On 4 April, Hauser & Wirth will open an exhibition of new works by Roni Horn at the gallery’s Wooster Street location in New York City. Renowned for a practice that combines conceptual rigor with an exquisite visual sensuality, Horn will present her latest series of works on paper and never before exhibited cast-glass sculptures. Highlighting her enduring exploration of identity, meaning and perception, these works continue to reveal Horn’s deeply conscientious engagement in humanity’s relationship to the natural world.
Drawing has been integral to Horn’s oeuvre for nearly 40 years. Describing it as her ‘primary activity,’ she expands the language of mark-making by constructing, deconstructing and then reconstructing images and texts. A meditation on meaning, Horn’s unique process of taking things apart and putting them back together anew tests the limits of draftsmanship by exploring its sculptural potential. For her latest series, titled ‘Slarips’ (the word ‘spirals’ written in reverse), Horn began by making watercolor spirals in an array of hues. She then cut up the painted images and collaged them together into new tessellated compositions. Each is titled with a deliberate misspelling of the word ‘spirals,’ signaling a profound departure from the work’s original source material.
Horn is an avid reader, and as much a writer as she is a visual artist. Words naturally permeate her practice. In this exhibition, her use of language pertains to the works’ titles, which act as entrance rather than explanation. Horn’s wordplay also figures in the sculptures on view: the titles of the six luminous cast-glass forms feature quotes from novels, films and radio broadcasts. These shallow tapered circular forms––a new shape in Horn’s ongoing glass works––are infused with a singular color drawn from a palette of whites, blacks and blues. As daylight pours in from the skylights, moving across the gallery and changing temperature over the course of the day, the saturation and transparency of the colors likewise shift. The subtle effects of varying light, combined with viewers’ movements in the room, activate these works, which defy any fixed reading.
This spring, Horn’s work will be presented in the following solo exhibitions: ‘Roni Horn. Give Me Paradox or Give Me Death,’ at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany (23 March – 11 August); ‘Roni Horn. The Detour of Identity,’ at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark (2 May – 1 September); and at Hauser & Wirth Menorca (11 May – 27 October).
