and music, her visits to these nonconventional meeting places prompted her to investigate issues of gender, pornography, and sadomasochism, although from a feminine perspective. In Bonvicini’s hands, industrial materials are used to create a humorous critique of male power symbols. At the 56th Biennale di Venezia, for example, she premieres a new sculptural work that includes a group of chainsaws cast in concrete (a material that is new to her work), covered with a thick layer of black liquid rubber, and hung from the ceiling by chains.