Artist Center: Roni Horn

Roni Horn’s work explores the nature of art through sculptures, works on paper, photography and books. She describes drawing as being the key activity of her work, leading to how a lot of her work is centered around words and drawings. Her drawings concentrate on the materiality of the objects being depicted, and what they mean. Words are the basis for her drawings and other types of works. Each word and phrase plays an important role in each one of her works.

The use of words in her works builds a relationship between the viewer and her work. Horn also crafts complex relationships between her viewer and her work by installing a single piece on opposing walls, in opposite or adjoining rooms, or throughout a series of buildings. By doing this, she gives a different meaning to each work, making the viewer look at each piece separately and having them try to define how each work works against or with each other depending on the area it is in. This gives a new definition to how work is displayed in the art world, usually similar pieces are put into the same room or area together, but Horn has removed that familiarity from her work. She does this to insist that one’s sense of self is marked by a place in the ‘here-and-there’ and by time in the ‘now-and-then.’ She describes her works as being site-dependent, meaning they rely on the places they are position and stationed. This helps create and extension of the body or ones-self by showing how objects mean different things in different places.

Horn’s art embodies the cyclical relationship between humankind and nature. She uses words and the location of her work to build on this relationship. These relationships allow us to attempt to remake nature in our own image. Her work challenges us to see how they relate to us and how we see and use them to our own benefit. Drawing is about composing relationships and building on those relationships.