Witte de With

By: Angela Bimmel, a4a
A few weeks ago on a Wednesday, we went to the Witte the With centre for contemporary art. I
can’t remember the exact date. There was an exhibition of Cosima von Bonin in here. Before I went
to the Witte the With, I never heard of her name or her art. She was totally unknown for me. Now I
know some things, but a lot of things I just can’t figure out. One thing that I can’t figure out is her art,
what is the meaning? Why does she make this kind of art? Who is she?
I will try to answer this questions in this report, I can’t say that I know all of the answers but I can tell
what I think of it.
Cosima von Bonin

Cosima von Bonin is a very mysterious artist, no one knows a lot about her. Even Google can’t tell
you a lot about her or show you some pictures of her face and believe me, Google knows almost
everything. Cosima does not give any interviews this proofs that she wants to be the mysterious
artist. What we do know is that she is a woman. You could guess that already. Cosima is born in 1962
in Mombasa, that is in Kenia. This means that she isn’t a full German person. Well it could be, but I
don’t think so. She’s born in Kenia but she lives in Germany approximately her whole life. She went
to school here, grew up and still lives and works here. At this moment she lives in Keulen. This is also
the place where she works.
She is a very famous German artist, her exhibitions are all over the world for example here in the
Netherlands, Berlin, Los Angeles and Madrid. She is an International artist.
So we don’t know a lot about her, the only thing how you can know here better is to see her art. If
you’ve seen that you can only guess what kind of person is behind it.
Cosima von Bonin’s exhibition in the Witte the With.
Every exhibition in the world has a theme and of course this one had one too. The theme of this
exhibition was Laziness. Everywhere you looked you saw rest and relaxing art pieces. If I think of rest
I think of light colors and not a lot of them. But in Cosima’s work you saw a lot of bright shining
colors. Orange, Pink and Red next to each other and it still looked normal. I don’t know how this is
possible because this colors do not match with each other. It is really brave if you are a big artist and
make this very weird and colorful art. Some people like it and other people don’t. I think it’s great
what she does, but I don’t liked it.
When I first walked in the building and looked around in this exhibition I only saw stuffed animals
and colors. The only thing what was on my mind was: ‘What is this, a baby room?’ It was weird to
look at this kind of art it were just stuffed animals and things you can find in your own home. This is
all my opinion, other people can actually like it. I like it too, for in a baby room.
This were not the only things in the exhibition, there were also movies well, little pieces of movies.
No she isn’t a filmmaker and no this were not her own movies. This were movies from people who
were also different in her eyes. Everything in her exhibition was ‘different’.
I think she tried to show us that she isn’t ‘normal’ too. And that you don’t have to be like everyone
else. Just do what you like and make it work.
If the really tried to say this with her exhibition, I agree. I think this would be a very good message.
There were a few objects that I saw more than once in her exhibition.
One thing was a silver/grey lobster. There was for example a lobster on the wall and on her art
pieces. There was a tree house with a stuffed bunny on it, the bunny listed to music. When I listened
to the music I thought it was relaxing, but it reminded me of stoned people. A few meters away of
the tree house there was a little stairs. You’d to walk on this and look on the roof from the tree
house. What did you see? Yes, again, a lobster. What is the meaning of a lobster on a roof? I don’t
know, but it was a thing that you could find a few times in de exhibition.
Another thing that I saw a few times was the word PRIVATO. I saw it on the wall and on a few of her
art pieces. I don’t know what private is, so I can’t tell a lot about it.
If you look close you can also see on this two art pieces a lobster. At the right picture you can see one
on the roof and the left one just in the middle of the art piece.
A few of her art pieces.
I will tell something about a few of the art pieces that I saw in there. I will give my opinion.
Remember it’s only MY opinion and from no one else.
One of the art pieces in this Laziness

exhibition was a squid. First I thought it
was a octopus, but it had ink
underneath it. I did not saw this all by
myself, I just saw a white spot but I had
no idea what it was until we discussed
it. Why was the Ink white and not
black? Well, we thought it was just
because Cosima wanted that her art
was different and not normal. The
squid was also another color than the
normal color of it. The base color of it
was orange, but there were also a lot
of other colors in it. In this piece of art you can see what I meant with orange, red and pink matched
with each other. All the colors are in it, but it still match with each other.
The squid was a stuffed animal, just like a lot of other things in this exhibition. The squid laid down on
a mattress, this mattress was also very colorful. Because of the mattress you can see the theme
again, Laziness. If you’re lazy you’re going to lay down, just like this squid here.
There was a cord for electricity from the mattress to the wall. This was for the light effect under the
mattress. If you look at the first picture you can see this light easily, you can also see the cord, right
behind the squid. I can understand the cord, but now something weird about it. Cosima put some
clothespins on it. I think this was to make the cord different. But I don’t know it for sure. Maybe it
has to represent something. It was fun to
see but still incomprehensible.
If you look at the second picture, you can
see all of the colors in this art piece. I
noticed a Chinese sign on the mattress but
again I have no idea what it means. I don’t
know the meaning of the art piece and I
can’t figure it out.
If you look at the first picture again, you
can see the PRIVATO sign on the wall.
The second art piece is called; Thrown out of drama school.
It’s good to be different, but not everyone agrees with this. Some people will throw you out of the
cub.
First I saw this only as stuffed

animals, well, I do the same
now but after we discussed
it with each other I saw a
meaning in it. The title is
Thrown out of drama school.
There were three black
stuffed animals hanging on a
line. One was a cat, one a
bird and the other one a
mouse or something like
that.
First we thought they were
thrown out because they
were different. But why are
they different. They are
black. That was out first
reaction. This could be the
reason why they were
thrown out but if you looked
closer you saw that they
were missing something.
The bird had very weird face,
the mouse had tree tails and the cat was missing a hand. After we saw this we thought this was the
reason why they were thrown out. But nobody knows it for sure.
If we didn’t know the title we would never have seen this. We saw it because we didn’t understand
the title and looked closer to it.
This was one of the art pieces that didn’t had any colors in it.
My opinion.
I guess it was interesting to see this kind of art for one time. But I will not go to it again. It was fun,
but boring. I think this art wasn’t that hard to make, maybe she didn’t even make it herself. Some
things looked like they were not finished to me. It was too much color in such a boring grey room.
The space was too big for one object and that makes the art look like it’s small and not interesting to
watch. The idea’s from the art were good. Like the one from the animals that were thrown out of
drama school. The theme of the whole exhibition was original. Laziness isn’t a theme that you see
every day. All with all it was original but in my eyes not interesting enough.

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By: Angela Bimmel, a4a

Cosima von Bonin

One of the art pieces in this Laziness

First I saw this only as stuffed

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