LOUNGE /
ART
April 17, 2015
Rattlesnake Gallery | "Roni Horn" Exhibition
RAT HOLE GALLERY
Roni Horn Exhibition
Minimalism Born from Encounter and Confrontation with Language
At Rat Hole Gallery, the exhibition "Roni Horn" is being held from September 7 to December 5, 2010 (closed Mondays). This marks the first opportunity to introduce the sculptures and drawings of Roni Horn, an artist active worldwide, in Japan.
Text by OPENERS
Emily Dickinson × Roni Horn
The "Roni Horn" exhibition features four sculptures from the "White Dickinson" series and three drawings from the latest series, "Else." This is the second exhibition held at Rat Hole Gallery, following "This is Me, This is You" in 2008.
Roni Horn recently had a solo exhibition, "Well and Truly," at the Kunstmuseum Bregenz (Austria), and from February to June this year,
the comprehensive exhibition "Roni Horn aka Roni Horn," showcasing Horn's works, was held at four major institutions: Tate Modern (London), Collection Lambert (Avignon), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
While she is an artist active on a global scale, this exhibition is the first in Japan to present her sculptures and drawings.
The "White Dickinson" series in this exhibition can be seen as an exploration of literature and language within literature, subjects that deeply fascinate Horn. She has previously incorporated words from renowned writers and poets into her works.
This exhibition displays sculptures and drawings that translate the words of the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson into art. Dickinson, who suffered from chronic illness and lived a reclusive life, wrote thousands of letters to friends and acquaintances. After her death, these letters gained significant recognition as a distinct literary body of work.
Horn, captivated by Dickinson's poetic world, has cast texts quoted from her letters into white plastic, embedding them within rectangular aluminum bars. The transformation of words into form is an experiment in imbuing language with physical substance, while simultaneously evoking images through the encounter with words. The works are created with the aim of exploring these two poles: the visual and the implicit.
"The mating of seeing and reading, and then becoming a third element with you (the viewer) to form another pair. This is another important experience sandwiched between the two acts," Horn states. Her words directly represent her minimalist works, providing an opportunity for viewers to forge a new relationship with language.
This concept of "pairing" is not only evident in her approach to sculpture but also represents her own truth, consistently appearing in her drawings and photographic works.
The exhibition also features three drawings. Although differing in size and year of creation, they employ a technique of cutting up and carefully reassembling two drawings (PLATES) that meticulously depict words, letters, and symbols.
Through drawings and sculptures that intricately intersect language and materiality, exploring concepts of pairing, duality, or repetition, the exhibition promises to offer viewers a visual, emotional, and intellectual experience.
Roni Horn
Born in New York in 1955, she lives and works in New York. She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale University. For over 30 years, she has explored issues of gender, identity, and androgyny, focusing on perception, emotion, and memory that arise from the confrontation with visual elements and material substance. She creates works using various media without being confined to a single form, including sculptures, works on paper, photographs, and books. The remote island in Iceland, which she has visited frequently since 1975, is a landscape that profoundly influences her creative process.