About six months ago, Monica Bonvicini had to leave her place at the Uferhallen complex in Wedding and relocate to a new studio. For the first time in 15 years, she had to reimagine how to feel in a new space, figure out where and how she could work all over again. The new studio, which sits on the fourth floor of a courtyard building in Kreuzberg, is divided in two by one of the few walls standing in what is otherwise a massive open space. The entrance to the studio is dominated by ‘Waiting’ (2017), a stainless steel railing structure—the kind of architectural element borrowed from airports, checkouts and the like to organise people into queues—which, in Bonvicini’s version, consists of bent bars and features a pair of handcuffs, hanging on a chain and lying on the floor. Big, south-west facing windows make the place bright and airy. While I admire the dazzling exposure to sunlight, Bonvicini holds a pretend grudge: “these windows turned me into a sunset person.”
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