The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S Michigan Ave
312.443.3600
This event has passed.
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Monica Bonvicini, Light Me Black, 2009, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
- When
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Nov 20, 2009 – Jan 24, 2010
Mondays–Wednesdays (10:30am–5pm)
Thursdays (10:30am–8pm)
Fridays (10:30am–5pm)
Saturdays–Sundays (10am–5pm)
- Where
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- Price
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$20
- Links
With elements fabricated from materials like fluorescent tubes and safety glass, Monica Bonvicini's exhibition Light Me Black has a discreet beauty and underlying formal precision that resonates with the design exhibition in the adjacent gallery. In the Italian artist's hands, however, minimal forms have a maximal impact, generating an aura of latent aggression or anxiety while delivering a response to the architectural environment — here, Renzo Piano's Modern Wing. Intense white light emanates from a massive unit of suspended bulbs (the guards wear sunglasses), reproducing the building's total output from fluorescent fixtures. If that blinding apparatus feels like an alien presence, museum-goers are complicit invaders: the naked plasterboard floor is pitted with ragged holes, its condition deteriorating as visitors walk (or stomp) through.
