Roni Horn:
Roni Horn, You are the Weather, Part 2, 2010–11. Pigment prints on paper, 66 color prints, 34 black and white prints. 100 units, each: 10 7/16 x 8 7/16 in (detail). Photo by JJY Photo.
Roni Horn:
Nora Burnett Abrams, Ellen Matilda Poss Director at the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston
Presenting works in a range of mediums – including sculpture, photography, drawing, and bookmaking – Horn’s solo exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on the concept of water. Including signature works from her oeuvre, such as You are the Weather, Part 2 (2010 – 11), a series of 100 photographs of a woman submerged in various geothermal pools across Iceland; a series of never-before-exhibited cast glass sculptures, whose reflective surfaces allude to a pool of water; and books from To Place, an ongoing series of encyclopedic publications initiated in 1989, which address the artist’s relationship between identity and place.
Horn’s use of water as content furthers her interests in paradox and identity, both recurring themes in her work. In her own words, “You say water is troubled or calm. You say water is rough and restless. You say water is quiet. Water is serene and sometimes clear, it might be pure and then it is brilliant. Water is heavy; that’s a fact. Water is often tranquil, even placid. Water is still and then it might be deep as well. Water is cold or hot, chilly or tepid. You say water is brash or brisk, sometimes crisp. You say water is soft and hard. You say water irritates and lubricates. You say water is foul. You say water is fresh. You say water is limpid and languorous. You say water is sweet.”
Horn’s paradox of water is analogous to that of human identity: that something so fixed and stable in what we imagine it to be is — in reality— dynamic, unpredictable, and inchoate. For regions like Denver and the Intermountain West, this paradox has regional and cultural relevance: for centuries, water has been an assumed resource, readily available in manifold forms. Amidst climate change and population pressure, however, that resource is increasingly at risk, posing an immediate threat to the stability of both the natural environment and our human experience of it.
About the artist
Roni Horn was born in New York in 1955. She graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1975. In 1978, Horn graduated with a master’s degree in sculpture from Yale University. She presently lives in New York and Maine.
Roni Horn: Water, Water on the Wall, You’re the Fairest of Them All is made possible through the generous support of Susan and Larry Marx, Carla Emil and Rich Silverstein, and Girlfriend Fund. MCA Denver also thanks Hauser & Wirth and the citizens of the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) for their support.
Roni Horn, Untitled (“It was as though even the air in this region had barbed wire round it.”), 2023 – 24. Solid cast glass with as-cast surfaces, 11 x 48 in (diameter). Photo by Ron Amstutz.
Roni Horn, Doubt by Water, 2003-04. Up to 30 two-sided pigment prints in plastic sleeves on aluminum stanchions. 60 photographs, each: 16 ½ x 22 in. Stanchions, each: 14 in (diameter) x 70 ½ in (height) (detail). Installation view, Art Basel Unlimited, Switzerland, 2023. Photo by Stefan Altenburger.
Roni Horn, You are the Weather, Part 2, 2010-11. Pigment prints on paper, 66 color prints, 34 black and white prints, 100 units, each: 10 7/16 x 8 7/16 in. Detail. Installation view, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, 2014. Photo by Pere Pratdesaba.
Roni Horn, Screaming • Heat Wave, 2022. Two pigment prints on paper, framed together, 13 7/10 x 21 2/5 in. Photo by Tom Powel.
Roni Horn, Untitled (“…In all the dwellings, on the earthen floors, on mats, on bunks, lay silent, inert people. Their faces were bathed in sweat. The village was like a submarine at the bottom of the ocean: it was there, but it emitted no signals, soundless, motionless.”), 2023 – 24. Solid cast glass with as-cast surfaces, 11 x 48 in (diameter). Photo by Ron Amstutz.
Roni Horn, You are the Weather, Part 2, 2010-11. Pigment prints on paper, 66 color prints, 34 black and white prints. 100 units, each: 10 7/16 x 8 7/16 in (detail). Photo by JJY Photo.
All images Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth.