Monica Bonvicini: her hand around the room: BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

A MAJOR SURVEY EXHIBITION OF ONE OF THE MOST VITAL ARTISTS TO HAVE EMERGED DURING THE MID-1990S. MONICA BONVICINI MAKES WORK THAT INVESTIGATES THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE, CONTROL, GENDER, SPACE, SURVEILLANCE, AND POWER.

Using sculpture, installation, video, photography, text and performance, her work ranges from the intimate to the architectural in scale, questioning some of the often hidden forces that shape identity.

This exhibition, presented across BALTIC’s Level 3 and Level 4 galleries, will include work from throughout the artists’ career alongside those that have been specially commissioned. The exhibition architecture itself—an environment that is always fabricated—will also receive the artists’ treatment. Works such as Light me Black 2009, made from 144 florescent lights which temporarily overpowers the viewer with its bright light, and Scale of Things (to come), a staircase of chains and steel pipes, tread a fine line between the beautiful and the sinister. A significant body of drawing will also be included.

Images: 

Courtesy of the artist
© Monica Bonvicini and VG-Bildkunst, Bonn 2022, Photo: John McKenzie