Monica Bonvicini
With Cravatte, Monica Bonvicini expresses her stance on social etiquette – on the buttoned-up demeanor of fragile tie-wearers and their galloping toxicity.
A documentary image from the performance No Head Man (2006) shows male bodies pushing their heads through the walls and floors of a white cube, overlaid with a quote from Amelia Rosselli’s poetry Diario in Tre Lingue (1955–1956): “nous porte à l’émanation mouillée d’une cravatte”.
In her multilingual style, the poet often played with cross-linguistic word meanings.
The work Cravatte continues Bonvicini’s œuvre, which uses space, body, and language – with subtle humor and a sharply critical precision – to expose modes of communication within the gender debate, something especially relevant in a hegemonically masculine society.
Monica Bonvicini was born 1965 in Venice, Italy, and lives and works in Berlin. She studied at the Hochschule der Künste Berlin and the California Institute of the Arts. Her work includes sculpture, installation, photography, and drawing. Bonvicini explores power structures, architecture, and gender roles with subversive humor and a critical eye. Her art has been shown internationally, including at the Venice Biennale, documenta, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She is a professor of sculpture at Berlin University of the Arts.