Society of the Soft at MUDAM: Cosima von Bonin's Songs for Gay Dogs

Walking into Songs for Gay Dogs is like stepping into the psyche of that friend who knows too much about Debord, Barthes, and Foucault, has a peculiar attachment to their childhood stuffed animals, and could write dissertations on Looney Tunes characters.

Curated by ClémentineProby and Clément Minighetti, Songs for Gay Dogs, Cologne-based Cosima von Bonin’s monographic exhibition at Musée de l’ArtModerne Grand-Duc Jean – her first major solo exhibition outside of Germany in a decade – feels like a warm hug from a plush bunny with dubious intentions. 

In von Bonin’s work, nothing exists in isolation – not the animals, not the installations, not von Bonin herself. It’sa collaboration between the artist, her materials, her appropriations, and us, her viewers. Her work points towards a deeply interdependent world where innocence and humour sit side by side with social criticism and self-reflection.

Is it an exhibition of charming absurdity or a call to consider how we, too, prop up plush façades, protecting vulnerabilities we’d rather keep hidden? Like life itself, Songs for Gay Dogs is a strange mix of comfort and discomfort, inviting us to chuckle at the spectacle even as we find ourselves complicit within it. 

As you step into the Grand Hall, you can’t help but feel dwarfed by giant, out-of-proportion tables sprawling across the space, each hosting stuffed and plastic figures that blend melancholy with dry humor. Sadly, no gay dogs in sight: Instead, on top of a table, a (rather tall) petiteMiss Riley rocket points at MUDAM’s visitors. 

It’s defanged and feminised – a playful, impotent relic that mocks the militaristic bravado of the real thing. Not far stands Church of Daffy (2023): A life-size epoxy resin replica of the world’s greediest cartoon duck, arms raised as if about to deliver the sermon of the century.

 Daffy isn’t here for laughs, though. He’s more messianic than mischievous, exposing the pitfalls of unchecked hubris. Underneath, the tables shelter sea creatures on swingsets, such as the Mae Day IX (2024), a small whale wearing a crab scarf, flask placed beside: An unobtrusive plea for help in the guise of soft nihilism. 

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Enter the East Gallery, and you’ll find the installation What if it barks (2018), a council of tuna and sharks theatrically posing in a circle. In front of them Killer Whale With Long Eyelashes I (Rhino Version) (2018) breaks the circle as a fabric-whale fails to climb on a chair, seemingly collapsing on top of a small rhino designed in the 60s by therapeutic toymaker Renate Müller.

If the metaphor for human obsession with power wasn’t clear, the giant can labeledAuthority Puree (2018) floating above the scene certainly does the job. 

Then, in an almost affectionate nod to her own complex relationship with productivity and introversion, there’s theDo Nothing Club (2021). Hundreds of books are stacked in messy piles atop a wheeled platform, protected by soft black velvet fences that command you to take a peek, but not touch.

It’s an intimate look into her private world, just as quickly revoked. A metal sign labeledPrivato (Privato (Weiss), 2010) hangs within sight, as if to remind us that some thoughts – no matter how accessible they appear to the public – will forever remain unread.  

There’s a quiet ache in Love Bombing (2023) and Gaslighting (2023), von Bonin’s trademark patchwork-collages that reimagine the innocent Bambi in fabrics sourced from luxury houses.

Here, the soft, frightened deer is hand-stitched into scenes that feel as fragile as they are loaded, a juxtaposition of gentleness and vulnerability. Von Bonin prods at pop psychology’s most overused buzzwords, exposing the delicate absurdity of these terms.  

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Over in the West Gallery, plushies completely take over a strange version of a dark, almost perverted funhouse. Every character has a doppelgänger – doubling as a jab at identity’s multiplicity and the performance that contemporary life demands.

Daffy Duck returns, now in a series of black velvet panels, lisping and lurching his way through various poses like an existential mime. Daffy here is caught in a continuous loop of overconfident ambition and spectacular failure, a painful (and almost intrusively relatable) satire of the human spirit’s capacity of consistently falling short – yet soldiering on.

Von Bonin’s flawed hero is the self-proclaimed loser we all should be able to embrace within ourselves – trying, failing, and coming back for more. 

Not to forget about my personal favourite: Amateur, Dramatics (& MvO’s Bone Beats: Wishful Thinking & Wishful Version / See The Light & Light Version) (2010), an installation that is both absurd and entirely fitting. Here, a rotating platform quite literally groans under the weight of its lazing, worn-out sloth bunny that has fallen right into a beachside stupor.

Everything turns, creaks, and somehow lulls you into a sense of indulgent laziness as you observe the sloth bunny spinning past again… and again… and again... There’s a charmingly sardonic vibe, and it almost feels like a critical snark from von Bonin: “If you like, keep up your little performance of hyper-productivity – but it won’t take you far. You might crash out.” (But, in all fairness, that may just be my reading of the installation.) 

As if to end on an even bleaker note, the Small West Gallery House blasts experimental electronic noise by Moritz von Oswald, bombarding you with almost nauseating soundscapes as you intrude a tiny space filled with white, tied-up plushies in distressingly awkward poses, seemingly stripped of identity: Who’s Who 3.

The Table(Simpson, Eeyore, Duck & Duck Version) / Rope Version (2011–2014) owns the room. The wallsread “Du bist in meiner Macht. Ich bin in meiner Macht!” – “Youare in my power. I am in my power!” It’s a bit surreal, pushing visitors into an uncomfortable realm of control and isolation where identity and agency literally get stretched to their limits.

But for von Bonin, these familiar toys always carry this edge of unease, hinting at the capitalist mechanisms that govern our identities and desires. 

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Ultimately, Songs for Gay Dogs leaves you lingering in that odd space between amusement and bewilderment. Von Bonin doesn’t offer answers, and she doesn’t explicitly explain her intentions – there’s a gleeful ambiguity to her art, one that lets her “[greedily] steal like a crow” (in her own words) from popular culture while simultaneously critiquing it.

Her plush sculptures and soft collages poke fun at the clichés and intricacies of social relationships and consumer habits, with just enough warmth to make you want to stay, and just enough bite to keep you from ever getting too comfortable. 

Cosima von Bonin’s exhibition “Songs for Gay Dogs” is open from 11 October 2024 to 02 March 2025. 

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