2 MAY until 7 JUN 2025
Opening – 2 MAY, 6-9 pm

Capitain Petzel is pleased to announce It is Night Outside, Monica Bonvicini’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on May 1, 2025, as part of Gallery Weekend Berlin.

Spanning all three levels of the gallery, Bonvicini’s new sculptures and glass works, works on paper, and a sitespecific video installation invite viewers to engage with concepts of space, identity, and their construction.

The two-channel video installation that gives the exhibition its title is presented on the lower level of the gallery and explores the restless search for change as a possible act of resistance. Three performers are shown moving through an undefined space—it remains ambiguous whether this setting is private or institutional, urban or rural. Through intense and vigorous physical labor, the performers appear to be constantly attempting to alter their environment. The video installation portrays their actions as obsessive, driven by a strict internal script or will.

Projected onto two walls, the work challenges viewers to move through the space and adopt varying perceptual perspectives, as both projections are only simultaneously visible from specific vantage points. This creates architectural tension, which, combined with the psychological charge of the videos, results in an indeterminate sense of unease. At the same time, the installation floods the space with compulsive and relentless sounds that reverberate throughout the entire gallery.

With this latest video work, Monica Bonvicini questions what architecture can purportedly offer in terms of security and identity. It’s a theme the artist has explored since her early iconic video installations Wallfuckin’ (1995/96) and Destroy She Said (1998), as well as in more recent works such as Run, TAKE one SQUARE or Two (2000) and I see a White Building, Pink and Blue (2020).

The sense of unease continues in the main space of the gallery, where a group of monolithic sculptures— synergizing metal and leather—are on view. These dark cylinders are overlaid with a relief of interwoven black leather belts and are presented like freestanding pillar fixtures. They emit a severe, persistent instability that feels uncanny and unsettling.

Among the new sculptural works in the exhibition are adaptations of classic coat hooks, projecting from the wall like vibrating antennas. Made in various colors, these delicate, cast and cold-worked glass pieces neither hold coats nor hats, but laundry, as if carelessly thrown over in a rush. Inverting the original function of the sturdy wall hook, these works convey a sense of untroubled carefree lightness, touching on themes of sensuality and sexuality.

Other works in the exhibition include framed paper collages, mirror pieces, and a chain relief, offering insight into Bonvicini’s ongoing exploration of language, material, and space.

Monica Bonvicini has recently had solo exhibitions at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Lingotto, Turin (2024); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2022–2023); Kunst Museum Winterthur (2022); Kunsthaus Graz (2022); Bauhaus Dessau (2022); Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2020); Belvedere 21, Vienna (2019); Berlinische Galerie (2017); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2016); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); and Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2012). Her works have been featured in numerous institutional group exhibitions, including at Kunstmuseum Bonn (2023); Kunsthaus Zürich (2023); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2023); Palais des Nations, Geneva (2023); Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2022); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2021, 2005); National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen (2019); MAXXI, Rome (2018); Fridericianum, Kassel (2011); and MoMA PS1, New York (2009). Bonvicini’s works have also been shown at major biennials, including Busan (2020), Istanbul (2017, 2003), and Venice (2015, 2011, 2005, 2001, 1999).

Since 2003, she has taught sculpture and performative art, initially at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and, since 2017, at the Berlin University of the Arts.