Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij | Melanie Bonajo – A Body Called…° , Performance 2019
Artist talk with Melanie Bonajo
Thursday, 3 September 2020, 6 pm
Due to limited capacity, please register in advance via assistenz@kunsthaushamburg.de
In her work, consisting of videos, performances, photographs and installations, Melanie Bonajo analyses the idea of an all-embracing animism, in which everything deriving from nature is seen as possessing a personal soul or distinct spirit. Fascinated by religious concepts of the divine, she inquires into the spiritual emptiness of her generation. In conversation with Chus Martinez, her approach to concepts of belonging and gender, as well as ethical and socio-political values will be examined.
Melanie Bonajo (b. 1978, Heerlen, NL) lives and works in Amsterdam and New York. She studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and completed residencies at the “Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunst” in Amsterdam (2009-10) and at “ISCP” in New York (2014). Melanie Bonajo will represent The Netherlands at the 59th Venice Biennale, 2021.
Current and past exhibitions include Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam (2019/20); Pori Museum (2019); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2019); Guangzhou Triennial (2018/19); Kunsthalle Lingen (2019); Design Museum Ghent (2019); Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle (2018/19); Museum Marta Herford (2018); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2018), Manifesta 12, Palermo (2018), Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2018).
Chus Martínez is head of the Art Institute at the FHNW Academy of Arts and Design in Basel, Switzerland. Born in Spain, Chus Martínez has a background in philosophy and art history. She previously worked as chief curator at El Museo Del Barrio, New York. For dOCUMENTA(13) (2012) she was head of department, and a member of the Core Agent Group. Other past positions include chief curator at MACBA, Barcelona (2008–2011), director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005–2008). Martínez lectures and writes regularly, including numerous catalogue texts and critical essays, and is a regular contributor to Artforum among other international journals. Her last text, But still, like dust, I’ll rise, was published in e-Flux Journal.
Kindly supported by: Mondriaan Fond | ZEIT-Stiftung | Botschaft des Königreichs der Niederlande | Der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien
