Plastered

First exhibited at the 1998 Vienna Secession, Plastered (1998-present) is a now-iconic installation that the artist has since re-created 23 times. Bonvicini presents an entire gallery floor constructed out of panels of thin, unfinished plasterboard, placed atop sheets of polystyrene foam. An apparently random pattern of holes placed in the support layer, however, initiates the weakening and eventual cracking of the sheetrock under the weight of people moving through the space. Thus, the once clean, unspoiled flooring is progressively compromised and fragmented over the course of the exhibition, until only rubble remains. Literally built in order to be destroyed, Plastered achieves its artistic end only in its ultimate ruin and creates a scenario in which the flaws and defects in the "white cube" are pre-eminent. As in much of Bonvicini's work, the physical labor of construction - at times overlooked in discussions of architecture and here represented by the raw, exposed, and ultimately vulnerable building materials - is played against the fetishized finished product.

(Excerpt from the exhibition folder "Monica Bonvicini, Light me Black", Art Institute Chicago, 20 November 2009 - 24 January 2010)