STATEMENT: Thrown Out of Drama School

The inspiration for today’s Statement is this particular work by Cosima Von Bonin, an artist I was fortunate enough to meet in Athens at the very beginning of her career. Although she projects the image of a strong woman, with a certain severity in her persona, her work seems to be haunted by childhood nightmares and unresolved traumas. It resembles a child’s room, a space into which she repeatedly withdraws to hide. Long before our contemporary discourse on Trauma and the ways it can be transmuted into art through the creative process, I often thought about—and wondered—how certain artists, beginning primarily with the Americans of the 1980s, and most notably Mike Kelley, carry their trauma within them, allowing it to recur and echo throughout their work instead of diminishing over time. In contrast, one might refer to Louise Bourgeois, whose traumatic experience with her father and the patriarchal behaviors she endured permeate her entire oeuvre. Is it, ultimately, legitimate for artists to move through their entire creative journey accompanied by their obsessions and wounds? Or is art, perhaps, a psycho-redemptive and psychotherapeutic process?— Efi Michalarou

Photo: Cosima von Bonin, Thrown Out of Drama School, 2008, © Cosima von Bonin, Courtesy the artist and Raven Row Gallery