Roni Horn

Although varied in medium, all works derive from longstanding themes that have propelled Horn’s ongoing poetic study on the protean nature of identity, meaning and perception. An ambitious installation of solid cast glass sculptures invites visitors to witness the interplay between light and weather in the South Galleries. Additionally, the exhibition features pieces inspired by the verses of Emily Dickinson and works in gold and copper from important series which the artist has worked on since the 1990s.

Uncertainty and ambiguity permeate Horn’s work, evident in the seemingly watery surface of the cast-glass sculptures as well as in ‘Black Asphere’, a solid copper work which appears to the eye as a ball or ‘a sphere’. The term ‘asphere’ refers to the fact that it is not symmetrical in one axis. Horn has described the work as ‘a self-portrait’, linked to the artist’s experience of androgyny and resistance to binary labels.

Literature plays an important role in Horn’s practice and the artist makes literary references both in work titles as well in the works themselves. Sculptures from Horn’s ‘Key and Cue’ series feature the first lines of poems by Emily Dickinson, to whom Horn has dedicated various bodies of work. In the series ‘Key and Cue,’ Horn uses the verses as self-contained statements across the four faces of the bar, refusing to be seen or read all at once. In these pieces, Horn renders the text as images, encouraging us to think about language as sculpture, and hence removed from its meaning.