Monica Bonvincini: her hand around the room (THE BALTIC)

I chose this exhibition because it was one that appeared to be the most, my first impressions when looking at the huge light sculpture that looks like tanning bed turned outward were not great, and it blinded me a bit. I thought it would just be something simple behind it as well really to do with light or something, but I was surprised to find some very interesting sculptures and paintings. I really like paintings the monochrome style along the walls, there uniqueness along with their abstract similarities made me very curious of the idea and meaning behind them.

This is artwork that she’s been doing is from different areas all around the world and these sculptures are called seven hours and their brick structures and their created by construction students based in Newcastle college.

She gave the plans to Newcastle College students, and they were in German interestingly so none of the students could understand them. The students had to interpret the plans and then build them, this idea that once you bring something into the gallery it becomes artwork. This is a seven-hour challenge, is made up of quite challenging structures in construction work to build and they were being tested on this, it is taking something that you wouldn’t normally consider artwork and bringing in to be viewed for the craftsmanship and work that goes into making it, something that you wouldn’t usually notice.

There is a big part of on the knees, the canvas is made with tie beck, which is a material usually used in construction to cover railings to keep them waterproof. She’s really interested in repurposed thing construction materials. This made especially for the show it called Weavers Way it’s a lot of idealised picture the woman’s bodies and some men’s bodies in varying shades of white from European magazines, it supposed to be the perfect body type like ideal proportions, not to say that this is perfect for everyone. seems she’s weaved some together added little sections and edited it, copied it and printed it onto four separate boards.

The large monochrome paintings on the walls are very interesting there are photographic paintings of natural disasters, some of them are wildfire, some others are hurricane, typhoons or earthquakes mostly in America, they were placed along was to be kind of the opposite of the things in the middle to show things being built up but also torn down. She clearly had a very strong interest in construction the way things are made, put together, torn down and rebuilt.

She talks a lot about the effect that architecture has on, so the light piece at the front how you have to respond to it and how it affects how you respond to the space, and how it affects how you respond to life in general and the things around you.

She’s really interested in construction generally and the materials used in construction, at the back of the room has a large staircase which looks like it’s made out of steel or some kind of metal, like scaffolding. The first is quite ugly but after staring at it a while it grew on me a bit, it is interesting to see the support beams and the way and await is held together, I wouldn’t have necessarily thought about this before if the constructional elements were covered up as they usually are. I also like the chained curtain alongside, makes it look something quite extravagant.

I think altogether this installation is trying to show the psychological effect of the architecture, she was very interested in this and very invested in it and spend a lot of time researching, designing, and constructing these types of buildings and structures.