A book spanning Cosima von Bonin's work of the last decade, and a personal journey into her private world and references.
Published to accompany the German artist's comprehensive exhibition at Mudam Luxembourg (October 2024–March 2025), Cosima von Bonin's new monograph
Songs for Gay Dogs is both a book spanning her work of the last decade, and a personal journey into her private world and references, designed by her long-time friend and collaborator Yvonne Quirmbach.
Introduced by Mudam Director Bettina Steinbrügge, it assembles a play by Australian writer and art critic
Estelle Hoy that brings to life Cosima von Bonin's recurring characters, an essay by Mudam curator Clémentine Proby about the carnivalesque in her work, a contribution by Pop journalist and Cologne figure Clara Dreschler, and a "Privato" chapter comprising images, texts, and documentation from the artist's personal archive. The book includes 200 illustrations, previously unseen images, and pictures of Cosima von Bonin's newly commissioned installation in Mudam's Grand Hall.
Cosima von Bonin (born 1962 in Mombasa, lives in Cologne) began her career in the early 1990s, following in the footsteps of
Martin Kippenberger. A prolific artist, she produced oversized stuffed animals and other fantastical creatures, as well as pseudo-Minimalist sculptures using comedy, cartoons, and pop culture to question social constructions and relations. She explores the relationship of the individual to work, the capitalist production system, and leisure society. She uses knitted and woven fabrics to create objects that enable her to mock industrial means of production, which she feels infantilize the individual. By advocating a life of
dolce far niente, of carefree idleness, von Bonin is proposing a form of resistance against the consumerist regime. Her exhibitions include the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and Mudam Luxembourg, both 2024; Magasin III Jaffa, Tel Aviv (2019); CCS Bard, Annandale-on-Hudson (2018); and Sculpture Center, New York (2016). She participated in the 59th Biennale di Venezia (2022); Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017); Glasgow International (2016); MUMOK, Vienna (2014); Artipelag, Sweden (2013); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2011); Arnolfini, Bristol (2011); Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva (2011); Museum Ludwig, Cologne (2011); Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); and Documenta, Kassel (2007 & 1982).
