We already looked at the ICA's new Roni Horn exhibit, Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, from an artistic perspective. Now it's time to look at Horn herself, from John Waters' perspective, as revealed in a talk between the artists at the ICA on Wednesday.
It may seem odd that John Waters, the master of colorful camp, would be selected to interview Roni Horn, a self-described "conceptual" artist who creates simple, contemplative works: line drawings, blocks of glass, sheets of metal. On its face, the contrast is stark, but these artists actually complemented each other quite well in conversation, Waters' interest in film bringing out contrasts between Horn's various media and Horn's somewhat dry demeanor pairing nicely with the more flamboyant Waters. Both touched repeatedly on a common theme of audience, stressing the necessity of having a viewer to complete the artistic cycle, and discussed numerous threads of artistic creation and appreciation.
Horn and Waters chatted Wednesday night at the ICA to celebrate the opening of Roni Horn aka Roni Horn, a collection of work from various stages of Horn's career. The ICA hosts the fourth installation of the exhibit, which has also appeared at the Tate Modern in London, Collection Lambert in France, and the Whitney in New York. As we noticed, the ICA's sleek, stark architecture enhances Horn's work beautifully; the artist herself even commented that this was the most architecturally exciting place she'd installed the work.
The artists' talk opened with a projection of an image from This Is Me, This Is You, a series Horn did with her niece Georgia (who was in the audience Wednesday, and is less silly-looking than some of the pictures might lead you to imagine). The title of the piece comes from Georgia's tendency to identify certain images as "me" and others as "you"—this bunny is me, this flower is you—when she was young. The photography explores the fluidity of identity—one of Horn's main themes—through Georgia's varying expressions and poses.
In conversation with Waters, Horn described her work as dealing with "the mutability of nature and identity," and suggested that her art requires "repeated and slow viewing." Horn credits some viewers with deep and immediate understanding of her work. She calls these people "secret sharers," and asserted that these people "don't have to ask or name" their understanding, they just get it. Not that there's a specific "it" to get—Horn doesn't necessarily assign specific or limited value to her works, but rather opens them up for audiences to experience. That experience, by nature, is relative and constantly shifting, but ultimately rewarding.
Some of Horn's work deals with words as both objects and signifiers. Waters took Horn's use of words to another level in the conversation, comparing one of her spare line drawings to "a letter that I can't read yet, but you know it and I want to read it." The metaphor works well for describing Horn's art: a different language, lacking a dictionary, that you want to explore. Horn emphasized that, in general, her drawings are essential to do—often as preparation for other works she's planning—but not necessarily to show, demonstrating the importance of process and practice in her work. Words may play a similar role for her: "Words are like views," Horn said, marking entrances to concepts, not specific definitions of them. So too is Horn's work—and Waters', if in a very different way—an entrance, into a realm rarely considered and underappreciated. An entrance that beckons the viewer.
But process does not necessarily imply known results. Much of Horn's work is produced through technical or industrial processes that she's not directly involved in, or that may have uncertain results: metalsmithing, or glassmaking. In a sense, this makes her somewhat of a choreographer, telling others how to take machines through their movements. This also makes the outcome of the work less certain: her large glass blocks may have to be re-fired to get the right color, or they may emerge from the heat cracked or damaged in unexpected ways. The element of chance remains present despite the technical nature of the processes because Horn is pushing technology to its limits, going for different shades or larger sizes than can typically be achieved. The clash of technological precision with random chance produces endlessly interesting results from both a process and product perspective.
Chance is also an obvious element in nature, the subject of other Horn works, particularly her Thames series. This commissioned work involved Horn fixing medium format cameras to scaffolding on a tugboat, then working with a partner to photograph the Thames from the same perspective over multiple seasons. The results, recorded in book, lithograph, and installation form, display the paradoxical variability and constancy of both water and representations of it.
Horn also made use of water in an installation in Iceland that involved filling plastic columns with water from various glaciers around the country: a "Library of Water," according to the title. Again, even if you don't know the water's diverse origin, it's hard not to be struck by how different each column is, each distorting its surroundings in a different way, reflecting light uniquely, changing your perspective. If you're a "secret sharer," you might latch on to the water's power immediately, if not, it might take you a few passes through the Icelandic installation to even realize the clear tubes on display are not empty.
In the talk, Waters emphasized that, as an artist, he wants to do two things: make people laugh and make them think about things differently. Horn didn't sum up her mission quite so succinctly, but it seems clear that she also wants to challenge viewers by presenting beautifully flawed works. And she did stress the relevance of the audience to her work, nothing "I can't have an experience with my work," due to her involvement in the conception and realization of a piece. Nor can she have "autonomy from audience"—her work is wrapped up in reactions to it.
In 1919, Russian poet Boris Pasternak wrote in the literary journal Sovremennik "A Few Principles" on art that seem applicable here (emphasis added):
Contemporary trends assume that art is like a fountain, when really it is like a sponge.
They have decided that art ought to gush, but it ought, rather, to suck up and absorb.
They assert that art can be divided into categories according to means of representation, when actually it is composed of organs of perception.
Art must always remain among the spectators and see things more clearly, more truthfully, more perceptively than the others.
So, like we said, "Closer inspection [of Horn] invariably rewards the viewer." So, go see it: be a sponge, soak things up, and see more clearly. (And then, perhaps, watch a Waters movie. See how your perspective has changed.)
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