(born in Mombasa, Kenia in 1962 - lives and works in Cologne)
Untitled (Fence), foam, wool, 112 x 140 x 21 cm

Provenance:
Galerie Neu, Berlin
Private collection, Germany - acquired from the above

Exhibited:
“The Cousins”, Kunstverein Braunschweig, 05 February – 26 March 2000

Cosima von Bonin was born in Mombasa, Kenya, in 1962 and grew up in Austria. She lives and works in Cologne and is one of the most influential German artists of her generation.
Her artistic work includes sculpture, photography, textile art, installations, film, video and performance. She increasingly works with multimedia installations in which she combines different forms of expression and often cooperates with other artists or musicians. Von Bonin's oeuvre is inspired by techno, hip hop, fashion and pop culture. At this year's 59th Venice Biennale, a number of her works were on display in the central pavilion of the Giardini as part of the international exhibition The Milk of Dreams, curated by Cecilia Alemani.
She has been designing the Soft Sculptures since the turn of the millennium. Cosima von Bonin alienates everyday objects by manipulating proportions, changing materiality and texture or questioning their status as reality. Her installative staging demands a great deal from the viewer who longs for statements and messages. In return, her art offers experiences and opens up associative spaces. Von Bonin's sculptures combine humour and melancholy, tenderness and hardness, accessibility and exclusion, and at the same time evidence a feminist destabilisation. The artist is not interested in craft or gender-specific connotations. Her fabric objects are made by master seamstresses. Von Bonin’s consistently outsourced authorship is a critical counter-position to an understanding of art that considers commodity aesthetics to be incompatible with individuality.
The work offered here reflects Cosima von Bonin's leitmotifs. It is ambiguous in its interpretation, it is provocative due to its associations with the politically charged theme of border demarcation, lent a sense of irony through its cryptic humour.