Dawn of Humanity, Kunstmuseum Bonn (duplicate): With works by Yael Bartana, Monica Bonvicini, Andrea Bowers and Monika Sosnowska

Born 1970 in Kfar Yehezkel, Israel
Lives and works in Berlin and Amsterdam

The imagery of identity and the politics of memory are the themes which form the core of Yael Bartana‘s artistic practice. With her point of departure being the national consciousness propagated by her native Israel, the artist explores the ceremonies, public rituals and social diversions that exist to reaffirm collective identities across different nation states.

Constantly seeking to create alternative fictional realities in commentary to existing narratives, Yael Bartana stages speculative situations and introduces fictive moments and futures in her works. Though known for her films and collective performances, the artist works across many various media, including sculpture, light ojects, installation and photography.

Bartana has had numerous solo exhibitions including the Center for Digital Art (CDA), Holon (2023); Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (2021/ 2018); the Jewish Museum, Berlin (2021); Fondazione Modena Arte Visive, Modena (2019); Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2014); Secession, Vienna (2012); and Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2012). Bartana was the first non-Polish artist to represent Poland at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011 with her acclaimed trilogy And Europe Will Be Stunned.

Yael Bartana‘s works are part of the collections of The Jewish Museum, Berlin; Tate Modern, London; The Jewish Museum, New York; The Guggenheim, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; The Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Kunstmuseum, St. Gallen, Switzerland; Van Abbe Museum, Netherlands; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Magasin III - Museum for Contemporary Art, Stockholm, Sammlung des Bundes, among others.

Born in Venice, Italy

Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Monica Bonvicini is one of the most influential artists of her generation, well-known for her sharp and provocative artworks spanning sculpture, installation, drawing, video, and public projects. Her artistic exploration centers on the intersections of architecture, gender dynamics, and power structures, with a unique focus on both the built environment and the concept of destruction as a transformative agent. In her distinctive style, enriched with a dry and trenchant wit, Bonvicini's art remains unapologetically forthright, consistently forging a critical connection with the environments in which it is displayed, the very materials that constitute it, and the dynamic roles assigned to both the viewer and the artist.

Over the last three decades, Bonvicini’s innovative practice has made her a prominent figure in the global contemporary art world. Her practice has remained steadfast in delivering incisive critiques of entrenched patriarchal and socio-cultural conventions, reshaping contemporary art discourse and practice. She is also a well-regarded scholar, having held a professorship in Sculpture and Performative Arts at the Vienna Fine Arts Academy from 2003 to 2017. Since October 2017, Bonvicini assumed the professorship for Sculpture at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She has also been a guest lecturer at major universities in Europe and abroad.

She has held major solo exhibitions at institutions including Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2022); Kunst Museum Winterthur (2022); Kunsthaus Graz (2022); Bauhaus Dessau (2022); Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2020); Belvedere 21, Vienna (2019); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2017); Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2016); Deichtorhallen, Hamburg (2012); Art Institute of Chicago (2009); Centro de Arte Contemporaneo de Málaga (2010); Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach (2012); Kunstmuseum Basel (2009); Frac des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou (2009); Sculpture Center, New York (2007); Modern Art Oxford (2003); Secession, Vienna (2003); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2002). Her work has been included in numerous institutional group exhibitions, such as Art Sonje Center, Seoul (2022); Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2021, 2005); National Gallery of Copenhagen (2019); Maxxi, Rome (2018); Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel (2011); MoMa PS1, New York (2009); National Gallery of Iceland, Reykjavik (2008); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2022, 2013, 2006, 2005, 2001).

Bonvicini’s work is represented in the permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Istanbul Museum of Art; Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna; MAXXI, Rome; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Jumex Museum, Mexico City; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich; Museion, Bolzano; Museum Sztuki, Lodz; Neue Galerie, Graz,; Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin; Neues Museum Weimar; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau, Munich; Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Volpinum Kunstsammlung, Vienna; Fonds régional d’art contemporain (Frac) des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; Fonds régional d'art contemporain (Frac) de Lorraine, Metz, among others.

Born 1965 in Wilmington, OH
Lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Over the last 20 years, Andrea Bowers has gained an international reputation as an artist and social activist. For Bowers, political engagement and artistic expression are inseparable. Her practice, which includes drawings, videos and installations, addresses a wide range of relevant socio-political issues from women’s and worker’s rights and the arms industry, to immigration politics and the climate crisis. Storytelling is integral to the work, and part of her activism consists of highlighting the narratives of resistance and rebellion.

Born 1972 in Ryki, Poland

Lives and works in Warsaw, Poland

Monika Sosnowska is a sculptor best known for her large, site-specific architectural installations created by appropriating and manipulating construction materials such as steel beams, concrete, rods and pipes. She creates impactful and elegant sculptures with playful elements that challenge the perception of the viewer. Sosnowska can be regarded not only as a sculptor but also as a designer of space, as her architectonic sculptures are designed and realised for specific sites and occasions. This specificity and impermanence are integral to her work.

Sosnowska is also interested in the interplay of architectural and mental space and the experience of spatial sensations, exploring this in a formally minimalist and conceptual sculptural language. Through this, she makes reference to and comments on modernism and its utopian ideals, specifically its architectural implementation and effect in her native Poland and surrounding Eastern European countries. She distorts and reassembles architectural materials, divorcing them from their former functionality to contradict the rational paradigm of modernism, and to create as a result beautiful visual puzzles and optical illusions.

Sosnowska has shown extensively over the last two decades, with major solo exhibitions at Kunstraum Dornbirn(2022); Zachęta – National Gallery of Art, Warsaw (2020); Saarlandmuseum Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken (2020); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2020); The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2019); Muzeum Susch, Engadin, Switzerland (2017); Ginza Maison Hermès, Tokyo (2015); Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2015); Australian Center for Contemporary Art (ACCA), Melbourne (2013); Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2011); Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2010); Museum of Modern Art, New York (2006). Her group exhibitions include Hayward Gallery, London (2018); Tate Modern, London (2017); Sprengel Museum Hannover (2015); Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, (2014); The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2012); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010) and many more. In 2007, Sosnowska represented Poland at the 52nd Venice Biennial.