Roni Horn

"Everything was sleeping as if the universe were a mistake"

11 November - 11 January 2014

New York, 18th Street

Hauser & Wirth is proud to present an exhibition comprising two new series of works by artist Roni Horn. Opening 11 November 2013, 'Everything was sleeping as if the universe were a mistake' will fill the gallery's West Chelsea space in Manhattan with large format drawings and two multi-part sculptures that continue Horn's exploration of the nature of perception, memory, and identity. The experiential quality of Horn's glass installations link the relationship of time to space and light. Employing the formal devices of pairing, repetition, and doubling, Horn challenges the viewer to reconcile the eye and the mind. 'Everything was sleeping as if the universe were a mistake' will be on view through 11 January 2014.

Upon entering the gallery's soaring sky lit, wood-ceilinged space, viewers will encounter 'Untitled ("My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the deathcup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.")' (2013), a sculpture comprised of ten cylindrical cast glass elements rendered in subtly shifting shades of chamomile, chartreuse, and lime and bathed in the glow of natural light. At the opposite end of the gallery, visitors will find 'Untitled (“A dream dreamt in a dreaming world is not really a dream ... but a dream not dreamt is.”)' (2013), a counterpart of the yellow and green glass sculpture but in hues of violet.

Separated but palpably connected, the two sculptures invite comparison and contemplation of accepted notions of 'likeness' and 'difference'. Reflecting the changing natural light from apertures in the ceiling above, Horn's sculptures partner with the weather and the constant cycles of time to manifest her binary experimentations with color, weight, and lightness, and solidity and fluidity.

Literary themes surge and resurface throughout much of Roni Horn's oeuvre, and are present in both her sculptures and her drawings on view at Hauser & Wirth. 'Untitled ("My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the deathcup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.")' references a passage from Shirley Jackson's novel 'We Have Always Lived in the Castle'; meanwhile 'Untitled (“A dream dreamt in a dreaming world is not really a dream ... but a dream not dreamt is.”)' makes reference to prose in Canadian poet Anne Carson's publication 'Plainwater'. Incorporating lines from literature, Horn's titles offer a narrative portal through which to enter her work, while still retaining an open and inexplicably ambiguous quality.

In the gallery's central space, visitors will find a room containing Horn's new series of large-scale drawings. This group of works exudes a powerful physical presence, abetted by its resolute color and handling of form. A meandering line roams freely across the surfaces of these drawings, suggesting an outline and relating this new work indirectly to Horn's recurring theme of landscape. Here the artist manages to achieve both exquisite complexity and a masterful reduction of forms.

The element of drawing has been an integral part of Roni Horn's artistic practice for thirty years. She has said, 'If you were to ask me what I do, I would say I draw – this is the primary activity and that all my work has this in common regardless of idiom or material'. Presented in juxtaposition with Horn's sculptures, these wall-mounted works traverse boundaries between two and three dimensions to challenge conventional definitions of 'drawing'. Rendered as identifiable geometric forms and abstract volumes in both sculpture and drawing, Horn's art engages new means to push forth investigations of multiplicity and perception.

About the Artist

Roni Horn was born in 1955 and lives and works in New York. Recent major solo exhibitions include 'Selected Drawings 1984 – 2012', Hauser & Wirth Zürich, Switzerland (2012); 'Photographien / Photographic Works', Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany (2011); and 'Well and Truly', Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2010). In November 2009, Horn's comprehensive survey exhibition, 'Roni Horn aka Roni Horn' opened at Tate Modern and travelled to Collection Lambert in Avignon, France (2009); the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY (2009); and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston MA (2010). Horn's works are featured in numerous major international institutions and collections including the Guggenheim Museum, New York NY; Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL; Tate Modern, London, England; Kunsthalle Hamburg, Germany; Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland; and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France. For Horn, 2013 has amounted to an important year. In January 2013, Horn was awarded the Joan Miró Prize and JRP Ringier also published the first major publication to focus solely on Horn's extensive drawing practice. Running concurrently with her show at Hauser & Wirth, Horn will present a solo exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, Germany on view from 12 December 2013 to 26 January 2014. Following in 2014, Horn will participate in the 19th edition of the Sydney Australia Biennale, 'You Imagine What You Desire'.

Installation views

About the Artist

Roni Horn

Roni Horn’s work consistently generates uncertainty to thwart closure in her work. Important across her oeuvre is her longstanding interest to the protean nature of identity, meaning, and perception, as well as the notion of doubling; issues which continue to propel Horn’s practice.

Since the mid-1990s, Horn has been producing cast-glass sculptures. For these works, colored molten glass assumes the shape and qualities of a mold as it gradually anneals over several months. The sides and bottom of the resulting sculpture are left with the rough translucent impression of the mold in which it was cast. By stark contrast, the top surface is fire-polished and slightly bows like liquid under tension. The seductively glossy surface invites the viewer to gaze into the optically pristine interior of the sculpture, as if looking down on a body of water through an aqueous oculus. Exposed to the reflections from the sun or to the shadows of an overcast day, Horn’s glass sculpture relies upon natural elements like the weather to manifest her binary experimentations in color, weight and lightness, solidity and fluidity. The endless subtle shifts in the work’s appearance place it in an eternal state of mutability, as it refuses a fixed visual identity. Begetting solidity and singularity, the changing appearance of her sculptures is where one discovers meaning and connects her work to the concept of identity.

For Horn, drawing is a primary activity that underpins her wider practice. Her intricate works on paper examine recurring themes of interpretation, mirroring and textual play, which coalesce to explore the materiality of color and the sculptural potential of drawing. Horn’s preoccupation with language also permeates these works; her scattered words read as a stream of consciousness spiralling across the paper. In her ‘Hack Wit’ series, Horn reconfigures idiomatic turns of phrase and proverbs to engender nonsensical, jumbled expressions. The themes of pairing and mirroring emerge as she intertwines not only the phrases themselves but also the paper they are inscribed on, so that her process reflects the content of the drawings. Words are her images and she paints them expressionistically, which—combined with her method—causes letters to appear indeterminate, as if they are being viewed underwater.

Notions of identity and mutability are also explored within Horn’s photography, which tends to consist of multiple pieces and installed as a surround which unfolds within the gallery space. Examples include her series ‘The Selected Gifts, (1974 - 2015),’ photographed with a deceptively affectless approach that belies sentimental value. Here, Horn’s collected treasures float against pristine white backdrops in the artist’s signature serial style, telling a story of the self as mediated through both objects and others—what the artist calls ‘a vicarious self-portrait.’ This series, alongside her other photographic projects, build upon her explorations into the effects of multiplicity on perception and memory, and the implications of repetition and doubling, which remain central to her work.

Current Exhibitions