Key and cue No. 895: A CLOUD WITHDREW FROM THE SKY (1994)
Key and cue, No. 1484: WE SHALL FIND THE CUBE OF THE RAINBOW (1994)
White Dickinson: TO COWER BEFORE A FLOWER IS PERHAPS UNWISE (2006)
Key and cue No. 1270: IS HEAVEN A PHYSICIAN? (2005)
Thicket No.1: TO SEE A LANDSCAPE AS IT IS WHEN I’M NOT THERE (1989-90)
Roni Horn’s embedded-text sculptures are made with the words cast in plastic in rectangular aluminum bars, the square cross-sections of which would measure two inches per side. Despite their tidy and direct presentation and the simplicity of their conceit, these are enigmatic works that speak to the difficulty of marrying sculptural and literary experience. Physical orientation becomes a key factor. Horn leans the works against the wall, positioning them not as lines of text but as pure objects, like planks that have no proper top or bottom, front or back. To make out the texts, viewers must navigate around the works; the act of reading, then, becomes physical, as the three-dimensional phrases, depending on which of their sides the viewer faces, appear variously right-side up or upside down, backward or forward, or reduced to stripes. Were they on pages, one would just read them, but here the rules of art viewing intervene, she melds language into physical form that may be both seen and read, from one angle as abstract pattern and from another as a provocative phrase. Yet what seems distancing or obfuscatory also results in aggressive engagement with the words. Minimalism’s reductive geometry, historically employed to isolate the specificity of the object, here yields the specificity of the text.” (edit from Christopher Miles’ article “Roni Horn in Gagosian gallery”, ArtForum)
RONI HORN: biography and exhibitions info (edit from Xavier Hufkens gallery, Brussels)
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