Monica Bonvicini's feet have not touched the ground recently. Having gone from relative obscurity and artistic poverty to overnight art world sensation, she doesn't know if she's coming or going, writes Katherine MacAlister.

But for everyone else it's very clear that she's on her way, and after winning the prestigious Golden Lion at the

Venice Biennale, is being pursued by every gallery owner and art museumin Europe.

Which is why Oxford is so lucky.

Not only has the 38-year-old never held a show in the UK, but the Berlin-based Italian has also chosen Modern Art Oxford to display a new installation.

Self portrait of Monica Bonavinci

With her blonde dreadlocks twisted around her head and her lean body dressed in ripped black jeans and an old black t-shirt, Monica certainly looks the part.

She is understandably preoccupied, because setting up her new installation is a mammoth task, and even she isn't sure how it will turn out, or more importantly, when.

Described as a multi-media installation artist, Monica dabbles in modernism, feminism, performance art, gender and architecture.

Her Oxford exhibition, Anxiety Attack, consists of four main pieces. The first is a double-screened video installation, Shotgun, of gates and doors to derelict buildings, and boarded-up shops and houses in LA, accompanied by the soundtrack of a DIY radio show where

housewives phone up for help, blended into rock-and-roll background music.

The piece is a 10-minute edited version of a four-hour film, Shotgun is the name of a household fungus.

The contrast of the quick fix versus long term neglect speaks for itself

"I want the work to be as clear as it can to make sure the message comes over," she says. "All my works are constructed in a way that different people from

different backgrounds can understand."

She admits some people might be insecure about modern art, but adds: "Everybody understands art, just by saying whether they like a piece or not. They do not need to have an art education to understand. When you read a book, you don't have to know about the author or their political

implications."

Next up is Bedtime Square, created in 1999, which consists of a large, empty stone square with a

mattress in the middle.

Monica Bonavinci and Milan gallery owner Emi Fontana test out the artist's Bedtime Square

It's a statement against the negativity evident in other artistic beds that have become so fashionable recently,

contrasting between the severity of the stone and the flexibility of the mattress, playing with materials, teasing the architecture.

And you can make up your mind about it while lying in the bed, because the exhibition is interactive, to make it 'more fun'.

"I want people to have a physical reaction from my work," Monica says, and you certainly experience that in black, a dark room with black walls, floor and a black leather hammock, which you can swing in, attached to the walls by chains. Monica gained her inspiration here from the back rooms of gay bars, and hopes to make people 'feel' a space and consider how they use and react to it.

The new installation, yet to be named, is based on a wall of glass, some shattered, some graffitied, with a

'minimalist punk twist'.

"It's about transparency and agoraphobia," Monica explains. "Architecture is necessary, like

language, and everybody knows what it's like to be inside or outside, or to be in a room that's too small or too big."

If it's finished in time, there is no doubt the exhibition will be a success, but Monica is more concerned with the public's reaction.

"When you make a work, it no longer belongs to you, it belongs to the public, and if it makes the public think, then I am happy."

Although the whirlwind will then continue elsewhere, Monica is looking forward to taking some time out, and going back to Berlin.

Anxiety Attack is at Modern Art Oxford. Recorded information line 01865 813830.