ART CITIES:Cambrige-Rebecca Horn

Rebecca Horn: “Work in Progress” features a select group of the artist’s multiples, photographs, and early films. She is an internationally recognized contemporary artist, best known for her multimedia approach to art making. Her art can be understood as a “Work in Progress”, an oeuvre constantly building on itself and drawing from earlier inspiration and production. As the artist noted in 1991, “It all interlocks.”

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Harvard Art Museum Archive

The current exhibition explores this aspect of Rebecca Horn’s art, drawing entirely on recent acquisitions by the Busch-Reisinger Museum, many of which are gifts of the artist. Five multiples, or editioned artworks, dating from the 1970s through the 1990s are installed in cases designed by the artist. Six black-and-white photographs, from the portfolio Performance Edition (printed 2000), depict the artist’s early performances from 1971 and 1972. Two film groupings combined into one continuous loop are projected life-size onto the gallery wall. Performances 2 (1973, color and sound, 16 mm in DVD projection 38 min.) portrays, in a largely documentary function, the artist’s “personal art” performances, in which she constructed wearable sculptures, or “body extensions”, for herself and her collaborators. These performances are also captured in the Performance Edition photographs. Berlin Exercises: Dreaming under water of things afar (1974/75, color and sound, 16 mm in DVD projection 42 min.) which the artist refers to as her first film, presents distinct performances in the proscribed space of the artist’s studio over a predetermined period of time.

Info:’’ Work in Progress’’, Curator: Lynette Roth, Harvard Art Museums, 32 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Duration: 16/11/14-10/5/15, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-17:00, www.harvardartmuseums.org