Milena Bonilla
Milena Bonilla was born in 1975 in Bogota
She lives and works in Amsterdam
Milena Bonilla’s research-based practice is currently invested in epistemological colonialism and the different ways it affects organisms, language and social structures. By identifying patterns, gaps and silences within specific historical narratives, the artist draws tensions between predetermined political templates and uses of cognition. These conceptual and perceptual exercises appear weaved across the manifold material manifestations of her work.
Her projects fluctuate between drawings, sculpture and in situ practices. In her work, technique plays a secondary role, it is conditioned and determined by the ideas that get developed in her artistic processes. In this way, Bonilla expresses her interest in developing procedures, not in only the ones she generates, but also in the ones that she perceives in the cultural field through other people’s actions, in the rhythms present in the movement of cities, and in the dominant discourses that have shaped the cultural and economic history so far. Her practice is interested in the economy, the construction and the possibility of destruction, the culture and the territory. In her exploration of these ideas she finds potential sources of information where she confronts homogenous thoughts that have been determined by hegemonic voices through the times.
Selected solo exhibitions include The Hour Before Sunset, Galería Municipal do Porto, Portugal (2021); Eden Hotel, A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2019); Low Intensity Operations, The Mistake Room, Los Angeles (2015); SKMU Sørlandets Kunstmuseum, Kristiansand, Norway (2012), Untitled, solo presentation, 12th Istanbul BiennialIstanbul (2011), and A Report to an Academy, Chamber of Commerce, Bogotá (2011).
Bonilla has been part of many collective shows such as MECARÕ. L’Amazonie dans la collection Petitgas, MO.CO., Montpellier, France (2020); Sign – Signer, Mint konsthall, Stockholm (2020); Images Liées, Chatêau de Servières, Les Parallèles du Sud, Manifesta 13, Marseille, France (2020); Nowheres within Here, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2019); Moving Stones, Kadist Paris, Paris (2018); Gaia in the Anthropocene, Garage Rotterdam, Netherlands (2018); The Arcades: Contemporary Art and Walter Benjamin, The Jewish Museum, New York (2017); Los Multinaturalistas, MAMM Museum of Modern Art, Medellín, Colombia (2017); Daros Latinoamérica, Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires (2015); Des hôtes: a foreigner, a human, an unexpected visitor, Spring Workshop, Hong Kong (2015); Naturaleza Nominal, CA2M, Madrid (2015); Whose Map is it?, Institute of International Visual Arts, London (2010); Morality Act VI: Remember Humanity, Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2010); Mapping the present, Konstall C, Stockholm (2009); the Marrakech Biennale (2014); the 10th Havana Biennale, Cuba (2009); the 9th Shanghai Biennale (2012) and the 3rd Bucharest Biennale (2008).
Size/To Sell or to Rent, 2006 - Installation View, MOCO, Montpellier, France, 2020
The Accumulation of Capital [riddled], 2019 - Installation view, A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam, 2019
The Accumulation of Capital [riddled], 2019 - Installation view, A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam, 2019
The Accumulation of Capital [riddled], 2019 - Detail of the installation
The Accumulation of Capital [riddled], 2019 - Detail of the installation
Dark Fading Chlorophyll, 2021 - Installation view, Galería Municipal do Porto, 2021
Dark Fading Chlorophyll, 2021- Exhibition view, Galería Municipal do Porto, 2021
Spring starts as a murmur(Utopia) - Exhibition view Temporary Gallery, Köln, Germany (2020)
Spring starts as a murmur (Utopia), 2019 - Installation view, A Tale of a Tub, Rotterdam, 2019
Stone Deaf, 2009-2010 - Installation View, Kadist, Paris, 2018
Stone Deaf, 2009-2010 - Installation View, Kadist, Paris, 2018
Stone Deaf, 2009-2010 - Installation View, Kadist, Paris, 2018
Stone Deaf, 2009-2010 - HD Video - Video Still
Stone Deaf, 2009-2010 - Exhibition view, Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2010
Allegory of the River: Iron oxide, gold, 2021 - Inkjet print, ceramic, gold leaf
I am Life and Life is Beautiful, 2021 - HD Video - Exhibition View, Galería Municipal do Porto
Sinister Manuscript, 2008 - Luxury Version
Capital / Sinister Manuscript, 2008 - Original manuscript
Capital / Sinister Manuscript, 2008 - Original manuscript
Capital/The Sinister Skilfully Written, 2007-2008 - Installation view, Koldo Mixtelena Kulturunea, San Sebastian, 2019
The Sinister Skillfully Written, 2007-2008 - Detail
An Enchanted Forest, 2013-2014 - Installation View, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2016
An Enchanted Forest, 2013-2014 - 16 C-prints
An Enchanted Forest, 2013-2014 - Installation View, Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, 2016
An Enchanted Forest, 2013-2014 - HD video - Video Still
An Enchanted Forest, 2013-2014 - Installation View, Garage Rotterdam, 2016
An Enchanted Forest, 2013-2014 - Installation View, Garage Rotterdam, 2016
Size/To Sell or to Rent, 2006 - Installation View, Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, France (2016)
Variations on a Homogeneous Landscape, 2006 - Installation with 27 inkjet prints from digital drawings
Variations on a Homogeneous Landscape, 2006 - Detail of the Installation
Ceremony for a Homogenous Landsccape, 2009 - Animation converted to video - Video Still
Two Narcotics Tracing a Cluster Inside a Dreaming Spiral, 2016 - Series of 16 C-Prints
Two Narcotics Tracing a Cluster Inside a Dreaming Spiral, 2016 - Detail Video Still
Two Narcotics Tracing a Cluster Inside a Dreaming Spiral, 2016 - Detail of one C-print
In the Mood for Love or How to Move a Criminal, 2015 - C-print
A Report to an Academy, 2010-2012 - Installation view, Centro Colombo Americano, Bogota, 2012
An Endless Present, 2013 - Installation View, mor charpentier, Paris, 2020
An Endless Present, 2013
Poisoned – Behind that Grid There is a Maze, 2019 - Live Performance, punt WG, Amsterdam
Pavilion Amsterdam, 2017 - Live performance with Luisa Ungar, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Dejá Vù / Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, 2010 - Site Specific intervention, Cordoba, Argentina