Cosima von Bonin
Far Niente
2010—2011 Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art Exhibition
© Bob Goedewaagen
Oct 10, 2010 to Jan 9, 2011
At Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, the Cologne-based artist Cosima von Bonin presented a solo exhibition featuring new works around the notion of sloth and fatigue.
Cosima von Bonin’s first major solo presentation in the Netherlands occupied the entire Witte de With. With her typical laconic humor, von Bonin created a constellation of new and existing works. From oversized stuffed animals to sewn fabrics, from pastiches of minimalist sculptures to recreations of shop display systems, her work blends Formalism and Pop, oscillating between seriousness and fun, weighed down with melancholy or fizzing with critical wit.
The exhibition’s title quotes the expression dolce far niente that suggests the sweetness of doing nothing, a pleasant relaxation in carefree idleness. Here the expression takes on a certain irony, as this is in fact the first show in a sequence of major institutional exhibitions, which means that the artist herself will be doing quite the opposite of nothing. The sequence of exhibitions is subtitled: THE LAZY SUSAN SERIES, A ROTATING EXHIBITION. This refers to the tabletop appliance, the Lazy Susan or rotating disk that appears in many restaurants and is used to present an array of dishes. The idea of a rotating exhibition differs from a traditional traveling show in that despite certain similarities, with each rotation or loop visitors are served a slightly different dish.
Curators: Zoë Gray, Nicolaus Schafhausen
Artist: Cosima von Bonin
(born in 1962 in Mombasa, Kenya) Cosima von Bonin lives and works in Cologne. In 2010, in addition to her exhibition at Witte de With, she is the subject of a solo exhibition at the Kunsthaus Bregenz. Recent solo shows include MOCA, Los Angeles (2007), Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2004), Kunstverein Hamburg (2001) and Kunstverein Braunschweig (2000). In the past three years, von Bonin has participated in numerous international group exhibitions, including Collecting History, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Compass in Hand, Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Le Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse (all 2009); Eyes Wide Open, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008); and Make Your Own Life: Artists In and Out of Cologne, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Her installation Relax – It’s Only a Ghost was widely considered one of the highlights of Documenta XII (Kassel, 2007). Her work is included in many important collections internationally, such as Tate Britain (London) and MOCA (Los Angeles). She is represented by Galerie Daniel Buchholz (Cologne) and Friedrich Petzel (New York).
Source Book 9: Cosima von Bonin
The exhibition at Witte de With was accompanied by a monographic publication, Cosima von Bonin, Source book 9 by Witte de With Publishers. It features a preface by Nicolaus Schafhausen; an extended introduction by Zoë Gray; an installment of a science fiction story by Mark von Schlegell; an interview between Cosima von Bonin and Daffy Duck scripted by Dirk von Lowtzow; a text by Mami Kataoka about animals, idlers and tricksters; photographs from the exhibition; and the re-print of Cabinet magazine’s Spring 2008 issue on sloth.
The foregoing texts and images are provided and copyrighted by: https://www.fkawdw.nl/en/
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