acca education kit roni horn a kind of you: 6 portraits by roni horn Photographs taken for the publication of A Kind of You: 6 Portraits by Roni Horn. The assistance of Margret H. Blondal is gratefully acknowledged. “This. This This is Roni Horn. Roni Horn is this. This, speculation. She looks at herself in the mirror of another face. Face-seen by Roni Horn. What looks at her, touches her.” Hélène Cixous, Portraits of Portraits: The Very Day/Light of Roni Horn, page 7, Steidl, 2007. Artist’s Background Roni Horn lives in New York and works between her Chelsea studio and Reykjavik, Iceland. Horn attended the Rhode School of Design and later completed a M.F.A at Yale University. In 1975, Horn travelled around Iceland, observing the landscape that today still fascinates her. Horn’s personality and practice identifies closely with the natural isolation of the Icelandic community. Horn teaches at the Columbia University School of Arts. In the past 15 years, Horn’s reputation as a leading figure in the international art community has been confirmed by her selection in the Whitney Biennial (1991, 2004), Documenta (1992) and Venice Biennale (1997, 2003). Inclusion in these highly regarded international exhibitions has focussed attention on Horn’s practice as an artist whose work embodies the ideas and themes of identity, isolation and change. Horn is represented internationally by Hauser and Wirth. 01 acca education kit List of Works A Kind of You: 6 Portraits by Roni Horn A Kind of You: 6 Portraits by Roni Horn, was exhibited at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art between August and September in 2007. A Kind of You is the first ever solo exhibition by Roni Horn seen in Australia. Cabinet Of 2001 A clown performing 36 expressions The clown’s expressions change and mutate easily, appearing as a grid of 36 C type photographs. The series Cabinet Of is a collection of minimal, gesturing images that refer to the transient and simulated expressions, observed by the viewer on the face of a performer. The clown is captured by the lens of Horn’s camera moving and shimmering inside the frame. The red nose is Roni Horn blurred and the facial expressions are erratic. The clown Cabinet Of, 2001 (Detail) is performing for an audience who cannot be seen. The 36 Framed C-Prints 84 x 84cm each clown’s white clothes, powdery face and red make-up Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zurich translate into a symbol that is instantaneously identifiable. Horn suggests that the clown is a metaphor for a mirror. To present the photographs in a grid and in the gallery space implies the images are a reflection of our own identity. Horn is presenting in these photographs the illusion of the expression through gesture rather than the actual gesture itself. You are the Weather 1995 A woman one hundred times In this series, the audience in surrounded, in-the-round, by the face of a figure bathing in the Icelandic hot springs. Her face is neither happy nor sad. Her gaze is direct and steady, posturing rather than listening. Each image is similar to the next, grouped randomly and sometimes formally according to colour or tone. The frame of the image is centred upon the head of the female figure, with her eyes engaging our own. The images are presented at the horizon line, creating the illusion of a landscape rather than of a portrait. Roni Horn You are the Weather, 1994 - 95 (Detail) The images appear very similar, but the subtle differences 100 photographs (64 C-Prints and 36 Gelatin Silver Prints) between posture, gaze and expression are obvious. Each 21.4 x 26.5cm each Courtesy of the artist and of the 100 images, progressively create the strength of a Hauser & Wirth Zurich person rather than the representation of a subject. 02 acca education kit Portrait of an Image 2005 Isabelle Huppert impersonating herself Isabelle Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 100 film roles. In these portraits, Huppert is re-acting characters she has acted on screen. Huppert wears her hair up and down to create the illusion of the masculine and feminine. The actress is acutely aware of the power of the face and the gaze to convey the character she is acting for Horn. Some of us who know Huppert’s filmography well, feel Roni Horn the need to identify the characters in each photograph. Portrait of an Image, 2005 (Detail) Others may be fascinated with the image of the actress 100 C-Prints 31.75 x 38cm each acting. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zurich Isabelle Huppert can be seen acting the characters that were portrayed in films 8 Women, Cactus, Comedy of Power, I Heart Huckabees, The Piano Teacher, La Vie Promise, Story of Women, Violette plus 92 more! This is Me, This is You 2000 A young girl identifying herself Georgia Loy, Roni Horn’s niece, is the central figure in these pairs of portraits taken over the space of two years. At the time, Horn stilled Georgia’s physical and psychological growth from childhood to adolescence. The pairs of images are presented on two walls, directly opposite each other and arranged in the formation of a grid. The images of Loy tower above their audience. The multiplicity of Georgia Loy is paired to describe the interest of the photographer Roni Horn in change as much as the relationship the two This is Me, This is You, 2000 (Detail) people share. 96 C-Prints on RC type paper 31.7 x 26cm each Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth Zurich Whenever possible, Georgia attempts to hide, mask or disguise her identity to prevent Horn and the viewer with the privilege of seeing Georgia’s face without the need for disguise, camouflage or decoration. The disruption to our understanding of Loy helps to epitomise the physiological and psychological development of a young girl in Horn’s photographs. 03 acca education kit Index Cixous (CIX PAX) 2005 Hélène Cixous defining language Born in Algeria, Cixous was raised in a multilingual environment. She is a respected feminist writer, philosopher and thinker. Cixous’ father died when she was at a young age. The impact of this is explored in Cixous’ writing. Cixous writes predominantly about gender, sexuality and language. In this work, published as a 120 page paperback book, containing 15 colour and 65 tritone reproductions, Horn frames Cixous as a strong, worldly, confident, intelligent woman. The gaze of the photographer shifts beyond Cixous’ exotically outlined eyes to somewhere, between beauty and desire. Hélène Cixous writes: “Let us not be mistaken, she does not do the Roni Horn Index Cixous (CIX PAX), 2005 portrait of Hélène Cixous or Isabelle Huppert. (Detail) She captures the charm-peral of unknown A paperback book, 120 pages 15 colour and 65 tritone reproductions women, who speak to her under the names. 14.5 x 20.5 cm Courtesy of the artist and Under this book in Hélène Cixous, under the Hauser & Wirth Zurich image in Isabelle Huppert, this is what interests her: the emanation, the essential core, the tear of the secret, the je ne sais quoi, which makes the Face.” Weather Reports You 2007 A collective self-portrait talking about the weather The weather is a shared experience. Sigmund Freud suggested that to ‘talk about the weather is to talk about your self’. Over a two year period (2005 and 2006), Roni Horn interviewed the people who lived in the small, Icelandic community of Stykkisholmur. Word of Roni Horn mouth directed Roni Horn from one participant Library of Water to the next. The 76 interviews and photographs Stykkishólmur, Iceland published in the artists’ book, Weather Reports You, in combination with the project Library of Water, produce a collective self-portrait of a place and its people. www.libraryofwater.is 04 acca education kit “The entrance to all my work is the idea of an encyclopaedia of identity”. Roni Horn Photographs taken for the publication of A Kind of You: 6 Portraits by Roni Horn. The assistance of Margret H. Blondal is gratefully acknowledged. Inspiration & Investigation The core theme of Roni Horn’s work is identity. According to Horn, her identity was shaped by her first name Roni - it is neither male nor female. The androgyny of a name created the awareness of a singular as well as multiple identities. This perhaps suggests why Horn is interested in working across multiple fields of art including photography, installation, sculpture and drawing. This helps Horn avoid any association with limitation and exclusion. Horn works between New York and Iceland. She has done this since 1975. The islolation of both locations inspires Horn’s practice. Horn confesses to be an insomaniac who works mostly in the evening. Horn’s relationship with Iceland is best documented in the works You are the Weather and Weather Reports You (2007). The continued fascination with the landscape has produced work that identifies with fellow artists, who themselves, have worked in isolation and within a landscape, such as American Poet Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). Horn’s interest is not only limited to the physical location but also the physiological space that is shared between the photographer, subject and viewer to create meaning. Emily Dickinson was a recluse who published few works. The Dickinson family found Emily’s poetry after the poet’s death. There has been suggestions that Dickinson wrote poetry to escape and seek relief from the pain of life. Like Dickinson, Horn uses the same inspiration of escape and relief in her photographs and installation work.