Cosima von Bonin

Petzel Gallery is pleased to announce CvB Singles Uptown Remix, a solo exhibition of works by Cologne-based artist Cosima von Bonin. This is her seventh solo exhibition with the gallery.

CvB Singles Uptown Remix, at Petzel’s uptown gallery, will present a survey of work created since 2000—rags, mushrooms, a 'soft' fence, an enormous octopus and other curious objects from Cosima's diverse oeuvre. Von Bonin is famous for her deep-seated distrust of the 'professional' artist—the assumed expert in matters of aesthetic self-importance. Instead her creative impulse could originate in some urban tale, possibly propelled further by a studio assistant, and perhaps completed by a museum guard or installer: all experts in their own arenas. Bonin's art happens somewhere in the process of translation, but if her career is filtered through a 25-year long apprenticeship in art-making, then a greatest hits show presents a conundrum: each title is formally complete and exquisite. Her soft sculpture of a St. Bernard (with scarfs) rests on an expensive treasure box camouflaged as a pedestal; three oversized birds dangle from the ceiling like a grotesque mobile; a quilt Rorschachtest image paraphrases Andy Warhol yet liberates his queer iconography from the tomb of his superstardom.

Cosima von Bonin was born in Mombasa, Kenya in 1962. Her work has been exhibited widely throughout the United States and internationally. Solo exhibitions include MUMOK, Vienna (2014); Artipelag, Sweden (2013); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2011); Arnolfini, Bristol (2011); Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva (2011); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); documenta 12, Kassel (2007).