Stonewall

Monica Bonvicini’s work in drawing, sculpture, installations, and film exposes mechanisms of inequality, discrimination, prejudices, and exclusion, particularly in relation to gender. They make visible and provoke dialogue around the corporeal, political, and psychological brutality of the built environment, constructed with copious amounts of concrete, steel, and glass and shaped by masculinist values. Stonewall consists of an L-shaped grid structure formed from knotted chains and reinforced with galvanized steel tubing enclosing a space whose cold emptiness suggests a prison or detention camp. This design embodies the necro-aesthetics of an industrialized architecture of confinement, surveillance, and segregation used to exclude and divide individuals along the lines of gender, race, class, and nationality. Broken and vandalized safety glass panes evoke an episode of violent confrontation, hinting at the work’s title and its historical significance.

Stonewall references the legendary birth of the LGBTQ+ Pride movement. It harkens back to the events of June 28, 1969, when a police raid on the Stonewall Inn in New York sparked a rebellion led by trans*, queer, and LGBT people of color. The riot, led by figures like Marsha P. Johnson, symbolized a pivotal moment in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, marking the beginning of an ongoing struggle celebrated annually through Pride events worldwide. In Stonewall, Bonvicini pays homage to this historic uprising while shedding light on contemporary social justice and inequality issues.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "The Ecologies of Peace", C3A, Córdoba, 2024)