Monica Bonvicini began creating large-scale architectural installations in the 1990s exploring the built environment and how articulations of power and (sexual) identity define our construction of space. Never Again consists of a collection of swings composed from steel pipes, black leather, and chains, suspended from a steel structure. The viewer navigates and physically engages with these subversive structures, all the while altering the politics of traditional exhibition viewing. Incorporating research on psychoanalysis, sexuality, labor, feminism, and architecture, the work of Bonvicini addresses how urban, private, and institutional spaces dictate our behavior. As a societal and structural critique, Never Again comments on how minimalist art sanitized itself from the body.
Monica Bonvicini (born 1965 in Venice) has confronted issues of institutional critique and the politics of space in her multifaceted practice for the last three decades. Her work aims to expose and destabilize outdated social and political structures in ironic and playful ways. Bonvicini lives and works in Berlin.
Monica Bonvicini: Never Again (2005) / Art Basel 2023 Unlimited. Basel, Switzerland, June 14, 2023.
