Roni Horn

An Elusive Red Figure

9 June – 16 September 2023

Zurich, Limmatstrasse

Known for conceptually oriented work in diverse media, Roni Horn continues her exploration of identity and difference with the exhibition ‘An Elusive Red Figure...,’ on view at our Zurich, Limmatstrasse gallery.

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Explore the exhibition

Opening this June during Zurich Art Weekend, Horn presents a new work titled: ‘An elusive Red Figure darting about in the Venetian darkness; a red dwarf burning out beyond Saturn; a nasty gang of runts in red snowsuits acting out in a North American suburb; an attractive young Italian woman dressed in red is stalked by a lesbian serial killer; a village girl, the prettiest you can imagine, in a red velvet hood cut from the belly of a sleeping wolf ....’ (2022).

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Explore all 33 works from ‘An Elusive Red Figure...’

‘An Elusive Red Figure...’ is a suite of 33 paired ink jet prints, presented across the second-floor gallery space. Following on from the 2021 work ‘LOG (March 22, 2019 – May 17, 2020)’, ‘An Elusive Red Figure...’ is a collection of outtakes from ‘LOG’ as well as original drawings, including quotations, collages, photographs, casual commentaries, notes on news and weather events and original texts by Horn.

‘LOG,’ which debuted at Hauser & Wirth New York, 22nd Street in 2021, is a large-scale installation comprised of 406 individual works on paper. The work was the result of a daily commitment to drawing undertaken by Horn over a period of fourteen months. Drawing has been a defining element of Horn’s artistic practice since the 1980s and ‘An Elusive Red Figure…’ is emblematic of Horn’s relationship with the medium, which she has described as ‘a kind of breathing activity on a daily level.’ Whilst creating the drawings on paper that would become the paired ink jet prints for ‘An Elusive Red Figure…,’ Horn would describe the events of weather, private life and anything notable that came to mind or hand at the time.

‘Unlike many of my other installations and drawings, I’m not trying to make a big gesture. I like the solitary, daily work.’—Roni Horn

Interview with Philipp Hindahl in Monopol, June 2023 issue

One set of prints notes the temperature during a trip that the artist took to Zurich in July in 2019, others feature photographs of the artist, or cultural figures such as Aretha Franklin or Elizabeth Taylor, pasted alongside drawings or notations. Another page colored bright yellow is inscribed with the line ‘I am paralyzed with hope’ from a monologue by the stand-up comedian Maria Bamford, which Horn describes as a ‘poignant connection to our time with regards to politics and the environment and now, of course, in relation to the pandemic.’

Her preoccupation with language permeates the works; scattered words read as a stream of consciousness spiralling across the paper. ‘I’m not telling you what I’m doing every day,’ says Horn, ‘but when you add all of these bits together, you get my sensibility.’ These intricate works on paper extend Horn’s masterful use of mirroring and textual play to explore the materiality of color and the sculptural potential of drawing.

‘Formative elements are paradox and ambiguity. That is the basis for pairing and doubling in a lot of my work.’—Roni Horn

Interview with Philipp Hindahl in Monopol, June 2023 issue

‘Roni Horn: I am paralyzed with hope’ at Centro Botín in Santander, Spain

‘LOG (March 22, 2019 – May 17, 2020)’ is on view at a major exhibition titled ‘Roni Horn: I am paralyzed with hope’ at Centro Botín in Santander, coinciding with the artist’s presentation in Zurich.

‘Roni Horn: A dream dreamt in a dreaming world is not really a dream, ... but a dream not dreamt is’ at HE Art Museum in Shunde, China

Concurrently, a major show is on view at HE Art Museum in Shunde, China, titled ‘Roni Horn: A dream dreamt in a dreaming world is not really a dream, ... but a dream not dreamt is.’.

On view in Zurich, Limmatstrasse

The gallery is open Tue – Fri, 11 am – 6 pm and Sat, 11 am – 5 pm. For special opening hours during Zurich Art Weekend and Art Basel, please visit our location page.

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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.