Rebecca Horn
dal 19/6/2008 al 20/9/2008
Segnalato da
19/6/2008
Rebecca Horn
Museum der Moderne - Rupertinum, Salzburg
Love and Hate
The MdM Rupertinum presents a representative selection of Rebecca Horn’s oeuvre in
conjunction with the artist’s engagement as stage and costume designer for the production
of Salvatore Sciarrino’s opera “Luci mie traditrici” at the Kollegienkirche for this year’s
Salzburg Festival.
Large-size body paintings, also called "body landscapes” by the artist, and emotionally
charged sculptural objects created during the past few years, complemented by a selection
of large-size drawings and early films, give visitors insight into Rebecca Horn’s
comprehensive artistic work. Many of the objects and drawings featured in the exhibition are
shown at the MdM Rupertinum for the very first time.
In most of the works created by Rebecca Horn since the 1970s, be it early performances and
films, sculptures, room installations, drawings or overpainted photographs, the German artist
deals intensively with space, the human body and its translation into kinetic objects, trying to
fathom the boundaries of space and time. The main elements her boxes and moving
sculptures are made of are found objects and mechanical appliances, often in combination
with pictorial interferences. They seemingly become disassociated from their original function
and materiality and are transposed by Rebecca Horn into an immaterial imagery of
continuous transformation.
Her works are frequently based on mythical images and cultural, literary, spiritual or political
allusions.
In addition to her moving sculptures, the artist has also created an impressive number of
drawings, which seem to contrast her sculptural oeuvre at first glance. The drawings are an
expression of the artist’s intensive investigation into the human body in general and her
own body in particular, into eroticism and identity, which are depicted in a very expressive
and lyrical way in the sense of an “abstract symbolism” (Donald Kuspit). Rebecca Horn’s
drawings in particular reflect the tensions in the relationship between conceptual and
performative aspects in the artist’s work.
Rebecca Horn, who was born in 1944, has won numerous awards; she was also the first
woman to receive the Goslar Emperor’s Ring in 1992. Since 1984 she has been represented
in numerous international exhibitions. Her major individual exhibitions include a retrospective
shown at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York in 1994 and in adapted form at
the Vienna Kunsthalle in 1995 (during the tenure of Toni Stooss as director),
“Bodylandscapes. Drawings, Sculptures, Installations 1964 – 2004” at the K20 Art Collection
of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dusseldorf, Germany, 1994, „Rebecca Horn – Drawings“ at the
Exhibition Centre, Centro Cultural de Bélem, Lissabon, Portugal, 2005, a retrospective at the
Martin Gropius Building in Berlin, 2006 and the latest exhibition “Jupiter im Oktogon”
organised at the Museum Wiesbaden on the occasion of the award of the Alexej von Jawlensky
Prize by the city of Wiesbaden.
In conjunction with the exhibition the richly illustrated publication “Love and Hate” is published
by the Edition Rupertinum, including a preface by Toni Stooss, an essay by Peter Stephan
Jungk and poetic notes by Rebecca Horn.
Image: Cloud of Fire, 2006, Acryl, Bleistift, Farbstift auf Papier, 24 x 32 cm, © Rebecca Horn, © VBK, Wien, 2008, Foto: Heinz Hefele, Darmstadt
Press contact
Christine Forstner T +43.662 84 22 20-601 F +43.662 84 22 20-701 christine.forstner@mdmsalzburg.at
MdM Rupertinum
Wiener Philharmoniker Gasse, 9 Salzburg Austria