PRESENTATION: Monica Bonvicini-And if I See You Sundays

Monica Bonvicini has emerged as a visual artist and started exhibiting internationally in the mid-1990s. Her multifaceted practice investigates the relationship between architecture, power structures, gender roles, control mechanisms and space. Her research is translated into works that question the meaning of making art, the ambiguity of language, and the limits and possibilities connected to the ideal of freedom.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Galerie Krinzinger Archive

Dry-humored, direct, and imbued with historical, political and social references, Monica Bonvicini’s art never refrains from questioning the sitespecificity of her works, the materials, and the role of spectator and creator. Since her first solo exhibition at the California Institute of the Arts in 1991, her approach has formally evolved over the years without betraying its analytical force and inclination to challenge the viewer’s perspective while taking hefty sideswipes at patriarchal, socio-cultural conventions. The artist’s new series, “And if I See You Sundays” (2025), also the title of her solo exhibition, consists of massive anchor chains that have been welded into sculptural works where industrial strength clashes with visual impacts. Coated in vibrant, glossy colors, these heavy pieces appear paradoxically light, their true weight obscured by the shimmering surfaces. Bonvicini’s choice of color is based on scientific studies on human perception, specifically the ways in which color recognition and definition differ along gender lines. The chains embody these subtle variations, challenging conventional understandings of form and perception while alluding to meaningful emotional and intellectual reactions. One room of the gallery is dedicated to a new series of colored mirror works where phrases like “Implementation of Desire” or “She is such a Queen” emerge as if carved into the shimmering material. These pieces continue the artist’s engagement with language, poetry, and feminist discourse. Thanks to the complex application of layers of lacquers on the mirrors, the  surfaces  appear  almost  liquid  and  luminous.  Text  remains  a  crucial  component  in Bonvicini’s artistic practice, where visual and textual elements are woven together to create space for associations with color and memory. “To Hold You Falling” (2024) is a centra piece of the exhibition. The large sculpture made of Murano glass, is suspended from the ceiling. Composed of over two hundred individually hand- blown glass pieces in the form of straps, the work cascades from the ceiling to the floor, producing a wave-like mesh that mimics the fluidity of woven fabric. The use of glass – a medium that is both robust and fragile – subverts the associations of harness with dominance, and control, exposing an inherent and unexpected vulnerability. In the same exhibition space, the visitor encounters the diptych “The Politics of Anxious Masculinity” (2025) a new large-scale work on paper – a painting in which chains and chainsaws are set against an anarchic, ink-splattered background. The combination of silkscreened dark black stains and black tempera paint in the diptychs offers an abstract rendering of the vagina dentata*  myth, a widespread male phantasy that Freud conceptualized. Continuing her long- standing use of chainsaws, Bonvicini presents a powerful painting that is as frightening as it is witty; power tools in a state of suspended insolence, challenging the forces of gravity and expectation, against a conservative use of masculine identity. With “And if I See You Sundays”, Monica Bonvicini once again masterfully transforms familiar objects into conceptual statements. Working with color, materiality, and language, the artist dismantles and reconfigures notions of power, perception, and gender, creating an immersive and thought-provoking experience for visitors

* Stories of the mythical vagina dentata (Latin for toothed vagina) exist in virtually every culture. While many of these tales are cautionary for men to beware where they put their dicks lest they lose them, other and far more disturbing versions involve non-consensual penetration of women in order to remove said teeth. While not an actual toothed vagina, the Greek figure of the Gorgon is representative of the concept. In media representations, Medusa has a gaze that turns a man to stone, a hugely fanged mouth, snakes for hair, and a serpentine lower half.

Photo: Monica Bonvicini, , And if I See You Sundays (Heather Violet), 2024, powder-coated iron chains, 10.5 x 27.5 x 15.5 cm, © Monica Bonvicini, courtesy the artist and Galerie Krinzinger

Info: Galerie Krinzinger, Seilerstätte 16, Vienna, Austria, Duration: 19/3-16/5/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-14:00, https://galerie-krinzinger.at/