Monica Bonvicini, 1965

Monica Bonvicini works in Berlin and Los Angeles. Her work, “Stairway to Hell”, was installed during the 8th International Istanbul Biennial in 2003, before Istanbul Modern was opened. The laminated glass walls of the stairway with their galvanized iron chains look as if they have been shattered by gunfire. Bonvicini’s destructive renewal of modernist architecture has been called “radical feminist vandalism”. She contends that a history of oppression lurks behind the flawless facades of many modernist buildings and opposes the depersonalizing identification of women with objects. However, this work is more than a simple rejection of modernist authoritarianism. Almost paradoxically, the work is closely associated with Bonvicini’s interest in the surfaces and qualities of modernist architecture. It’s possible to say that she is inspired and perhaps even entranced by the style. Ultimately, her fractured glass surfaces and web-like structures are intriguing, and their aggressiveness is certainly contained within the logic of Modernism.