Cosima von Bonin: Who's Exploiting Who in the Deep Sea?
Opening performance by Mary Messhausen, Oliver Husain, produzentin, and Simone Junker
Who's Exploiting Who in the Deep Sea?, Cosima von Bonin's first solo museum exhibition in New York City, examines the German artist's fascination with the sea. Commonly evoked in her works, but rarely made explicit, the ocean is an organizing thematic for this show that focuses on a selection of her sculptures from 2000 onwards.
Two opposing sides of the sea—a mysterious underworld with its beaches populated by sun-seeking vacationers—operate as metaphors in much of von Bonin's work. Manifested through sculptures of creatures like crabs and sharks, as well as large bikinis and lifeguard stands, the exhibition investigates this conceptual thread.
Von Bonin's cast of textile characters included in the exhibition present a host of contradictions—approachable creatures that aren't quite what they seem or don't behave as we might expect. Weaving together humor with melancholy, softness with hardness, access and exclusion, von Bonin's sculptures mix with art history, popular culture, music, and craft, while engaging in feminist destabilizations. Appropriately, the deep sea—where von Bonin's crew ventures—is its own world, little known and remote for us.
Mary Messhausen, Oliver Husain, produzentin, and Simone Junker performed throughout the opening reception on Sunday, September 18, 2016.