One of the most influential and compelling artists working in Germany today, Cologne-based artist Cosima von Bonin (b. 1962, Mombasa, Kenya) has, over the last 15 years, worked in a wide range of media—including sculpture, photography, textile “paintings,” installation, performance, film, video, and music—often combined together in large-scale installations. Drawing freely from a broad range of sources—such as the work of other artists, popular and vernacular culture, television, fashion, and Hip-Hop and Techno music—her art explores these different forms of cultural expression in an open, fluid approach that embraces both relationships and contradictions. Von Bonin constructs a community of social relations in her artwork using role-playing, collaboration, appropriation, and the transformation of the commonplace. Her works touch upon ideas of play and indoctrination, structure and improvisation, cultural and gender representations, identity, and self-reflection—with both absurdity and humor. Organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and curated by MOCA Senior Curator Ann Goldstein, this is the artist’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States. It will present a survey of work created since 1990, including new pieces produced on the occasion of the exhibition.

Click here to download the COSIMA VON BONIN: ROGER AND OUT gallery guide.

COSIMA VON BONIN: ROGER AND OUT is made possible by generous support from the Hillcrest Foundation, Susan Bay Nimoy and Leonard Nimoy, John Morace and Tom Kennedy, and Marieluise Hessel.

Additional support is provided by Friedrich Petzel Gallery.