REBECCA HORN
"Thank God for calendars that travel forwards and not sideways" - from a postcard sent by Rebecca Horn to a friend. ("Rebecca Horn, all these black days between" pub. Scalo 2001)
REBECCA HORN (b. Germany 1944) does not exalt the past or the future but is more concerned with the reality of the present. Filmmaker, inveterate traveller, photographer, installation artist, kinetic sculptor - she has no shortage of means by which to communicate her vision. The world is a fantastic, erotic and marvellous place for Horn and it is the place of the artist to expose what already exists. The current exhibition, following her highly successful exhibition at Annandale in 1996, brings together works from 1972 - 2001. Kinetic sculptures, hand coloured photographs, a painting which scratches itself, drawings and a monumental piece called Gold Rush (1985) previously exhibited at the Tate gallery retrospective. There is also a series of b & w photographs from 1971-2 which derive from the earlier films and installations whose originality first brought her to prominence.
Rebecca Horn is unquestionably one of the most influential artists of the last thirty years. Her photo - based work long anticipated the current importance of that medium in contemporary art today and her kinetic sculptures and installations have been so widely exhibited over the last twenty years that it is easy to see her mark on younger generations. At the same time her performance and film work link her back to the conceptual art of the seventies. Her place in art history already secure and her signature immediately recognisable, she nevertheless continues to surprise us with each new series of work. She is by her very nature always contemporary, always on the leading edge of art practice.
Rebecca Horn was awarded the Documenta-Preis in Kassel in 1986 and the equally prestigious Carnegie prize in 1988. Her major retrospective ?Rebecca Horn: The Inferno-Paradiso Switch? was shown at the Guggenheim NY, The Stedelidjk and The Tate gallery between 1993 - 1996. Her work is in the Art Gallery NSW and The MCA in Sydney and public and private collections around the world
- Bill Gregory 3/02
REBECCA HORN (b. Germany 1944) does not exalt the past or the future but is more concerned with the reality of the present. Filmmaker, inveterate traveller, photographer, installation artist, kinetic sculptor - she has no shortage of means by which to communicate her vision. The world is a fantastic, erotic and marvellous place for Horn and it is the place of the artist to expose what already exists. The current exhibition, following her highly successful exhibition at Annandale in 1996, brings together works from 1972 - 2001. Kinetic sculptures, hand coloured photographs, a painting which scratches itself, drawings and a monumental piece called Gold Rush (1985) previously exhibited at the Tate gallery retrospective. There is also a series of b & w photographs from 1971-2 which derive from the earlier films and installations whose originality first brought her to prominence.
Rebecca Horn is unquestionably one of the most influential artists of the last thirty years. Her photo - based work long anticipated the current importance of that medium in contemporary art today and her kinetic sculptures and installations have been so widely exhibited over the last twenty years that it is easy to see her mark on younger generations. At the same time her performance and film work link her back to the conceptual art of the seventies. Her place in art history already secure and her signature immediately recognisable, she nevertheless continues to surprise us with each new series of work. She is by her very nature always contemporary, always on the leading edge of art practice.
Rebecca Horn was awarded the Documenta-Preis in Kassel in 1986 and the equally prestigious Carnegie prize in 1988. Her major retrospective ?Rebecca Horn: The Inferno-Paradiso Switch? was shown at the Guggenheim NY, The Stedelidjk and The Tate gallery between 1993 - 1996. Her work is in the Art Gallery NSW and The MCA in Sydney and public and private collections around the world
- Bill Gregory 3/02