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Arnolfini presents the first exhibition in the UK of work by Cosima von Bonin, one of the most prolific artists working in Germany today. Von Bonin’s practice incorporates a mixture of sculpture, installation, painting, textiles, performances, sound and films. Her approach is often collaborative, and she has organised numerous exhibitions and events with fellow artists, musicians and theorists, stretching the definition of an artist by also assuming the roles of curator, critic and producer.

Cosima von Bonin uses a combination of fabric and wood in her work to create a complex web of references to high art, popular culture, craft, as well as notions of domesticity, that look to challenge bourgeois constructions of femininity. Oversized stuffed animals, sewn paintings, minimalist sculptures, formalism and Pop references are balanced somewhere between seriousness and fun, the concrete and the fictitious, and are all weighed down with melancholy and critical wit.

Her exhibition at Arnolfini is part of a wider European partnership, with the collective title of The Lazy Susan Series. The title refers to the table top appliance, the Lazy Susan, a rotating disk that is used in restaurants to present an array of dishes.

At Arnolfini, von Bonin presents an exhibition featuring a combination of new and existing works around notions of sloth and fatigue. She has collaborated with musician Moritz von Oswald who has composed soundscapes for some of the artworks, and has commissioned texts by Dirk von Lowtzow and Mark von Schlegell who continues his ongoing fantasy Starlite. Two films by Frances Scholz,Starlite I and Starlite II, based on the story by Mark von Schlegell, are also on view as part of the exhibition.

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