MONICA BONVICINI
DESIRE DESIESE DEVISE

»Desire Desiese Devise. Zeichnungen 1986–2012« is the first comprehensive show of illustrations, collages and text-based works by Monica Bonvicini. Hosted by Hamburg’s Deichtorhallen in cooperation with Städtisches Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach, the exhibition is on show in Sammlung Falckenberg from September 7 to November 18, 2012. Monica Bonvicini is famous for her expansive and occasionally monumental installations in which she explores the structures of power and seduction in the architecture that surrounds us. Moreover, in the course of some 25 years the artist has created an impressive portfolio of illustrations, which she uses to intensify the relationships of everyday and political visual worlds that are so characteristic of her oeuvre.

Her illustrations and collages, which were often conceived as drafts for her installations, offer a personal insight into how she explores art history, architecture and sexuality, among other things. Her diverse interests are reflected in her use of different styles and materials: quotations from the history of art and architecture, from poetry, music and advertising masterly interweave notions of elegance and Punk. For Bonvicini illustration was a way of engaging directly and personally with a subject. The artist hardly ever features in her videos or photographs and has professional manufacturers produce and build her sculptures and installations, but the drawings she does herself.

Beyond the medium’s immediate and subjective character, the illustrations demonstrate the notion of process in the work of Bonvicini, who studied art originally. The instantly arresting quality of her large black-and-white Tempera pieces and the hard-edged immediacy of the medium take center stage in her drawings as do sensuality and humor.