PREVIEW: Roni Horn-Give Me Paradox or Give Me Death

Using drawing, photography, installation, sculpture and literature, Roni Horn’s work consistently questions and generates uncertainty to thwart closure in her work, engaging with many different concerns and materials. Important across her oeuvre is her longstanding interest to the protean nature of identity, meaning, and perception, as well as the notion of doubling; issues which continue to propel Horn’s practice.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Museum Ludwig Archive

Museum Ludwig is pleased to present Roni Horn: Give Me Paradox or Give Me Death, a solo exhibition of works by influential American artist Roni Horn. The exhibition includes over 100 works, spanning from the beginning of the artist’s decades long career to present day. Working across sculpture, photography, drawing, and artist’s books, Horn’s work addresses identity, mutability, and unease. Patrick Henry, a prominent advocate of the 18th century American independence movement, who declared, borrows the exhibition title from a speech: “Give me liberty, or give me death!” By replacing liberty with paradox, the artist nods to her interest in the reconciliation of two contradictory answers, an important aspect in her work, which also relates to her use of doubling or pairs. Upon entering the exhibition, viewers are greeted by “This is Me, This is You” (1997-2000), a photographic work installed on two opposing walls. Each wall contains 48 framed photographs of the artist’s niece, which were taken over a two-year period during her adolescence. Every photograph corresponds with one on the opposing wall, showing subtle changes between split seconds. As she explains in a 1989 interview, “The pair form, by virtue of the condition of being double, actively refuses the possibility of being experienced as a thing in itself.” Here, Horn not only employs doubles or pairs, but also speaks to identity’s constant flux. Roni Horn began exploring fluid representations of gender long before terms such as genderqueer and nonbinary entered public discourse. In her (self-)portraits, you see a person who fluctuates between genders without needing to find a specific term to describe this mode of being. She shows humans as organisms constantly manifesting themselves in a state of perpetual transformation. While extremely precise and highly aesthetic, her objects, photographs, and drawings have a liberating and emancipatory potential because they are often intangible and indefinable:. Moving through the exhibition, viewers encounter never before exhibited drawings from the late 1970s, in addition to a selection of pigment drawings produced between 1983 and 2018. Photographic works on view include the seminal work “Still Water (The River Thames, for Example)” (1999), comprised of 15 photographs which act as a portrait of the River Thames in Southern England; “a.k.a.” (2008-09), which depicts the artist at different moments throughout her life, and “Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert)” (2005-06), where Horn has photographed actress Isabelle Huppert posing as characters from her films. Sculptures in the exhibition include works from the series “When Dickinson Shut Her Eyes” (1993-2008), where Horn has recreated poems by Emily Dickinson; “Gold Field” (1980/1994), a work composed of 99.99% gold foil; and “Untitled (“The tiniest piece of mirror is always the whole mirror.”)” (2022), a ten-unit solid cast glass work that reflects its surrounding environment.

Photo: Roni Horn, Untitled (“The tiniest piece of mirror is always the whole mirror, 2022, Solid cast glass with as-cast surfaces ,10 units, each 11 x 48 in., Installation view, Centro Botrn, Santander, Spain, 2023 Photo: Stefan Altenburger, © Roni Horn, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Info: Curator: Yilmaz Dziewior, Curatorial Assistants: Kerstin Renerig, Leonore Spemann, Museum Ludwig, Heinrich-Böll-Platz, Cologne, Germany, Duration: 23/3-11/8/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, www.museum-ludwig.de/