Rebecca Horn
Born – Michelstadt, Germany 1944
Rebecca Horn is established as one of the most imaginative artist of her generation. Her truancy from school prophesised her independence and rejection of conventional art forms. From 1964-1969 she trained at the Fine Arts Academy in Hamburg. During this period she was employing toxic materials to make her work and their effect led to prolonged illness. While confined, she designed a series of surreal clothing. These included extensions for arms and for fingers that trailed on the floor, wings, a tall, cloth horn and a pulsating garment of veins. She transformed herself and friends into living sculptures wearing these and others on film. She continued her studies at St Martin’s School of Art, London (1971-1971). Alongside her film, video and performance work she explores the possibilities of kinetic sculpture. These “symbols of people” are powerfully enigmatic automata, which Horn describes as “melancholic actors, performing in solitude”. They incorporate all manner of objects – shoes, guns, pianos, motorized blue butterfly wings – and materials with alchemical significance. Ballet of the Woodpeckers, a sequence of mirrors spasmodically tapped by small hammers, is like birds flying toward, or destroying, their own image. It is a potent metaphor for desire, compulsion and isolation.
Masterpieces:
• The Golden Bath
• Orlando
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Rebecca Horn: Drawings, Sculptures, Installations 1964-2006
The Glance of Infinity
Rebecca Horn: Cosmic Maps