Since the late 1970s, Roni Horn has developed an expansive practice encompassing drawing, photography, sculpture, installation, and text. Her works are discrete and multifaceted, yet they are unified by an abiding conceptual focus on questions of perception and the fluidity of identity—of the object and of oneself—as conditioned by varying circumstances. While the examination of materials’ properties is a significant aspect of Minimalism, Horn’s work critiques the movement’s notion of the autonomous art object, allowing human subjectivity to shape it. The work is the process of becoming; it happens in the encounter with the viewer, repeatedly. The selection on view exemplifies the artist’s early exploration of how we experience of the physical reality of chosen media—forms, materiality, presence—through nuanced spatial compositions. Key to the contingent nature of her work is the investigation of how a material’s presence is heightened and doubling as both a visual and conceptual approach. Elements in Horn’s work are reiterated, defining themselves through differences as well as varying distances from one another.
Roni Horn is curated by Donna De Salvo, senior adjunct curator, special projects, with Min Sun Jeon, assistant curator.
Dia Beacon